The Newsletter, vol. 9 no. 459

this was the speech of Mineworkers' secretary Will Paynter moving the resolution for the NUM.

His sole case was that voluntary restraint by the trade unions was better than legal compulsion.

All history had proved, both here and in America, that compulsion and laws on the trade JENKINS: Struggle goes on unions only led to more chaos and more unrest and strikes and not at all to a helpful atmosphere.

Moving the resolution for the T&GWU, Cousins said: 'We do not regard this vote as the most critical stage in our history. It will not be decided by a vote at this congress. We do not believe that you can have a social be refunded. This follows a constant struggle over the past few months by the tenants in the mining village against the rise and proposed rent rebate scheme.

Last weekend, before the Council's decision, tenants' leader Fred Appleyard thanked the Socialist Labour League and Young Socialists for their help in the fight against the that socialist planning rises. He was speaking at an SLL meeting in Normanton. system which is at The tenants were urged come, the meeting to send a delega- Carron, tion to the October 2 demon- and governor stration in Brighton.

plan

democracy if the trade union freedom which is an essential part of that is controlled by legislation. •I would like to ask what we are here for. Why do trade unions exist?

It is to protect the interests of members; to improve their standards, and fight on " behalf of all workers in their totality for a better standard of living.' The Prime Minister had ploughed out the same old Tory bogeys against the trade unions each time they had fought for the emanicipation of their members.

Surrender to TUC

If the trade unions were going surrender their authority to anyone, they should surrender it to the TUC not to any government.

There was applause when Cousins continued:

I am opposed to the trade unions being transferred into the corporate body of the state. I am alarmed at this trend now taking place, and wonder where it will end!

He challenged Wilson's statement about ending work-sharing. • If the freeze was only for six months members had a right to demand work-sharing.

Conservative governments had tried wage-restraint measures but time and again they had all been rejected. No attempt had been as rigid as the one now proposed, he said.

Patterson: Ask for strike?

'Now we are being asked accept this by a government our choosing.

The Prime Minister told us that we should accept this on a voluntary basis. What curious kind of voluntary stuff this is— if we do not accept it, in its uponey, we shall get it imposed The sharpest attack on the government's policies was made by Clive Jenkins of ASSET.

"Why is it,' he asked, 'that the threat contained in laws against the trade unions has always been seen in other countries after the event; that is, after destructive wars, or massive political defeats? I hope the same thing is not happening here.

Gunboat policies

"The Prime Minister tells us that the wage freeze is sound economics. This is not true.

'We are being asked to accept the wage freeze to support gunboat policies.' Wilson's statements attacking restrictive practices were misplaced, said Jenkins.

There were plenty of restrictive practices carried on by the capitalist class and in the armed services.

We all know that there are more admirals than battleships.' Ernest Patterson of the Constructional Engineering Union

freeze • verdict following the debate on the Prices and Income: Act at the TUC. One after another the big Tory dailies gleefully reported that the trade union movement is 'split right down the centre' and of course they are unfortunately right.

Thanks to the consistent betrayal of the TUC General Council and the right-wing leadership of Wilson, Callaghan and Brown, the labour movement is now divided and without leadership.

These are the bitter fruits of reformism at a time when the world economic crisis of imperialism looms larger than at any period since the end of the Second World War. to stave unemployment. As the delegates trudged back to boarding houses, the Labour Exchanges were filling up. Thousands laid off here, hundreds laid off there, the number of short-time workers increases, and so it goes on.

The argument of Wilson that a wage freeze is necessary in order to prevent 1f to 2 million unemployed may well be extended in the near future along the lines that it is necessary to have wage cuts in order to avoid 3 million unemployed. As reformists, Wilson, the TUC right wing and studiously avoid economic Yet it is here, in the citadel of world imperialism, pronounced.

A high bank rate has brought shares tumbling on Wall Street and at the same time the brake is on against substantial new investment.

The decisions of the TUC and the Labour government exercise no control whatsoever over what is going on in Washington.

The working class are being called upon to make sacrifices in order to avoid an economic crisis created by capitalism, whilst the capitalists who know full well what is happening, are able to put their house in order at the expense of the working clafor who can deny that wage freezing helps the employers? Who can deny that unemployment will help the employers in their drive to reduce wages? opened the 1 the door to poicies which which provide the The TUC have banks and great monopolies with their most powerdefeat of the General Strike in 192, class since the In addition they have tied the trade unions so to the capitalist state that it is now the main arbiter on wages and working conditions.

every inch of the over to achieve, a Later go ent ment has accomplished by shamelessly exploiting the loyalty of the working class who instinctively desire socialism.

Serious policy issues Normanton rents now frozen is dead against it.

NORMANTON, Yorkshire, Urban Council decided on Tuesday to cancel the proposed rent increases of 5s to fl a week. Those already paid will vial was acciaca a Disciple's party Keep Left' Report of a campaign meeting See page 3 THE ASSASSINATION of Dr. Hendrick Verwoerd, the apartheid Prime Minister of South Africa early this week, evoked a sense of shock and revulsion in the bosoms of the imperialists and their hangers on. But it certainly brought a vague sense of relief and joy to the opponents of apartheid in South Africa and the world over.

However, the murder of tyrant and agent of imperialisn does not in any way eliminate the system of oppression in South Africa.

Since this system is the product of the class war, it cannot be ended except by the abolltion of the oppressing class as a whole.

It is for this reason that Marxists have always condemned individual terror or assassination as a substitute for the class! struggle.

Successor?

Verwoerd's death does not resolve the problems facing the South African working class—he will almost certainly be succeeded by an even more despotic tyrant, in answer to the assasination.

So long as the national liberation movement leaders advocate an anti-working-class anti-Marxist approach to the methods of struggle, the African working class will be faced with the crisis of leadership.

The assassination was an act of political desperation by a poor white. This makes it even more urgent for the African working class to realise the urgency of building a revolutionary Marxist party uniting coloured and white to overthrow the regime, basing itself on the lessons the struggles in the metropolitan countries.

• 5s.-a-week lations governing benefit rights.

As MacDonald celebrated his 65th birthday, the unemployment figures soared towards the three million mark and nearly 400,000 of these were deprived of even the reduced statutory benefit.

Thrown on to the tender mercies of the Public Assistance Committee, these people were interrogated by the Means Test Officers, as were their families and even their neighbours.

While Wilson, Shinwell, and the other guests gorge themselves in honour of the man responsible Ior these measures, we can recall the effects of their hero's actions on the diet of the workers and their families.

The report of the Chief Medical Officer for England and Wales said:

'No fewer than two million homes in 1933 were stricken with death or disease during the year. There was distress NEWSLETTER REPORTER THERE IS A great response to the Young Socialists' campaign to take the largest possible delegation from Britain to meet European socialist youth on October 15 in Liege.

Not only are youth eagerly 115 small firms hit ONE-HOUR'S • NOTICE of closure was given on September 1 to 20 workers at Radnor Tool and Gauge company, one of many small contract tool room firms in Birmingham.

The owner, who was advised to close the firm accountants, said he knew of 115 other small firms in the same position. Though they have full order books, the credit squeeze is condemning them to sudden death through lack of working capital. : Campaigning against unemployment and the wage freeze, Young Socialists have gained the backing of the Northfield Tenants' Romanis to he watood Heal area-near BMC's Tractor and Transmission factory.

No closure date for ENV yet STEWARDS AND OFFICIALS from all sections of the large north London eagineering firm, ENV, handed a letter in to the Board of Trade on Friday, September 2, It states their case and opposition to the closure of the US-owned factory, which employs nearly 1,500 men.

Sections of the letter will be printed in next week's Newsletter. Convenor Geoff Mitchell told our reporter this week that the firm has still not announced a closure date.

In the meantime deputations are meeting MPs, asking them for support. A picket is planned for the ENV stand at the Farnborough Air Show.

