The Newsletter, vol. 9 no. 460

IT'S STARTED. The to go on short time ' thousands will become is only the beginning.

Indeed, the Chrysler subsidiary, Rootes, and the Morris plant at Bathgate in Lanarkshire have already started the sackings.

Next in line are the steel and motor components sections of industry. Since unemployment Will obviously mean a reduction in consumption, the crisis will sooner or later affect other industries not directly connected with motor cars.

The immediate responsibility for this state of affairs rests squarely upon the shoulders of Wilson's government. Its policies are capitalist policies, no different from those of the Tories.

It seeks to solve the crisis of capitalism at the expense of wages and working conditions. The very people who voted this government to power are now to suffer for a system which they believed a Labour government would change.

But it is not only Wilson and the government who are responsible for the betrayal. The Trade Union Congress right wing must share equally the responsibility.

As they voted to support compulsory wage freezing at the Blackpool Congress, a little over a week ago, they knew full well that unemployment was on the way in the car industry. HEALY announcement by the n that its 20 factories are with the possibility that redundant by November YOUNG UNIONISTS AND All out against the threat of unemployment in the motor car industry MONSTRATE Brighton, Sunday, October 2nd Assemble: 1.30 p.m., Palace Pier Meeting: Fish Market Beach, 3.30 p.m.

All out on October 2nd! nationalize the enginee car industry at once could lose in four weeks considering BMC will have the support of the Wilson government in any attempt to begin sackings.

It was Wilson who gave the green light to the employers at the TUC conference. 'So I feel, therefore, it is more important than ever that workers make it there business to lobby the Labour Party conference in Brighton on October CALL TO ALL TRADE YOUNG WORK LABOUR PA CONFERENCE stewards committee this fight by redundancy for several thousand, came as a climax late on Tuesday to an earlier announcement by Standard Triumph of Coventry that nearly 6,000 workers will be on short time from this weekend. BMC blames the economic situation.

This grim prospect faces car workers in Birmingham, Coventry and Oxford. Both at BMC factories and at Standard Triumph roughly one third of the total labour force will b hit by short-time working.

Many more than the announced figure of 40,000 will almost certainly be affected in the near future.

Short-time working is to start next week, and redundancies are to be announced in the last week in September.

Notice of redundancy is to be phased' through the following three weeks, so that all workers sacked will be unemployed on the same date, November 4.

Jaguar of Coventry also announced ominously that they 'could not forecast what future working patterns would be?.

Component manufacturing firms such as Joseph Lucas, Hardy Spicer and Pressed Steelrisher, all of Birmingham, anc the Dunlop factory at Coventr will automatically be affected by the situation at the car plants.

Disastrous picture

BMC's 4,000 supplier firms are likely to feel almost immediate repercussions.

This adds up to a disastrous picture for Midlands workers in the coming winter.

Union bosses in the Midlands expressed surprise at the sheer magnitude of the slump hitting the car industry.

Colin Jones, secretary of the Birmingham East district: committee of the ABU, is reported as having accused BMC of using the economic situation as an excuse for attacking wages and conditions in the motor industry, and of 'exaggerating' the economic situation.

Can any worker seriously believe that experienced trade unionists are surprised at employers attacking wages as a result of a deflationary policy deliberately designed by the government to produce that result?

Certainly many workers don't accept this at the Tractors and Transmissions factory, Birmingham.

They are saying: "These top union blokes are trying to put it all on the employers, and make out it has nothing to do with the Labour government'.

The reaction of these workers was one of stunned horror after the BMC announcement. "This 1s bloody dreadiul: are we going to have the thirties back?' was asked time and again.

A mass meeting of all workers was held at the factory later in the day to discuss the situation.

The Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions is calling a crisis conference of BC shop stewards.

Work sharing

Union leaders say they will reject redundancy and insist instead on work-sharing.

Harry Urwin, West Midlands Regional Secretary of the T&GWU, is reported as saying:

We shall actively oppose any redundancy until we are satisfied there is no other way of handling the problem.' But the Prime Minister told the TUC conference that he was opposed to work-sharing and in favour of a 'shakeout' of redeployment into key export industries.

What can be more of a key industry than the manufacture of cars?

If thousands of workers are on the dole later this autumn, they SYLVIA will have every right to ask: 'where is this alternative employment that Harold Wilson wants to redeploy us into?' George Evans, district organiser of the National Union of Vehicle Builders, is quoted as follows:

'We never thought things would turn out to be as bad as this.' For an official of a union whose leadership has bent over backwards to accept government wage - freeze and anti - union measures, this is a surprising statement.