The firm, said Mitchell, claimed the closure was a result of the wage freeze. 'But we say that this is not so, because the government's economic policy is designed to redeploy labour into industries.' and privation, physical and pressed by unemployment, deWhen the British Medical Association inquired into health conditions in 1933, its report stated that the average unemployed family was not getting enough food to keep it in reasonable health.

MINIMUM DIET

The BMA laid down a minimum diet necessary for existence. Its weekly cost ranged from 2s 8d for a one-year-old child to 5s lld for an adult male.

The Ministry of Health of MacDonald's government countered by putting forward a lower scale allowing 5s ltd to feed a man each week.

But many victims of the Means Test did not even get that much.

As Wilson's policies throw thousands of workers on the dole today, it is certainly worth remembering his distinguished predecessor, and noting their affinity. Hall, returning to Palace Pier for a signing up to go, but many adult trade unionists are also preparing for the trip.

In Liege, they will meet young people from all over Europe, who will be protesting against the war in Vietnam and against the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. NATO headquarters are in Belgium.

This very important trip comes at a time when the United States government is increasing its offensive against the workers and peasants of Vietnam.

In their protest against US aggression, the socialist youth of Europe express solidarity with the people of Vietnam in their struggle to overthrow imperialism.

The Young Socialists invite all those who are interested to sign Simmediately.

The round trip, Dover, Ostend, Liege and back, costs only £8 10s. There will be a free meal in Liege and a free dance on board ship.

Send your applications to Dany Sylveire, Liege Organi er, 186a Clapham High Street, London, He felt the closure announcement was an attack on unionism in the factory.

A pattern was emerging of USowned firms in Britain taking the initiative on behalf of the Labour government in attacking -unionism and therefore weakening the struggle against the wage freeze. greater pace than British firms, "They are moving in at he felt.

This was a reciprocal arrangement as Wilson was carrying out the wage freeze to bolster the pound sterling, and, therefore, the dollar.

SWINDON PUBLIC MEETING Lessons from the TUC Co-operative Society (Small Hall)

East Street, Swindon Wednesday, Sept. 14 7.30 p.m.

Speaker :

G. HEALY, national secretary Socialist Labour League Meeting held under the au pices of the Socialist Labour League

not e of struggle majorities.

and the right wing of the General Council.

resolutions which are passed.' on...• acquiescence to the wage freeze.

a majority of 1,122,000.

Transport and General Workers' majority of 1,134,000. Not decided here of 344,000.

majority of 474,000.

statement to The Newsletter after the Union of Seamen delegation, said:

policies take effect.

to fight. as to what they are fighting.' long time ago.

the Communist Party in the AEU.

The voting figures in fact show only that the trade unions are split from top to bottom on these issues.

While the content of the discussions at the Congress revealed the rottenness and unprincipled nature of the right-wing betrayal, they also revealed the weakness in the 'left'.

Perhaps the worst example of THE Fleet Street press recorded an almost unanimou HEALY

Italism 'cannot be planned site would fall for that one.

TWENTY-TWO constructional workers and their steward em- ho says h ployed by the Flemmings com- anyone except Trotskyists. pany of Glasgow were sacked on Friday, September 2, from the giant ICI construction site at Runcorn, Cheshire. The firm claims that this is company policy following the wage freeze.

They warn of further sackings throughout the country.

The steward led a nine-week strike last January for a wage increase. Site stewards have recommended industrial action in defence of the steward. Continued

NEW be

AS part of the government's economy measures Royal Naval Depot in Cantyne, Glasgow, is to close on December 16. The closure involves the future jobs of 105 men, many of whom have long service.

Alternative jobs have been offered if workers transfer to either Coventry or to Faslane, the later being more than 30 miles outside of Glasgow.

Other jobs have been advertised but none are within reasonable travelling distance from the men's homes.

The matter has been raised with the Glasgow District mittee of the AEU but it is doubtful if this body has given stood on their head at the ter. the matter much attention nothing has been heard by the If what Wilson said is true workers. about the danger of millions of Rebuffed by their unions the unemployed, surely this is not workers at the depot visited the all argument for continuing to MP for Shettleston, Mr. Galpern. operate capitalism, but one which He referred the matter to the unions.

Shop stewards interviewed by Overthrow The Newsletter told of their disgust for the way the Wilson If all this system has to offer government had attacked the (and it is) is massive unemploy- working class. ment together with the threat of a Third World War, then must NI it not be obvious that the halli seem of hung ma on unemployment, why not nationalize all the basic industries immediately commence? Is it not the capitalist UNTIL RECENTLY, Ramsay England. You say that _ wage freezing is necessary in order to MacDonald would have been rated the most despicable political traitor suffered by the British labour movement. Perhaps he now has a rival for that position. olleagues will tell you that capi It is most fitting that when if it in the sock isnin the centenary of his birth is celebrated at a lunch at the House of Commons on October 12, one of the speakers will be man Cardinal the Vatican This well-known successor and disciple, Harold Wilson.

And you Mr. Cousins, the ma CLIMAX implied at the TUC that the Many workers will also wish to unions should be prepared to remember MacDonald. gives to the Tud wage bargaining climax of his career of treachery came, of course, in 1931, when he joined with the Tories to form a "National' government, whose first iob was to cut the unemployment benefit. work On the demand of the bankers, the standard rate paid to a man went down from 17s to 15s 3d a week. Even more memorable was the tightening of the regu-

And so, discussion between the SWP and the SLL was halted for, over a whole year.

Then Joseph Hansen entered the scene. His job was simple.

'Eventually', said Cannon, 'we cannot avoid discussion so your task Joe is to poison the political atmosphere inside the SWP against the SLI so that when we have to discuss our members will be dead against them.

By implication he was saying: 'Never mind about principles and truth. We're pragmatists like President John F. Kennedy, so we do what is "best" to preserve ourselves now.' And Joseph Hansen got to work.

His task as an ex-Mormon from Salt Lake City, was to discredit the SLL, not by political argument, but by poisonous slander and gossip.

But let us look back a little. Who is Joseph Hansen?

Hansen was one of Trotsky's secretaries for a period during his exile in Mexico before his assassination. There were other secretaries such as the present day anti-Trotskyist Ray Dunerskaya.

There are no records available to show that Hansen was politically outstanding as secretary. Ever since Trotsky's assassination he has been trying to build up a legend about himself, but as the years go by it becomes more more faded and' obscure.

One of the reasons why he has gone unchallenged is because those who worked with Trotsky during this period have mostly left the SWP and dropped out of political activity.

Following the assassination, Hansen returned to New York and almost immediately appointed himself as a cheer leader for Cannon. During the period early in 1944, when he and other leaders went to jail following the Minneapolis trial, he was in his element.

This man is tailor-made for this kind of work, for he can write for and against the same argument with • equal enthusiasm the moment he is called upon to do so.

In 1952 and 1953 he bitterly attacked the Cochran and Clark faction who were supported by Pablo. He was an enthusiastic supporter of the 'Open Letter' exposing Pablo. For six months following the split, he wrote article after article in the 'Militant' in 1954 denouncing Pablo.

As Cannon's interest in the whole affair began to wane because he pragmatically believed that what was left of the SWP was out of harm's way, Hansen stopped writing Just as abruptly as he started.

After that he switched to an entirely different controversy, on, believe it or not, 'Cosmetics'.

Writing under the nom de plume of Jack Bustelo he plonked a large mimeographed bulletin into the SWP ranks late in 1954 (see 'Struggle for Marxism in the USA' ', by Tim Wohlforth, p. 143, Fourth International, Number 3, 1966).

In 1961 when Cannon, out of fear, told his henchmen in New York not to discuss with the SLL Hansen was then a natural for the 'dirty work'.

His job was to listen to all the tired middle-class renegades who had deserted the movement in Britain, chew over their gossip, add a few bits here and there himself and toss the garbage into the disoriented membership of the SWP.

What the SWP used to think about the SLL At first Hansen encountered some temporary difficulties. For had not the SWP leaders described the SLL as follows in the Spring 1960 'International Socialist Review:

'In Britain during the past two years a major group of

THE SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE delayed its political break from the Socialist Workers' Party until the end of 1960. We wanted, if possible, to have a serious discussion inside the International Committee in order to educate our comrades around the nature of the differences. We even arranged a special trip to Canada early February, 1960, in order to meet the main leaders of the SWP to see if there were some common grounds to heal the breach between the two sections. There were none. In our opinion they were moving more and more towards a public acceptance of Pabloite revisionism.

Still we hesitated. When we finally wrote concerning the differences to their National Committee early in January 1961, we hoped that there would still be a discussion under circumstances where the differences would be eventually clarified. We had no such discussion. Apart from a few brief letters of acknowledgement of correspondence between the SWP and the SLL the months dragged by without any discussion, either written or oral.

Cannon shows his hand Suddenly the whole shabby business became clear. A letter from Cannon in Angeles instructing the SWP national office in New York not to have any discussion the Socialist Labour League, came into our possession.

The political degeneration of the SWP was out in the open. Here was a party claiming to be Trotskyist, whose leaders had pioneered the Trotskyist movement, the most controversial Marxist movement in the whole of history, deliberately evading discussion.

How was it possible to educate anybody with such a method?

How was it possible to build the Fourth International in this way?

Cannon knew full well that if he began a discussion with the SLL his so-called cadre would fall apart. After all, there had been close on 20 years' collaboration between leading members of the SLL and the SWP.

But Cannon, starting from his pragmatist relation with Trotsky, was by now an opportunist and a political coward.

He took full advantage of the insular 'all American way' in which the leaders in the SWP had been educata. His argument was, by implication: 'Don't discuss with the leaders of the SLL, they are "sectarian" and "insular"?

In other words he fell back on the arguments which the Stalinists had been using against us for almost 30 years in order to defend and justify capitulation to the pressures of American imperialism.

Hansen

His story describing how Cannon left New York is a masterpiece of journalistic bootlicking.

'As the crack train gathered speed along the banks of the river, the man soon to be locked in a cell because of his beliefs leaned back in his seat watching the barren trees and the ice-fringed water skim by.

The pillars of a famous geologic formation moved in stately procession into the past— scenes of the Hudson warmed by the winter sun for this socialist fighter to remember in the hard days ahead. The sun fell on his hair as the train leaned round a curve and the iron gray waves lighted up luminously. Jim's lips moved;

The Palisades are beautiful' Hansen's From then on Hansen had and has today a special role inside the SWP leadership. As a member of this leadership once said:

'When it comes to normal polemicising against opponents there are all sorts of comrades who can undertake this task, but when Cannon wants to sharpen things up, with a real dirty below the belt job, all eyes on the Committee turn automatically in the direction of Joe Hansen.' Los with highly qualified intellectuals and workers in the mass movement broke away from the Communist party. The break was programmatic, entailing a thorough review and study of the very "Stalin-Trotsky" dispute which Cochran and his collaborators Who Joseph Hansen? put in the same category as the Dempsey-Tunney fight. Among those in Britain who bave broken definitively with Stalinism there has been impressive ideological I ferment. A significant group, having studied the pro"grammatic issues to the end, turned towards fusion with the British Trotskyists. This resulted in formation of the Socialist Labor League, a group within the Labor Jarty and the unions dedicated to advancing the Marxist view.

'As an organizing centre of both class struggle action by militant unionists and theoretical struggle for Marxism, the SLI has been selected as a target for witch-hunting. The British capitalist press and the right-wing trade union bureaucrats are displaying the keenest alarm over the fact that the SLL has become an inspiring and attractive force for radical youth, for trade union militants for the entire left wing in the Labor Party. The SLL is in the forefront of every struggle to unite workers, students and intellectuals in the fight against British imperialism, for withdrawing British troops from every part of the world, for ending the H-bomb tests, strengthening the socialist program of the Labor Party and defeating the right wing's attempts to scuttle the party's stand in favour of public ownership.

"The SLL is taking the lead in the fight for full democracy in the unions, the Labor Party and in every aspect of British life. The SLL has shown its fighting mettle in beating back racist attempts to whip up a lynch movement against Negro workers in London.

"Where did this magnificent movement come from? It is obviously without a trace of sectarianism or disdainful aloofness from the actual movement and life of the working class. It is popular energetic and colorful in its public appeal.

"The real secret of the strength of the SLL is its concern for the theoretical basis of social. ism, its "preoccupation" if you please with the "old disputes" and its rejection of every attempt at lightminded improvisation in the field of principle. This is true of the SLL and its leadership as a whole, both those who came recently from the Communist Party as well as the older Trotskyist cadre.

"The British Trotskyists prepared for the opening of the kind of opportunities prevalent in their country today and that will surely confront us in the US tomorrow by struggling against their own Cochran faction, the Lawrence group, back in 1953. They faced the same problem as the American Trotskyists in coping with destructive factional intervention on the part of Pablo. They too, had to overcome the effects of a split that was unnecessarily deep due to The fourth of a series of articles National Secretary Socialist Labour League Pablo's influence. Their success in overcoming the internal dispute in a principled way, in strict accordance with Leninist tradition, is what prepared them to play their magnificent role today?

Had not Hansen himself publicly endorsed in the pages of the weekly 'Militant' the statement of the Socialist Labour League_on the expulsion of Peter Fryer and four of his cronies in the autumn of 1959, after they had publicly attacked the League?' Of course, and • every informed comrade in the international movement knows this. Hansen had to invent his stories about the British Trotskyists and we will deal fully with these in the next issue when we speak about the movement here. Hansen gets busy Hansen set about his task in two ways.

Firstly, there was the issue of Cuba. Hansen, of course, as well as the rest of the SWP leadership, got off to a very slow start so far as Cuba was concerned. The revolution was nearly two years old before they began to discuss it.

Indeed it was Henry Gitano, a supporter of Murry Weiss, who first started the ball rolling with an article also in the Spring issue of International Socialist Review'. This was followed up with another piece from Hansen himself.

Around that time Dobbs and Hansen visited Cuba and reported favourably on what they saw there.

But Cuba itself did not become an issue of difference between the SLL and the SWP until after we opened up the discussion early in 1961.

For two whole years after the Cuban revolution the SLL and the SWP were able to collaborate with each other despite the implications of the Cuban revolution. Now, however, when Cannon wanted to avoid a discussion on Pabloism, things took a different turn.

Together with the Pabloites, the SWP almost instantaneously, after having ignored the Cuban revolution for two years, now recognised Cuba as a workers' state.

This was the first major public turn towards Pabloite methods.

Hansen, who under instructions from Cannon in 1953-54 castigated Pablo for such methods, now became the most devout supporter of them. He argued with equal vehemence in favour, just as he was arguing a few years before against them.

Hansen got busy with his slander. Was it not US imperialism which oppressed the Cuban peoples? Of course it was, and if the SLL hesitated in characterising Cuba as a 'workers' state', did not that automatically mean that the SLL was an ally of US imperialism?

This was the story which he peddled around the SWP in order to poison the political atmosphere against the SLL with whom they collaborated for 20 years.

Alongside all this, members of the SWP were organised to go to Cuba so they could see the 'land of socalism' for themselves.

Coming from the USA and its anti-red, witch-hunting atmosphere, everything which they saw in Cuba seemed fine from the tourist point of view, the one difficulty being that they were there only for a short time.