Other union officials are trying to represent this crisis as no more severe than those experienced in recent years.

Ernie Roberts, an AEU chief, is reported as having referred to it as 'this terrible malady of seasonal unemployment'.

But this is no seasonal unemployment.

This is the world crisis of capitalism which is hitting Britain more severely than any other advanced capitalist country.

There is certainly a way of handling the problem other than unemployment and wage cuts for tens of thousands of workers.

This is nationalization of the car industry under workers' control and without compensation.

Cheshire, have unanimously

In other words, they voted for a policy which would freeze wages at a time when three men would be chasing two men's jobs.

Unemployment is the weapon which the employers will use to put teeth into the law making wage freezing compulsory.

Then there is the Communist Party, who delayed holding a demonstration and lobby against the Prices and Incomes Act until last March, that is, seven months after it was decided lo introduce such a Bill.

When the Young Socalists and the Socialist Labour League made preparations for such a lobby on January 26, as far back as October 1965, the Communist Parry opposed us, and split the left in the factories.

At the same time, they were calling for unity with the fake 'lefts' in the Parliamentary Labour Party-the same fake 'lefts' who have run away from a real struggle against Wilson and his Tory policies ever since the Labour government was elected in 1964.

The 'left unity' talk of the Communist Party is a sham.

They split from the possibility of real unity with those, such as the Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists, who actively struggle against the government's pro-Tory policies, in an effort to unite with those MPs who supply a 'left' cover for Wilson.

Mr. Dick Etheridge, a leading member of the Communist Party, who is also a convenor of the shop stewards at the Longbridge works of the BMC, said, according to 'The Times' (September 15):

'Let's face it—if you are going to get the sack, you may as well have a bash.' Continued page

SEVERAL STEWARDS at BMC's Cowley, Oxford, plant were tighting for support for the October 2 demonstration at a full stewards' meeting on Friday.

At a meeting of a joint shop stewards' sub-committee on Wedmesday—the day of the BMC announcement—it is believed stewards thought it ridiculous to propose a solution to the crisis in terms of redundancies. As the crisis was the deepest in British capitalism, it could only be solved by political means.

It was necessary to fight for the control of the industry and mobilise against the government's policies on October 2.

Stewards may also demand that Mr. Evan Luard, the local MP, explain his position on the redundancies and Labour government.

Moves may also be made to organise a BMC lobby of Parliament.

BMC's four Oxford factoriesMorris Motors, Morris Radiators, Pressed Steel-Fisher and M.G. Abingdon-employ 30,000 men. Short-time working will begin on Monday in all but the M.G. plant. Morris Motors and Radiators will probably move from a five- to three-day week. Pressed Steel is already working only three days.

There is normally a 6,000 carsa-week production figure. Last week 4,000 were produced and only 375 sold. Judging by these figures, the firm would need to cut the labour force by a half to work a five-day week.

Workers through Oxford are beginning to realise that BMC's actions will affect all wages.

As one commented to our reporter :

If BMC sinks, so do we all.' The main reaction to the measures is hostility to the betrayals of the Wilson government and a large number are looking for an alternative to its policies. THE SHOP STEWARDS' committee at ENV, Willesden, London, this week voted to support the October 2 demonstration and hope to bring two coachloads of workers.

THE NEWSLETTE eptember, 17, 1966

can only be won if BMC is made fully aware that any attempt to implement it will be met with strike action. Workers must be made aware as to the extent of the struggle which lies before them. Bearing in mind the resources available to BMC, including its present stockpile, we must understand that a struggle to win could last six weeks and that we THE BOMBSHELL announcement by the British Motor Corporation of short-time working for between 20,000 and 30,000 car workers, followed

Te& T steward backs Brighton demonstration FOLLOWING a meeting of 2,000 Birmingham car workers on Wednesday, Tractor and Transmission shop steward, Chris Reid, told The Newsletter :

"The fight against redundancy 'ROBLEMS OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL The fifth of G. Healy's series of articles will be resumed next week It is entitled : 'The good name of Trotskyism in Britain' IT IS NO ACCIDENT that the US imperialists bombing of North Vietnam has reached a new peak at the same time as he Western capitalist press has been trumpeting about an 'electoral' victory for Marshall Nguyen Cao Ky's South Vietnam puppet regime.