Nevertheless, it served Hansen's purpose. When the American and Canadian tourists returned he was saying 'Now you see how the SIL helps US imperialism. Don't bother to read their bulletins, Jim Cannon is right not to have discussion with 'supporters of US imperialism, is he not?'and they in turn, unfortunately said 'Yes' to what was nothis ing more than shades of Stalinist distortion of Trotskyist method.

Cuba-a cover for a right-wing turn The issues, however, were quite different.

The SLL was not necessarily opposed to the designation of Cuba as a 'workers' state'.

We wanted to keep an open mind until after we : had an objective discussion with those in the SWP we believed to be our co-thinkers.

They didn't want such a discussion because they were deserting to Pabloism. They were in fact rapidly turning towards the right and to liquidationism into the pacifist movement within the USA. Cuba was just a cover for the project.

For example, in discussing the class nature of the Chinese state in the years 1954-1955, Hansen himself circulated memorandum to the SWP National Committee 'suggesting a state capitalist theory for China' (see 'Struggle for Marxism in the US', Fourth International, No. 3).

If it was permissible to have such a discussion inside the SWP in the middle fifties, why not between the SWP and the SIL on Cuba in 1962, especially since we had not characterised •Cuba as 'state capitalist' and we were open to be convinced by those whom we believed to be our collaborators?

We wanted discussion over the class nature of the Cuban state—the SWP did not beIn Pao the ing to the liquidationist policy cause they were busy capitulatTheir turn to the right wing and the pacifists had now begun in earnest. At all costs they had to break from the Sut in order to get closer to their real international allies— the right wing Pabloites.

But how can such methods build the Fourth International in the revolutionary way that Trotsky wanted it to be built?

The short answer is that they cannot.

That is also why the split between the International Committee and the Pabloites of the Unified Secretariat cannot be healed in such an unprincipled way. Cannon, Dobbs and Hansen prevent international discussion In the autumn and winte r of 61 Hansen was sent ol ur of Latin America in der to confuse and disorient those sections supporting the International Committee.

He utilised the 'workers' state' theory in Cuba to the full in order to separate them from the SLL.

Once again the pragmatic SWP was using the international movement to turn towards Pablo just as it had tried to use it in 1953 against him.

Understandably, the Cuban revolution made a big impact on the Latin American comrades, especially Chile and the Argentiacit but the practice placing ready-made labels, such as 'workers' state without adequate international discussion such developments is not only dangerous but downright opportunist.

It politically suited the SWP but it greatly weakened the comrades in Latin America.

The 'workers' state' theory in Cuba was the vehicle which finally dragged the SWP back into the Pabloite camp. Behind this theory was essentially the idea that a revolutionary party was not necessary.

It met with immediate response from the disorientated petty bourgeois inside the SWP. Led by Hansen and fortified by tourist trips to Cuba, they. were ready to believe anything they were told about the SLL.

Cannon gradually dropped his support for the Murry Weiss faction and switched it to Dobbs. Weiss, in turn, resigned and opened a bookshop.

Cannon, it is reported, sent him, a donation SO that he could buy some books, with a comforting letter saying that he understood how he felt.

After that the road was clear for Dobbs. Hansen naturally fell into line, voting with both hands for Dobbs.

Everything was set for the second stage of the campaign of slander against the SLL.

Early in February 1962 Hansen arrived in Europe for the funeral of Natalia Trotsky.

During his stay he visited England and attended a Central Committee meeting of the Socialist Labour League. On his return to the USA he immediately began a slander campaign against leading members the SLL around gossip he picked up from renegades, although he never at any time opened his mouth when he was here.

At the meeting we briefly discussed the differences between the SLL and the SWP Hansen freely admitted that he was a consistent empiricist.

Our next experience with him came later on in 1963, negotiate closer relations e to when he arrived in Europe the Pabloites.

During the summer of 1962 the International Committee icceptins the recommenda ions of the Socialist Labou tions witopened the Pabloite Inter- up negotia. national Secretariat for discussion on the disputed questions. found it absolutely impossible This was decided after to draw the SWP into the open as regards their political positions.

Since we knew we felt that an international involved would help move. ment re-organise itself, clarifying the issues.

But the SWP were dead against such a discussion.

They formally agreed with Williams the negotiations we had started because it provided them with organisational reasons to collaborate more openly with the Pabloites.

But now, as in the past, they wanted this collaboration to proceea as it the split in 1953 had never taken place.

Just as discussion was about to open and documents were exchanged, Hansen suddenly announced that a unification had been arranged between a minority of the International Committee affiliates, namely the small Swiss and Canadian sections, supported by the Chinese Peng who represented no-one but himself.

We appealed to them to proceed with the discussion but it fell on deaf ears.

Then in May 1963, just before this farcical unification, Ernest Germain, a leading Pablo man, came to England and told the SLI that irrespective of unification the negotiations would go on with those sections of the International who desired discussion before unification.

He repeated the same proposal when he spoke to our summer school two months later in early August. There are hundreds of comrades who heard him say these things.

After the unification Hansen returned to the USA for further instructions. He arrived back in Europe late in August and immediately told the Pabloites that the SWP was opposed to any discussion with the International Committee, so all negotiations were immediately broken off.

How the 'no discussion' decision applied in Ceylon The most disastrous side of this decision was that it prevented all discussion inside the Pabloite ranks about what was happening in Ceylon, where already the majority of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party were preparing to enter the coalition government.

By preventing such a discussion they also prevented the revolutionary minority of the LSSP from waging an all-out political fight against the opportunist majority.

They were silenced by orders of Hansen and Co. right at the time they should have been fighting tooth and nail to clarify the party.

Hansen, Cannon, Dobbs and Co. had achieved what they set out to achieve.

Once more the small Pabloite rump in Paris, now masquerading as the 'Unified Secretariat' became the cover for their 'Fourth International' Thus they were able to turn to the pacifists inside the USA without fear of international criticism.

The pragmatic methods flowing from nationalism had now merged with the completely opportunist Pabloite currents. This was essentially Hansen's contribution towards . the destruction of Trotskyism, especially in the US and Ceylon.

Next week: 'The good name of Trotskyism in Britain'

Cuba

ROBERT WILLIAMS, a Negro militant and civil rights fighter who became the most wanted and hunted man in the USA as a result of his courageous defence of Dr. Perry in Monroe, North Carolina, has left Cuba, where he sought asylum in 1962, for China.

Williams has not given a reason for his departure but it is apparent that he is extremely worried—if not opposed to-the present policy of Castro and in particular the Cuban line-up with Moscow against China.

Some time ago, there were strong rumours that the Stalinists in control of Castro's propaganda machine were trying to muzzle Williams by censoring his broadcasts to the USA, as well as his printed bulletin "The Liberator'.

Williams was the first civil rights leader to popularise and implement the idea of 'armed self defence' for Negroes and other minority groups.

in U.S.A.

ALL OVER the USA support is growing for the case of three American Gls who announced recently that they would seek a court order against participating in the undeclared war of the US on Vietnam.

For this action they were jailed by the army authorities and were then ordered to board a plane tor Vietnam pending their legal action.

The soldiers now • known as the 'Fort Hood Three' refused and court martial proceedings have been begun against them.

These conscript soldiers, Mora, Samas and Johnson, have posed an extremely thorny problem for Johnson, the right of free speech, free thought and tree discussion inside the armed forces, as well as outside against the war on Vietnam.

On the eve of the significant visit to Liege, Belgium, where Young newspaper 'Keep Left' takes the important step of increasing its size and influence as a revolutionary guide • to European socialist south. Below we report just meetings several Keep Left campaign YOUNG SOCIALISTS and trade unionists voted mously to give full support to the launching of the edition of the youth paper 'Keep Left' at a meeting Partick Burgh Halls, Glasgow last Sunday.

They agreed to campaign to increase the sales of the paper and to appoint a Keep Left' reporter in each branch of September NEW

the Young Socialists in Scotland.