Both these events mark a new stage in the aggression against the workers and peasants of Vietnam and further express the treachery of the Soviet bureauc ra c y in relation to Vietnam.

The 'eleccourse, were a tions' of ridiculous hoax.

The National Liberation Front (NLF), in statement, pointed out that 'the Saigon government only has temporary control over 4,000,000 people, so the puppet government's figures were false.

Even simple arithmetic, or a consideration of the puppets' different claims, reveals absurd contradictions. WEBSTER Johnson with his chosen puppet For example, Saigon, a city of two million, is supposed to have had a poll of 6› per cent of registered voters, but had only 12 polling stations.

As most of the population, namely 'communists' (supporters of the. NLF), and 'neutralists' (Budahists) were excluded from voting, this works out at about 72,000 voters per polling station, or about 100 people per voting station per minute.

As those who voted-mainly people dragooned by the 600,000 troops conaucting the eleccion into coming to the polls-must have been searched etc. (otherwise arming the polling stations person would take several minutes to vote. This makes the alleged rate of voting utterly impossible.

Secondly, although Vietnam is a primitive country, with poor communications and most of the population (even in the government areas living in small towns or Villages, Ky's regime announced within three hours of the end of voting that 75 per cent of the voters had turned out.

CONTEMPT

The figure was hoisted to 81 per cent in later announcements.

Even 'The Guardian', whose only quarrel with US policy in Vietnam is that it might not succeed, treated these figures with contempt.

The 'elections', however, not without significance just because they are a fraud.

They are a further stage in the consolidation of the puppet regime in Saigon, which, during 1964, and the early part of 1965, was on the point of disintegration, and even now is bolstered only by the presence of 400,000 Us troops.

The present military dictator, Air Marshall Nguyen Cao ку, emerged during late 1964 and early 1965 as the man whose planes could make or break any attempted coup by the other military factions.

He was, therefore, the logical candidate for chief puppet, and he was duly chosen by the Americans in 1965.

This, of course, met with massive opposition from the workers and peasants and hardly pleased the other military tactions, or the Buddhists (who are themselves allied with certain military leaders).

The regime, therefore, had to be shored . up, both against the groupings in opposition, because they were deprived of power and the opportunity of graft, and against the workers and peasants, led by the NLF.

The latter task has required a massive invasion by US armed forces, and the bombing of North Vietnam. Even now, with mounting opposition to the war throughout the world, especially in Britain and the USA itself, the imperialists will not succeed.

RUTHLESS

A recent report by a Pentagon study group said that the number of US troops would have to be doubled to 750,000 for victory, even in eight years.

The invasion and bombing was more immediate and was carried out ruthlessly. Ky's rivals were posted abroad as ambassadors, or jailed or assassinated, the last, of course, being preferred.

The Buddhists, who commanded fairly large support among the urban petty bourgeois, were defeated in August this year after a two-week civil was in Da Nang and Hué.

Ky then proceeded with the fraudulent 'elections'. Most of the 'candidates' were his personal nominees, members or former members of the army and air force bureaucracy.

Ky thereby has provided himself with a rubber stamp 'constituent assembly' (which requires, even in theory, a two-thirds majority to over-rule his personal whims), and can now proceed to attempt to consolidate his rule on behalf of the US.

liege OCTOBER 15 AGAINST NATO AND THE VIETNAM There is still time for our readers to sign up to go to Liege with the Young Socialists of Britain to meet socialist youth from They will be protesting against the war in Vietnam and against the capitalist alliance of the North Atlantic Treaty Urganisation, The cost of the round trip to Dover-Ostend and Liege is £8 10s which includes a free meal at Liege and dancing on board ship there and back. All money must be paid in by September 30. Do not delay write now to Dany Sylviere, Liege Organiser, Young Socialists, 186a Clapham High Street, London, s.W.4, for further details or send a deposit of f2 with your name and address.

BUILDERS FOR BELGIUM CONSTRUCTION workers on gation to Liege on October 15. the large Imperial Chemical In- All the money donated over dustries site at Runcorn, and above that required by the agreed to levy themselves 2s 6d delegation will be donated to a week in order to send a del- the Young Socialists.

told By ANN SPEAKING to a meeting of adult trade unionists-many of them shop stewards-and youth from the Swindon and Oxford areas on Wednesday, Gerry Healy, national secretary of the Socialist Labour League, explained the lessons of the Trades Union Congress for the working class.

The alternatives for Cousins and the 'left' were either to put the question of the Prices and Incomes Act into the law courts to be decided by the most reactionary judges, or to let the TUC right wing decide.