Present at the meeting were branches in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Trade unionists present came trom engineering, electrical. draughtsmen's, postal workers' and painters' unions.

In her address Aileen Jennings, editor of 'Keep Left', reviewed the history of the paper since it was first published 15 years ago and the struggle carried out against the right-wing of the Labour Party, particularly, since the formation of the Young Socialists in 1960.

She spoke of the fight of the Young Socialists to establish their leadership of the youth in Britain which resulted in the supporters of 'Keep Left' winning control of the National Committee of Young Socialists in 1964.

This was a situation which the right-wing leaders of the Labour Party would not accept because hev did not want to be embar rassed - by a youth movement which fought for socialist policies. The Labour leaders were then preparing the ground for closer collaboration with the banks and emplovers.

Yen i See liste chosed and 'Keep were whole branches were closed down. Transport House withnational seoretary of the. Young recognition from Socialists.

But the Young Socialists went forward to hold their own independent conference in 1965 in Morecambe at which a programme of action was accepted to build a mass Young Socialist movement in this country.

The fight with the right-wing was about whether the Young Socialist movement was to become the tool of the Labour government and its right-wing nolicies, or whether the Young Socialists were to fight for the principle that the working class must fight the employers and international bankers to improve achieve socialism.

After its election in 1964 the Labour government began by attacking the old age pensioners. withholding the increase in the pension i for three months.

This was followed by the Immigration Act which invited all racialists to come onto the streets. Then there was the sale of arms to the South African government-a government which carried out the most vicious torture against coloured workers: and the government's continued subnort of Tohnson's war policies in Vietnam.

In the next few months the government will proceed to create half a million unemploved in Britain. along with the introduction of its nrices and incomes policy to keep down wages, Aileen Tennings warned.

'Keen Left' had reflected the struggle and the work of the Young Socialists and warned the working class against the hetrayals of the Labour government.

WARNING

It played a particularly important role in warning the working class about the proposed anti-trade union legislation being introduced by the right-wing It gave support to the lobby of parliament organised by the Lambeth Trades Council on January 26 this year, and on May 25 the Young Socialists organised their own lobby.

launching the age "Keep Left" it not just a question increasing the size of the paper. Its pansion is linked with the building of a mass youth movement and participation in the ruggles of the working class, nationally and internationally'Aileen Jennings, Editor.

Chicago, Watts and other districts were due to the tremendous frustration of workers suffering from poverty.

'In the next period in Britain we will see tens of thousands of unemployed which will make 1962/63 look like a tea party. The capitalists in Britain want ditions of the 1930s, she said. to reduce the workers to the conAlready workers at the Blyth shipyard had been paid of and the yard was to close: ICI had declared large redundancies: miners in the Rhondda Valley would lose their jobs through pit closures—the creation of unemployment by the government had already begun.

In the last lay-offs many workers from northern towns in England and Scotland went to London to find jobs, but that situation had now changed. Young workers were already being paid off in London toothere was no way out for the working class now but to turn round and fight back for their lives and socialism.

'Wilson's intention in speaking at the TUC is to get the congress to accept the Prices and Incomes Bill and in doing so to betray everything the trade union movement has ever fought for. He wants the delegates at the TUC to vote the trade union movement out of existence. He wants the trade unions to operate in the interests of capitalism.

'The last time this kind of situation happened was in Germany and it paved the way for Hitler,' she sal had already Two world wars taken place. A large proportion of the US economy was now based on the manufacture of war materials making the threat of a Third World War very real.

'For this reason we cannot view the question of Vietnam as a question of peace. Peace, such as that agreed at Geneva, would only open the door to the domination of American imperialism.

'A victory for the National Liberation Front for the workers and peasants of Vietnam-would lead other workers to take up the struggle against imperialism, she said. OVER the last tew months, Wall Street has suffered an enormous drop in stock prices which is the most significant collapse of values

This was no ordinary lobby, she said. Events had radically the calling of a national strike by the seamen. The Young Socialists went round the ports and the docks to exthe necessity of fighting Labour government and the inThe seamen's strike made it clear that it was no loger possible to fight *the employers as such-because of the intervention of the Labour government in the affairs of the trade unions on behalt of the capitalist state, all strikes became political strikes launching the 12-page "Keep Left" it is not just a question of increasing the size of the paper. Its expansion linked with the building of a mass youth movement and participation in the struggles of the working class, nationally and internationally,' she said.

The fight in Vietnam was fight by the workers and peasants striking a blow against the strongest imperialist country in the world.

This was the kind of fight which workers would have to take up in the very near future in Britain. It was necessary to grasp the nature of the international struggle against imperialism. Britain was in debt to the international bankers who warned the Labour government that loans would only be made if the standard of living of the working class was reduced. The Prices and Incomes Act was the result of that.

But, she added, it was not only in Britain that the economic crisis existed. America was also heading for a financial crisis. This was the basis of Britain's crisisunless America could keep Britain going the whole future of international capitalism was at stake. This was the reason for the attacks on the working class.

In America, the riots in Newsletter Correspondent THE GREATEST farce in French judicial history opened in the Palais de Justice on Monday, September 6.

It was the trial of five men accused of complicity in the daylight abduction and mysterious disappearance of Mehdi Ben Barka, Moroccan nationalist leader, in October 1965.

The trial, despite the histrionic atmosphere and tension, is more like a staging of Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.

The most important witnesses, and the most sinister figures in the trial-General Mohammed Oufkir, Moroccan Minister of Interior, Colonel Choutki, his deputy, and Major Dlini, chief of police, are not present. As the indictment prosaically describes it: they are 'in flight'.

In flight' too are five other witnesses, some of them notorious members of the 'milieu' (the French underworld).

One other witness not 'in flight', yet not in court, is George Figon, a petty criminal and eyewitness to the meeting between Oufkir and Ben Barka before Barka's tragic disappearance.

Suicide 'disease'

Figon became victim to a common disease which afflicts many police suspects in France: suicide.

The prosecution is trying to present the case as a straightforward criminal one, but the whole of France recognises this as one of the dirtiest political scandals since the Stavisky affair of 1936.

On trial in fact opens judicial system of the Fifth Republic.

Without the connivance of the French counter-espionage system it is highly doubtful whether Ben Barka could have been persuaded to leave his asylum in Cairo and come to Paris and be trapped into his fatal rendezvous at the Brasserie Lippè.

Non-appearance

So apprehensive is de Gaulle about the implications of the trial for his regime of 'personal power' that the two cabinet ministers, Frey and Pompidou, who were to be called as witnesses, have been forbidden to appear in court by a decision of the Council of Ministers.

Once again, France has been reminded of the first commandMoit of Gaullism: 'L'etat? C'est MEXICAN STU DAVID AGUILAR MORA, a 26year-old Mexican student and member of a group led by J. Posadas, and his wife Eunice Campiran de Aguilar have been murdered by the Guatemalan police recently.

In May 1965 Mora crossed into Guatemala from Mexico to oin the November 13 Movement, which is led by Yon Sosa, and was recently attacked by Castro at the Tri-Continental Conference.

Arrested and deported to Mexico by Guatemalan police, Mora returned later, was capHUGO BLANCO'S LIFE IN DANGER PERUVIAN revolutionist and peasant leader, Hugo Blanco, who has been in prison since May 1963 for the alleged 'assassination of four policemen, is now being tried, in camera, by a military tribunal.

The prosecutor has declared that Blanco might get a death sentence if found guilty.

Blanco's real 'crime' in the eyes of the military dictatorship which rules Peru is that he organised thousands of peasants in the Cuzco region to defend their land against rapacious landlords and inhuman government revenue collection.

The Socalist Labour League, which protested against his arrest and picketed the Peruvian Embassy in 1963, calls all socialists to protest against the filthy frame-up of Hugo Blanco and demand his immediate release.

DENTS KILLED tured and then killed.

His wife, together with the wife of Yon Sosa were also captured and killed by the Guatemalan police-while the Guatemalan government denied knowledge of their whereabouts.

According to recent reports, 28 members of the Stalinist party have also suffered the same fate while in prison.

In Mexico a campaign for the release of Adolfo Gilly, a well-known socialist-journalist who was arrested by the Mexican police during the riots in Mexico City is continuing.

REG PERRY REPORTS TRADES UNION CONGRESS Fo September 996

unani12-page held in Young Socialists Socialists from the Aberdeen. since 1929.

Since February of this year the Dow Jones Index (the most reliable guide for the movement stock prices in general) has fallen by nearly 25 per cent. Stock values have fallen in this period by the enormous sum of about £35,000 million. This is equivalent to a sum considerably in excess of the current British National Income and greater than the US National Income as recently as 1940.

Drops of £7,000 million have been recorded in a single week.

The last few days has seen some small recovery. But there is no real confidence in the future.

Deep deflation

This was reflected in former President Truman's statement last week that he feared that the present inflation could rapidly turn into a deep deflation.

The collapse of share prices on the London Exchange shows that Wall Street is not an isolated case. What happens in America is a reflection of a crisis in the world capitalist system.

In America inflation is now gaining pace and Johnson is faced with growing demands from the Senate and big business to take firm and immediate action to raise taxes in order to curb the rising level of prices. $ Peter Jeffries' £ ECONOMIC REVIEW Last week the First National City Bank raised its "prime' rate of interest to 6 per cent and other banks quickly followed its lead.

(The 'prime' rate is that charged to the biggest and most credit-worthy of the bank's customers.)

This is the fourth increase in rates over the last nine months.

Interest rates are now at their highest for 40 years.

The growth of national income is now definitely slowing down and there have been absolute declines in the motor trade-especially for America's biggest company, General Motors--and in private house building.

In response to this Johnson attempted to impose a limit of 3 per cent on all wage and price increases.

This 'guideline' has been smashed as a result of the successful strike of the airline machinists and the recent increase in the price of steel, the effects of which are bound to be quickly felt throughout wide sectors of the economy.

The growing militancy of organised labour is the main threat to the continued stability of American capitalism: wage claims are lined up in motors, electrical and general engineering and they must set a pattern for all other industries.

Many leaders of big business continue to be worried by the US balance of payments crisis. This crisis is no nearer to solution, despite Johnson's reassuring speeches.

The gold loss in July amounted to f45 million. The total lost so far this year is about £130 million.

French capture

It is widely believed that France took about £33 million of the total July loss. There has, apparently, been some improvement balance of payments figures: the dencit has been cut fron about £170 million to arounc £55 million. But this improyem mainig deceptive. accoy attracted into the States accounted for London: attracted este a normaily high interest rates now prevailing in New York There has been no real, long term, improvement.

In the case of the balance of trade (i.e., trade in actual goods) the position has worsened.

The US has always run a surplus on this account, but it continued to grow smaller during 1966 and the last figures show it to be at its lowest for any quarter since 1959.

pots to the a signal wete imports, up by 4 per cent, were at their highest ever level.

One of the key factors now aggravating the situation is un deniably the Vietnam war.

It is now calculated that about £800 million a month is being expended on this war.

There is widespread fear in business circles that such payments can only be made out of increased taxation.

Tax increases

While the war may bring in rich contracts for the arms makers and help to keep industry booming, it is adding considerably to the present inflationary pressures which must bring sharp tax increases and sharper attacks on wages and working conditions.

The Vietnam war, by adding to the import bill, also worsens the balance of payments situation.

These growing economic problems are at the base of the increasing tensions in the American ruling class as faces new problems and growing militancy in the unions and the working class. This crisis finds its reflection at the very top of the Democratic Party.

One of the reasons which has caused Johnson to delay the imposition of increased taxes is fear of heavy defeats in the November Congressional elections.

In addition, it is clear that [BJ is losing the support of sections of his party. He has been unable to control labour at home, to make any inroads into the mass of poverty in the States and, perhaps most important of all , he has brought the war in Vietnam no nearer to a successful conclusion.

He now faces a strong challenge from Senator Robert Kennedy, who, according to recent polls, is the more popuchoice amongst Democrats as the Party candidate for the Presidential campaign of 1968.

We need not speak at length about the international implications of these growing problems for US capitalism. A recession in America-or even a slowing down in the rate of expansion-would have Immediate and serious repercussions for the whole capitalist world, not least of all Britain.

Most important, this growing crisis heralds the opening of a new stage in the struggles of the American working class, struggles which have enormous significance for socialists in Britain and throughout the world.

It was not a question of negotiating peace but of defeating capitalism.

'For these reasons the campaign for a 12-page "Keep Left" must be carried forward. This will give four extra pages which can be used to develop the organisation of the Young Socialists —to put forward socialist theory which will help the Young Socialists to move forward to the taking of power by the working class.' The first 12-page issue would contain an important report of a conference of socalist youth in Germany-it was necessary for Young Socialists in Britain to pay attention to the European socialist youth movement.

The visit to Liege, Belgium, which the Young Socialists would be making in October, could prepare the ground for an international conference of socialist youth.

'Keep Left' was the only paper to defeat social democracy and win the leadership of a socialist youth movemena.

'But the Young Socialists cannot remain just a British youth movement-it must recognise that it has also international responsibilities, she said.

A lively discussion followed Aileen Jennings' speech and trade unionists who spoke from the floor pledged support for the Young Socialists' demonstration at Brighton.

At the end of the meeting over 20 people signed up to go to the demonstration of socialist youth in Belgium. THE LATEST figures published at the end of last week show a further fall in the gold and convertible currency reserves of £I9 million. This is the sixth successive month which has seen a fall.

It is widely known in the City that these figures cover up the real position.

Heavy calls have been made on the Continental bankers to bolster up the sagging pound. The real fall in the reserves over the last month was probably in the region of £75 million.

The reserves now stand at a little over f1,100.

At their present rate of decline they would last for under 12 months.

It is clear that the pound has in no way been saved by the July measures.

Wilson will face increasing pressure from the international bankers to step up the rate ot unemployment and his attacks on the working class.

The last few days have seen the crisis gathering momentum and preparing the ground for a head on collision between the working class and the Labour government and the employers.

SELECTIVE EMPLOYMENT TAX This tax was introduced on Monday of this week. Under SET, all employers will pay 25s for each adult male they employ (with reduced amounts for younger workers).

After a six months delay employers in the manufacturing sector will get a rebate which will bring them a net gain of about 7s 6d for each employee.

The service sector of the economy will get no rebate.

The supposed aim of this tax was to re-deploy labour and force it into the export trades in an attempt to bridge the balance of payments gap.

In fact all the SET has done is to expose as a sham Labour's claim that they were going to freeze prices in return for a standstill on wages. As a result of the new tax the cost of living will soar upwards.

From Monday, most beers will rise by ld a pint; haircuts will go up by at least 6d; all ladies hairdressing charges will rise; hotel charges will rise by a minimum of 5 per cent; increased delivery charges will raise the price of milk; all laundry charges will rise by about 5 per cent; meals in restaurants will go up in price; it is estimated that the tax will raise costs in the catering industry by about £25 million in a full year and already Lyons have announced that all dishes under Is 6d will go up by ld.

This list involves only those announcements which have been made about increases. The SET will put about 3s a week on the average grocery bill.

So much for the 'price freeze': employers in the service sector must only 'do their best' to absorb the tax: where they are unable to do so they can increase prices.

On the other hand since the July • measures over 50 companies have increased (or have made announcements about proposals to increase) their dividend rates. Not a finger has been lifted against them.

LOW PAID WORKERS Many on the 'left' in the trade unions and Labour Party tried to 'sell' the so-called incomes policy on the grounds that it would lead to a redistribution of income from higher to lower paid workers. Again this deception has been shattered.