Leadership

It was time in this country to build a new revolutionary leadership to take power. The working class could not defend its wages and conditions through the Labour Party any more.

The fight for power now passed into the workshops and the shop stewards' committees.

It was important to get 100 per cent trade unionism.

The role of leadership in the trade unions was to combine political explanation with planning of mass action. A feeling and understanding had to be built up in the working class that they could take power.

In this period the Socialist Labour League was going to make a big bid for a daily paper.

BOOK NOW FOR WAR Belgium and countries all over Europe.

which has its headquarters near to Liege.

THE CRISIS of British capitalism is now hitting the profits of the monopolists. This much is clear from a reading of the latest profit results from Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI).

The half-yearly report of this giant shows a t5 million slump in prohts already this year and a further fall of £5 million anticipated by the year end.

This represents a 9 per cent fall in protits, despite an 8 per cent increase in sales during the six months of this year.

ICI shares fell by nearly 2s on the news to their lowest point in three years.

Sir Paul Chambers, head of the company, made it clear that these figures would mean more redundancies and a drive for greater elliciency throughout the whole group.

The squeeze is also starving ICl of cash.

The combined effects of the Selective Employment Tax, the Corporation Tax and the reduction in demand has left ICl with inadequate tunds tor modernisation and expansion. As a result the company is to float a t60 million capital issue.

Interest on this issue will be at the rate of 8 per cent. Yet the rate of return on capital for ICI over the last few years has only been 11 per cent and this is expected to fall during 1967 to under 10 per cent.

CLOSE MARGIN This is an indication of the close margin on which the giant firms are now working: they must inevitably intensify their drive for a greater rate of profit through speed-up, reaundancies and wage-cuts.

News of the ICI profit result sent a tremble of fear through the City.

This company happens to be the second biggest in the country With a capital of over £1,000 million and with profits last year of over t110 million.

Chambers is already on record that present output could be maintained with a 15 per cent cut in the labour force which would mean about 23,000 sackings.

The latest report of Associated Electrical Inaustries (AEI) shows a similar sharp reduction in proits.

This company is one of the giants of british industry, the 14th largest in the country with a capital of over £200 million.

Again, despite increased sales, protits are down by £300,000 to £6.3 million for the half-year.

Marxist works which answer the burning problems of the Communist movement Ruling class turn on working class JEFFRIES The report of London Brick, one of the largest firms connected with this industry, give an indication of the crisis being produced in the building industry by the squeeze.

Profits for this large firm, employing something under 10,000 men show a catastrophic fall of nearly fl million to just over £1.5 million.

In their Report the directors blame the successive bouts of deflation through 1965 for this fall.

The July measures are not reflected in the Report of this company: profits and sales are certain to fall even more drastically.

SLUMP These examples are not isolated cases. The crisis is now biting deeply into the profits and sales of nearly all companies, reflected in the growing list of redundancies, short-time working and cuts in overtime.

In particular investment is now being slashed.

Latest figures produced last week by the Board of Trade reveal that manufacturing companies cut their capital investment by about 7 per cent between the first and second quarters of this year.

Spending on plant and machinery, the most crucial indicator, fell by nearly 10 per cent.

It is clear that the economy was on the turn-down with unemployment rising and profits falling before the July deflationary measures were announced.

With profits falling the monopolists must hit back against the working class.

They can only reverse the trend by attacking wages and working conditions with renewed intensity.

FREEZE Callaghan has now made it clear that the 'freeze' on wages will not end after the originally proposed period of 12 months: it will continue for an indefinite period into the future.

The lessons for the working class are clear. This is no normal 'stop' phase in the cycle.

The present crisis hitting British industry coincides with a deepening international crisis from which the British ruling class cannot escape.

They are now preparing for a decisive confrontation with the working class, a confrontation which will decide whether they are to continue in their positions of power or whether they are to be replaced by the working class who will be able to plan production for the benefit of all. 'WE SHOULD not compare this situation with 1931. This is not like 1931? These reassuring words came from Communist Party member Sam

Writings of Leon Trotsky Culture and Socialism & Art and Revolution The Intelligentsia and Socialism Through What Stage Are Passing?

Stalinism & Bolshevism 6d. Stalinism and Trotskyism the USA READ 'The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International' (The Transitional Programme of the Fourth International)

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New Park Publications Ltd., 1868 Clapham High St., S.W.4 ABBI Become a subscriber to IN the fight for socialism, The Newsletter is playing a vital role. Do you get it regularly? Don't leave it to the chance encounter, fill in this form and send it to: Subscription Department, The Newsletter, 186a Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4. 9s. Od. for 12 issues Name Aaronovitch at a meeting on the wage freeze and unemployment called by the Brent CP in Willesden, north London, recently.

At a time when everyone in Willesden was talking about the ENV factory closure and other sackings, the CP economist was determined to play down the serious nature of the economic crisis and avoid any conclusions about socialișt policies for the working class.

Aaronovitch began by criticising the Labour government for 'organising an economic crisis'.

He argued that by attacking wages they were cutting demand, and therefore employers would have no incentive to produce and no incentive to invest in new machinery.

In other words, he started with the old Tory myth that capitalists are in business to provide peoples' needs-profits are only incidental!

With this "commonsense' theory of economics—none of your Marxist ideas about exploitation of the working class, profits, class struggle, crisis of the system-it follows that all. we need is enough commonsense to run capitalism successfully.

Unfortunately, Aaronovitch said, British governments since the war had for some reason kept cutting back effective demand whenever it was rising. He described the present government as 'Pre-Keynsian lunatics'.

Obviously they must be some kind of lunatics if, as Aaronovitch claims, we can have a permanent boom.

As for the balance of payments problem, Aaronovitch gave three reasons:

First, British capitalism insists on trying to keep its position as a world banker without having sufficient reserves';

Second, too much overseas investment;

Third, too much military expenditure.

He tried to present all this as very original thinking from the CP, although, in fact, some capitalist economists such as Schonfield have been arguing this for years.

Of course it appeals to a section of British capitalism to argue that everything would be alright if it was not for those finance capitalists who keep exporting capital instead of investing in British industry. The finance capitalists are equally convinced that their investments overseas bring nation the best returns for the The contradictory theories of capitalist economists simply reflect the contradictions in capitalism.

No challenge Their thinking has to stay within the limits of the system.

Aaronovitch is a Stalinist and, in the interests of 'peaceful coexistence', he cannot challenge the system either.

I'm arguing that private investment abroad does not help the economy,' he said. Again, it is part of the 'peaceful coexistence' theory.

He laid special stress on the question of arms spending, quoting the figures such as f66 million spent on forces in the Middle East. But he did not mention that British oil companies draw more than twice that amount in Wage Freeze Trick':

• We should redeem sterling held abroad, to pay off our debts to the international bankers"' Aaronovitch commented : 'Mind you, I'm a bit cautious here. I'm not going to say that's the way to do it, but it is part of the way.' He was sure that things could be run in such a way as to satisfy the bankers-after all 'We are still an economically powerful country'.

In discussion one rank-and-file CP member asked if it was not a question of the class struggle. But Aaronovitch thought that 'We have to show that ours is the national policy'.

With their policy, it is no wonder that when one factory closure was discussed in a union branch a CP member put forward a resolution that the government buy shares of the company.

Unfortunately, the owners of ENV were unconvinced about 'peaceful coexistence'—they could not coexist with a strong shop stewards' committee.

The capitalist class is determined that with the aid of Wilson it will attack workers' living standards.

Factory closures and sackings pose the question of who decides -who is going to hold the power?

The confusion and illusions that the Stalinists want to keep spreading must be cleared out of the way if the working class is to be mobilised to take power.

Too many shop stewards are still thinking along these old lines, which in turn lead directly to syndicalism in practice.

The power of the working class What is needed today more than ever in the history of the trade union movement is more and more Marxist political propaganda within the trade unions centred around the role and the need to build the revolutionary party.

lo prepare for unofficial political strikes that can win is to see this task as inseparable from the building of the party. Any other conception will lead only to defeat.

Pessimists and fake 'lefts' of course will do everything they can to deny that the working class are moving into a situation where they can build a revolutionary party and take the power.

These gentlemen, for their own reformist reasons, always go out of their way to play down the importance of the working class and in particular its present strength.

Everything for this type of opportunist leader is decided by negotiations within the bureaucratic apparatus and not by the conflict of class forces.

And yet it is this conflict which is directly responsible for the compulsory wage freeze.