Ray Gunter last week asked the Wages Councils to 'reconsider' their proposals for wage increases affecting roughly 600,000 of the lowest paid workers in the country.

About 200,000 of these workers were expecting straight increases in the near future, including nearly 100,000 involved in the distribution of milk.

Under Part IV, Section 31 of the Prices and Incomes Act the government can refrain from making a Wages Council Order, or delay the implementation of such an order.

MACHINE TOOLS INDUSTRY Figures published by the Machine Tools Trade Association last week reveal a growing crisis in this industry which has been intensified by Labour's deflationary policies.

Machine tools are a key industry for any modern capitalist state: on this industry depends the ability of almost all the other industries to modernise and re-equip.

During the first six months of this year orders for this industry showed a 6 per cent Continued page 4, column

COUSINS rescues large contingents of building workers from London, Manchester and Liverpool. Later on Saturday they were able six months, but will be followed by a period of severe restraint and a longer period of continued strict enforcement of the prices and incomes policy. The crisis of world economy is so critical that Britain could well be plunged into the worst depression of this century with over two million jobless.

This was Harold Wilson's warning to the British working class when he spoke at the Trades Union Congress here on Monday. All these threats are tied to one condition-that the unions co-operate fully with the government's capitalist policies.

Wilson recognised the 'deep ingrained traditions inherited from the defensive days of this movement, but added:

It is hard to say it, but we cannot fight the problems of tomorrow with the rusty weapons of the past' Later he attacked what he called trade union restrictive practices.

While denigrating the trade union movement, he said, at the same time, that whatever the TUC vote on the government's economic measures, the crisis had to be settled the There was certainly a strained atmosphere between the trade unionists and the Prime Minister. There were none of the wild enthusiastic scenes which characterised his appearance Instead he received a cool reception from delegates, with large sections of the hall refusing to stand up or take part in pledge:

ing.' government will enforce it by law. The wage freeze will not end in government's way.

at the 1964 TUC conference.

the applause for his entrance or speech.

Many of his statements were greeted with hoots of derision, particularly his claims to have controlled price increases and his 'We do not seek to destroy the machinery of collective bargainThe big stick he wielded at the conference was the threat of unemployment, but claimed earlier: of consumer goods. This also meant higher prices which increased export costs.

But it was not only on imports and exports.

'On capital account too, there was a worsening for purely fortuitous reasons. Currént and capital account together, it became clear our position was worsening and, at a time the world exchange markets were disturbed by the Euro-dollar squeeze this led to financial movement which went far beyond the actual worsening in our balance of payments,' he said.

So as the pound and the dollar came under more pressure it was necessary to take 'urgent action' restrict hire purchase, increase taxation, introduce Selective Employment Tax, raise the bank rate, restrain bullding, cut back public expenditure (in nationalized firms and local government), cut some overseas spending on forces, and:

•We called for a standstill in prices and incomes - wages, salaries and dividends-for a period of six months, and, for the first time, it is prices as well as incomes [loud laughter from delegates, to be followed by a further period of severe restraint.' The 'restraint period' would have to be discussed, he said.

Then came another warning:

'As Congress , knows, the government have taken statutory powers both as regards the early warning system, references to the board, and as regards the sixmonth standstill.

Precaution

"To take these powers as a precaution was essential. hope that it will not be necessary to use them, and that the policy will work by voluntary means.

'But if that is not so; if there is breakaway action, whether in wages or prices [loud laughter again, or by any other challenge, Dy any section of the community, seeking to secure a privileged position for itself, the government will, reluctantly, have to replace voluntary action by operatnot a long-term policy to destroy collective bargaining, which had been built up by the movement's statesmanship over the generations. This was the pledge he gave conference.

At this point the laughter and cat calls were so great that Wilson had to repeat this sentence once more.

After the six-month standstill, he said, it would still be necessary to maintain employment by the planned expansion of wages in relation to increased productivity.

The only alternative was another thirties:

In a world where trade and finance are being increasingly threatened by growing illiquidity where the world currency situation is pushing up interest rates in market after market, one false careless step—particularly by the custodians of a major trading currency — could push the world into conditions not unlike those of the early 30s, to two millions.' In other words Wilson, although admitting that the real crisis was the result of international financial speculation, nevertheless made it quite clear that the trade unions and the working class in Britain must take the brunt of the attack. • Nage freeze

DELEGATES ARRIVING for the Traues Union Congress on Saturaay were met by a demonstration of 500 trade unionist, and Young Socialists who marched along the sea front shouting 'wage freeze out, 'no laws against the unions'.

The demonstration, which started from the Blackpool Trades and Labour Club, ended at the plush Imperial Hotel, where the leaders of the TUC were staying.

At the hotel, 50 bannercarrying demonstrators were allowed to file past the entrance, but police were out in force to prevent any of the trade unionists from going into the hotel to speak to their trade union leaders.

On the march were engineers from the ENV and EMl. factories in London, from Shardlows and other firms Sheffield, from Lucas shop stewards' committee in Liverpool, and from several factories in Manchester.

They were particularly wild ahout the arrosant internretation of union rules by Sir effective action to smah the Willie Car UniAm dresneed wage freeze?

who had refused to allow the agreed to return to their areas union's delegation to discuss and campaign for big continor decide on their vote on the gents to demonstrate at the wage-freeze resolution.

Also on the march were viOctober 2. Imports and Exports Britain, 1960-64:

Chemicals Machinery and Miscellaneous Manufactur Semi-Manufactu Rise in Selected Ships Tractors ...

Computers Arms and (militar:

to enter the hotel and challenge George Lowthian of the Amalgamated Union of Building Trades Workers, Harry Nicholas, Jack lones and Frank Cousins of the Transport and General Workers' Union, and other union officials.

Although several delegates expressed their support for Cousins, many pointedly asked him to say where he would stand if strike action was taken on building sites to win the wage claim due on November 8, which has now been frozen.

Angry argument was started with Carron until he was rescued by Cou ins and whisked away in a car. Only Clive Jenkins of ASSET made arrangements to meet any of the demonstrators.

Jack Gatley, Manchester building worker, expressed the opinion of most of the trade unionists on the lobby when he said :

It doesn't much matter which way the TUC votes, it is going to be left to the rank and file to organise Almost all the deputations Labour Party conference 012 and solve the export-import gap. It can succeed in neither.

The latest gold and trade figures show the pound to be as unstable as ever.

The balance of payments situation is further from solution than it was when Labour came into power.

This factor is clearly indicated by the tables which are produced below. They demonstrate that in the key sectors of international trade British capitalism is less and less able to compete.

Whereas exports and imports taken as a whole each increased by a little under 4 per cent in the five years ending 1964, the table indicates that imports of certain key commodities and manufactures rose much more quickly and exports of these same categories rose less quickly than the average.

In other words the crisis which faces Wilson is not one that can be resolved in the 'old' way. That is, it is not a case simply of restricting demand at home, forcing , imports down and then expanding again once a 'balance' is struck.

The crisis now afflicting Transport Led Articles red Imports 1!

Ammunition

fall as compared with the same perioa last year.

Export orders show a catastropwe tall or 22 per cent over tue same period.

Tnere is only about eight monins' work ior the industry on the basis oi present oraers. II one looks benina the ngures the wring is even more clearly wrillen on the wall.

Deliveries abroad in the first three monins of tnis year were 18 per cent down compared with the tirst quarter ot 1966.

The industry is so inefficient that British capitalism has to rely on imports of machine tools tor 25 per cent or its requirements: most of these imports are of the more advanced and sophisticated types of machine tools which are unobtainable in this country. • Imports of machine tools are in the region of £70 million a year, which is a higher bill than both the United States and Western Germany.