During 1965 the strength the working class forced

'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 (Harold Wilson at the TUC, September 5, 1966.). EVEN MR. WILSON, that most British and insular of Labour leaders, was forced, when addressing the TUC, to admit that the problems faced by capitalism in this country and in America are international in their character and depth. Of course Wilson used this in order to enforce his policy of wage freeze and law September, 966 EW

ХЕРИКА ОК 11.30 Rank-and-file trade unionists were betrayed at the TUC. Only the Socialist Labour League and Young Socialists have waged a continuous struggle against the government's prices and incomes policy, partly through demonTHE TRADES UNION CONGRESS is over, but the problems facing the working class have become more serious. Last Wednesday's decision to support the Prices and Incomes Act has, in the words of the 'Economist', the City's most influential business magazine, given the 'green light' to the government. The conclusion which this journal draws is that the government must "activate Part IV of the Prices and Incomes Act, giving it 'compulsory powers over wage negotiations, ... in the very near future'.

In other words, the capitalist state over which a Labour government temporarily presides, now has sufficient support from the right wing of the trade union movement to take away all the rights for which the trade unions were founded to defend.

This is really what cided at the TÚC. strations like the one seen above.

The 'Statesman', a weekly journal of right-wing Labour and Liberal opinion, commenting on the decision remarked:

'Free collective bargaining in this country has probably gone forever.' Just so, and history will recall that it was voluntarily surrendered by a majority of the TUC.

Rank-and-file

betrayal The rank and file of the trade union movement have been betrayed in the most scurrilous fashion by the leadership.

Only the Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists, who, since October 1965, have waged a continuous campaign against the prices and incomes policy of Wilson, Callaghan and Brown, have sought to provide real leadership.

We based our campaigns on the understanding that it was the international crisis of capitalism which hovered in the background of the problems which the Labour government inherited from the Tories.

The crisis of Britain's economy today is more and more linked to the crisis on Wall Street.

For this reason it is not enough to condemn the role of the right wing at the TUC and to oppose the Act; it is necessary to prepare and build a new Marxist leadership within the trade unions which will have as its special aim the construction of a revolutionary party whose political purpose will be the taking of power and

OF PARIAMEAT JAM 2STИ GIN M.30. the establishment of socialism.

The main foundation for such a party today resides in the Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists.

At this point we part company with 'lefts' at the top and bottom of the trade union movement who are making the loudest verbal protests against the Act.

Left 'solutions' One group at the top suggests legal action to enforce wage increases which have already been agreed upon by the employers, as if the judiciary, the most class conscious and anti-working class section of the community, is liable to oppose a government carrying out policy for the employers.

At the same time, even if a legal decision was granted in favour of the unions, it would establish a precedent which may well do more harm than good to the cause of trade unionism.

If a union gains a good agreement beneficial members, and this is upheld by a judge who doesn't belong soo a trade union, it employers it does not appealing to other judges to either annul the agreement or have the amount of wage increase reduced to what the employers want to pay.

Once the trade union movement transfers the power to enforce its wage agreements from the organised strength of its members to a court of law, then it is already more than 75 per cent in agreement with the decision of the TUC to support the government's Prices and Incomes Act, because the principle of accepting capitalist state and its judiciary remain the same.

Mr. Frank Cousins, also at the top of the trade union movement, wants to transfer the rights of the unions in relation to wage increases to the TUC.

This implies an acceptance of the idea that unions should give up this fundamental right to a body openly dominated by the right wing and in complete agreement with government policy, which is to operate capitalism.

All Cousins is looking for is a 'left' face-saver which in the long run would leave the trade unions in the same predicament as they now find themselves.

The main question is, why should the trade unions under any circumstances give up their rights to fight for wage increases for their members to the state, its judges, and the TUC? profits from the exploitation of Middle East workers.

For an alternative to Wilson's policy, Aaronovitch quoted Bert Ramelson's pamphlet: "The by Gerry Healy We say that they should not surrender this right because it involves the fundamental principle which makes trade unions, trade unions.

for what?

The right wing will reply that it is necessary for 'planning'. Planning what, may we ask?

British economy is today dominated by powerful groups of monopoly capitalists who own and control the means of production which they operate in the interests of profit. They work for their own profiteering sectional interests and not for the people as a whole.

How can any planning take lace unless all the basic means of production are nationalized?

Why does Frank Cousins, for example, avoid publicly demanding that the 'Labour government should implement the plan drawn up some time ago by the Confederațion of Engineering and Shipbuilding unions for the nationalization of the industries in which their members work, especially since his union is a party to this plan?

Here again, is it not clear that there is no fundamental principled disagreement between Cousins and the right wing. He is just making 'left' noises in order to cover up what they decide.

There are, however, a number of other difficulties which arise within the rank and file of the trade union movement as a result of the treachery of the official leadership. Dangers of syndicalism Now that the TUC has gone on record for compulsory wage freezing, the struggle will shift to the rank and file which may mean unofficial strike action.

After the experience of the seamen's strike, the danger here is obvious.

Since the government now has powers to compulsorily arbitrate over wages, each strike for more wages will tend to become a political strike against the government, just as the seamen's strike was.

This raises directly the problem of power, and the construction of the revolutionary party, which is the only organisation that can take the power in order to establish socialism.

Unofficial strike action carried on as it was during the period of inflationary boom will only lead to a series of disasters and defeats.

wage rates by approximately 7 per cent. Right-wing cabinet ministers then hastened to denounce this demonstration of power as a free for all'.

It should be noted that the same gentlemen remain remarkably quiet when the big monopolists compete with each other to force up profits, and the rich idlers amongst their directors and shareholders gallivant all over the playgrounds of Europe spending and flaunting the wealth which they have extracted from the labour of the working class.

No, no, that is legal, but when it comes to the working class taking more wages from the employers, which means in effect reducing profits, then that must be denounced as a free for all'.

The real role of the Labour government today is to organise the employers to fight and resist the demands of the working class and not to organise the working class against the employers as so many Labour voters believed would happen. The TUC is now committed to such a policy.

• But it is only one side of the question. The very fact that the working class has proved itself strong enough to force the employers to retreat over the past year is a powerful omen for the future. How much more determinedly will the working class fight for its rights when unemployment gets worse and the cost of living rises steadily upwards.

The government pays lip service to price restriction but they are careful to leave themselves plenty of loopholes.

Take the Selective Employment Tax. The government cautiously points out that legitimate increases owing to this tax will be allowed. Of course, only in this way Will the tax serve its purpose which is to further reduce wages. Meanwhile the cost of living will go up and up.

Prices will go up So-called pegging of prices will in fact have about as much authority as the Monopolies Commission. Here and there warnings will be given, even one or two prosecutions might take place, but that will be the end of it.

The plain truth is that wages are immediately reduced whereas prices go scot free.

In any case no government under capitalism has ever been able to peg prices.

What government can decide whether or not an increase is 'legitimate' when the means of production are owned and controlled by the capitalists?

The system under which the Labour government operates is a capitalist system and it is the capitalists in the end who decide how their system works.

There is therefore no means of establishing whether in creases are justified or not, unless genuine representatives of the working class have direct access to the books and records of the capitalists.

There are no clauses in the Prices and Incomes Act which provide such powers for the government, let alone the working class.

Build the SLL into the revolutionary party As a consequence, the Socialist Labour League believes that the time is now ripe for the building of a revolutionary leadership based upon the working class.

More and more the rank and file of the trade union movement, we are sure, will come to this conclusion.

Only in this way can we learn from the real lessons of the TUC.

The right wing has betrayed and will continue to betray the working-class. The fake 'lefts' will continue to negotiate, in order to establish that the right wing is confused.

The Socialist Labour League says that both tendencies help each other in order to avoid the real issues. They both, in fact, betray the working-class.

Shop stewards and officials from all sections of the US-owned, Willesden engineering firm, ENV-led by the convenor, Geoff Mitchell (left)-handed In the following letter to the Board of Trade The President, Board of Trade.

September Dear Mr. Jay, We are writing to draw your attention to the state of affairs at ENV Engineering factory in Willesden, North West London, where the Management have recently announced their intention to close the factory and 'phase out' the entire work force of almost 1,500 men.

We are concerned, naturally, about the implications of this decision on the livelihood of the men we represent. But we are also concerned about wider issues, some of them of national signincance, in the proposed closure which we feel can only properly be settled by a Board of Trade Inquiry. economic case for the closure made by the Management. Mr. Townsend, the Managing Director, has indicated that the company has been making severe losses over a long period. He has not at any stage given exact or detailed figures of these losses, except to say that in June this year the company lost £36,000. As you know, figures for one month given in isolation, can be extremely misleading.

The suggestion that ENV at Willesden has been losing money over a period of about two years does not square with the available evidence. Unfortunately profit figures for the ENV factory have not been available since 1962/63 but, in those two years, under the previous British Management which has been pilloried by their successors as outdated and 'fuddy-duddy, the net profits were, respectively, £333,839 and £368,338.

We wonder what can have happened under this new 'dynamic' management to turn such substantial profits into severe losses in so short a time.