There are about 800 numerically controlled tool systems in this country compared with over 7,000 in the States.

This sector of British capitalism is unable to compete abroad: exports at about f40 million are only roughly one-third of those from Western Germany.

Only a fraction of these exports in any case go to Western Europe: Germany sells six times the value of machine tools to Western Europe than does Britain.

So much for the 'modernisation of Britain' on which Wilson fought the last two elections.

THE EXPORT-IMPORT CRISIS The present freeze, wi told by the Labour leade necessary to save the p

• PROBLEMS INTENSIFY Imports 11.6 n mi 1964 18.8 15.1 13.2 'Our measures are aimed not at unemployment, but at redeployment, and it is of paramount importance, however harsh this may seem, that where, as a result, demand and real employment fall, the labour is released to meet the urgent demands of the export and other key industries.

At the beginning of the year, he claimed, begun to solve "the policies had deep malaise of the balance of payments crisis'.

But, he claimed, rising inComes (by 9-10 per cent) not backed by productivity (only 3 per cent) led to higher imports British capitalism is one of a completely outdated structure which is heavily dependent upon technically backward industries.

The means for the modernisation of British industry must come from abroad: but British capitalism cannot earn enough to pay for these imports of machinery, computers, machine tools, engineering products, etc. This is the crisis which Wilson faces.

Labour policy must therefore drive more and more in the direction of a complete attack on the rights of the trade union movement to act as an instrument on behalf of the working class.

Mere wage cuts, or even unemployment on a large scale will now be insufficient in themselves to even start to tackle the problems facing British capitalism.

The answer of the working class must be clear: it must prepare to break decisively from its existing leaderships who will take it to disaster in the present crisis.

It must unite under a new leadership which is being prepared by the socialist Labour League and Young Socialists.

ed categories of : annual percentage 1960-64 Exports nds) 1965 26.3 19.3 18.4 24.3

BLACKPOOL THE struggle of the miners of the Cambrian, Duffryn Rhondda, and Glynrhondda collieries against their closure later this month highlights the crisis facing the entire South Wales' labour movement. This area, always one of high unemployment in times of recession, now faces large-scale redundancies. PIT CLOSURES MINERS AT THE Cambrian colliery in the Rhondda Valley, who staged a one-day strike before the Bank Holiday (see last week's Newsletter) are continuing their policy of nonco-operation with the National Coal Board's plan to close the pit on September 24.

They are seeking support from other collieries and are reported to have met lodge officials from English collieries who are reporting to their area committees.

The South Wales' lodges supporting the Cambrian men include Coedely Colliery, nine Aberdare valley pits, other pits in the Rhondda, and some West Wales. Delegates at the special coalfield conference on September 16 are expected to demand more militant action.

There are reports that staydown strike at the Cambrian is being considered for this week.

struggle said that at the 1964 Congress he had warned that the incomes policy could either provide dangerous weapons to attack the trade unions, or it could expose the contradictions of capitalistic economy.

It is now quite clear, said Patterson, 'that we are in danger ot becoming part of the integral government machine, and losing the freedom to act for our members' He asked Congress: 'Do we ask our members at factory and site level to accept the wage freeze and unemployment, or do we ask them to strike?

Dan Stewart, National Union of Seamen, said: 'If we were anywhere near to a socialist state, the seamen would accept wage freeze, the incomes policy and the legislation, but we still have a capitalist state, and we still have Tory stop-go economics.' Workers, of the Scientific Union, said: "The government admits that financial speculation was the reason for the panic decisions of July 20.

But Wilson seemed to be paralysed when confronted with speculators 'who not only exist in Zurich but here in Britain.' Earlier Victor Feather, opening the debate, presented the contradictory reasons for the General Council's support of the government's , policies. admitted that the TUC recognised unemployment might rise far higher than the government's July figures.

The TUC also accepted that laws were distasteful to trade unionists.

'But this Act is not so bad.' It was not so monstrous an imposition that the whole trade union movement should revolt.

General Council would have preferred a voluntary system, and still preferred a voluntary system, he said.

A Socialist TONY GARD The NCB wants to transfer the Cambrian men to Cwm colliery, Llantwit Fardre, and Latgarw Colliery. A great deal of capital has been recently invested in both pits, but the closure of Duffryn Rhondda shows that this will not make miners' jobs secure.

Over the last few years £1l million has been ploughed into the Duffryn Rhondda colliery.

The closures are political. They are the result of the Tory policy, intensified under Labour government, of running the mines for the benefit of finance capital and the monopolies, which means re-organising the coal industry at the expense of the miners.

RECESSION IN STEEL ON FRIDAY, September 2, the SCOW began short-time working in the cold mill finishing department at the Abbey Works, Port Talbot for 2,000 men. They are members of the Transport and General Workers' Union and British Iron, Steel and Kindred Trades Association.

The change means an average of four and a half shifts per man per week, instead of five and a half, and . the loss of up to £5 a week in wages.

The T&GWU regional secretary said that the men had three week's notice and could not complain of this.

These and other union officials are due to start talks on remanning on September 22. The company is reported to be planning 5,000 redundancies over the next three years as a result of remanning alone.

They are planning to use steelworkers instead of bricklayers to line the furnaces with new Dolomite bricks, despite a previous agreement with the bricklayers. The secretary of the bricklayers' works committee said:

*If the management con tinues its present attitude, strike action is inevitable.' LABOUR MOVEMENT ON THURSDAY, September 1, Aberdare Trades and Labour Council meeting voiced strong criticism of the wage freeze.

One AEU delegate is reported to have said:

'I didn't think I would see the day when the party of which 1 am a member would pursue a policy of creating unemployment...• It would be better if many more Labour MPs supported Mr. S. O. Davies, the Member for Merthyr, because the rank and file of the labour moveWhete it is going to wonder This referred to a statement by Davies attacking the government's economic policies. Davies called for the TUC to vote against the Prices and Incomes Act and the Selective Employment Tax.

However, the rank and file should inspect Mr. Davies credentials before supporting him.

Just consider a simple question. What difference would it make to the economic crisis of world imperialism if the unions were to give up these rights to the TUC? None whatsoever.

Diversion

What you are doing is creating diversion in order to avoid facing up to questions of socialist policies.

This is the real issue which faces the labour movement.

It can only be answered by nationalizing the basic industries with no compensation under workers' control.

• Full support and aid for the National Liberation Front in Vietnam.

• The withdrawal of all British troops from overseas.

• Freedom and the right to self determination for all colonial peoples.

Because Cousins does not want to face up to all these important points of programme he naturally does not want to talk to the Trotskyists who advocate them.

From the Blackpool conference of the TUC to the Brighton conference of the Labour Party.

The call by the Young Socialists for a demonstration and rally at Brighton must be answered by thousands of workers on October Make it clear once and for all that the real issue is socialist policy, not planning capitalism. Now the wage freeze is law he bravely calls for someone else to explaingainst it, but he never why he was unable to vote against it himself in parliament before it became law.

UNION CRISIS THE CRISIS IN the unions is indicated by the contest for the presidency of the South Wales area of the NUM, recently vacated by Mr. Will Whitehead. The vice-president, Glyn Williams, is opposed by three candidates-all opponents of the leadership's policies.

In a feature article in 'South Wales Echo', • one them, Emlyn Williams, said:

The closures are part of a political instrument.

We must fight as a militant trade union or go out as a rabble....

Another, Ben Morris, said:

"These closures are as much political as industrial. Labour MPs and particularly mining MPs back. must oppose the cutThe fourth candidate, Evan John, a member of the Communist Party, declared himsell, "against the establishment' and a rebel inside the union'.

Yet the establishment are members of his own party who Wales NUM for 30 years. Mr. John appears to have no political explanation for their Stalinist policies.

Registered at the G.P.O. as a newspaper Published by The Newsletter. s.W.4 Con. s wi