In the 1964 accounts for Eaton International, which owns ENV, Mr. E. M. De Windt, the Group's Vice President, wrote on page 16 that 'the second expansion in two years is under way at ENV Engineering in London, England. It is aimed at increasing capacity by an additional 50 per cent to permit doubling the production of truck axles to meet the projected demand in 1965 and to provide more capacity for making truck transmissions' Again, in the 1965 report of the directors of Eaton Yale and Towne, which was written, we estimate, no more than four months ago, they state:

'In Great Britain, Eaton Axles and ENV Engineering substantially increased their market penetration as well as production capacity. Meanwhile, to meet the growing demand for truck transmissions, a new subsidiary was formed—Eaton ENV transmissions, near Manchester, England.' During the period when, Hard labour anti-war VICIOUS SENTENCES have been passed on the Fort Hood Three'-three GIs who refused orders to board a plane for Vietnam.

Twenty - year - old Private David Samas, left the Fort Dix, New Jersey, military court to face five years hard labour.

The two others, Mora and Johnson, were jailed for similar periods.

The three announced recently that they would seek a court order against participating in an undeclared war in Vietnam. They were immediately jailed then ordered to board a plane for Vietnam.

They refused, and appeared before the 10-man tribunal on a charge of wilfully disobeying an order.

Support from many civilians -and probably from other GIs —was growing for the 'Fort Hood Three' who exposed the iron mask used to gag those who desire free speech, thought and discussion on the Vietnam war. Board of Trade on September 2.

according to Mr. Townsend, the Willesden factory were making severe losses, the shareholders of the parent. company were being told of 'increased market penetration' and 'growing demand'. Investment in the new plant and grinding machines continued apace. The whole atmosphere was one of optimism and profitability. Or was there one story for the American shareholders and one for public consumption in Britain?

The Management have also stated that Government's credit squeeze was the *straw that broke the camel's back'-the determining factor in the closure. We cannot accept this. Our experience over three previous credit squeezes, introduced in 1953, 1957 and • 1961, has been that ENV's work has not been severely affected. Indeed, as we nave shown, pronts actually in. creased during the 1961-5 credit squeeze.. The reason for this is that most of our work has been for commercial vehicles—an area of manufacturing industry which is not severely affected by credit squeezes. As proof of this, we cite Ford's decision only this week, in spite of the credit squeeze,. to invest newly and heavily in plant for commercial vehicle manufacture.

Moreover, this credit squeeze, as you know, is ofiset for manufacturing industry by the workings of the Selective Employment Tax which comes into operation next week. The tax provides for a handsome rebate for manufacturing industry of 7s 6d per week per man employed. This rebate would provide for the ENV management an effective subsidy of some £25,000 a year, free of tax; which is equivalent to some £75,000 of profits. Given the lack of sensitivity of the commercial vehicle market to credit squeezes, our impression is that the ENV management would have done much better than most factories during the forthcoming squeeze period.

Three other matters are of vital concern to us and, we believe, to you.

First, ENV is primarily an exporting factory. Exact figures for direct exports are not available, but the management have stated that some 70 per cent of the £5 million annual turnover of the Willesden factory goes, directly or indirectly, to exports. decision to close the factory has been taken, not in this country but in America. It raises very serious questions about the long-range control of vital export factories, particularly, at this sensitive time for Britain's balance of payments position.

Secondly, there have been widespread rumours of substantial defalcations of equipment from the factory and of police investigations about these. We urgently request that this matter be investigated by the Board of Trade.

Thirdly, we would draw your attention to a report in 'Irish unlike those of the early '30s.' The Annual Report of the International Monetary Fund also underlines once again that the capitalists are extremely worried about the development of the world economy and are fearful of a collapse on the scale of that 30 years ago.

In particular, like Wilson, they are concerned at the growing liquidity crisis which we have examined in some detail in recent issues of The Newsletter. Both Wilson and Johnson have been forced by the international crisis to itroduce measures which attack workers' livelihoods. CP

Times' this week quoting Mr. Townsend as saying he may 'set up a factory in Dundalk, Dublin, Shannon or Cork', after ENV closes. Is there not a credit squeeze in Eire?

In conclusion, we would remind you that in numerous press reports and by implication from some of the management's statements, it has been suggested that our own militancy is responsible for the factory's closure. We are, of course, proud of our record as tough negotiators on behalf of our members but we utterly reject the suggestion that we are responsible for the closure. Again and again we have expressed our willingness to enter into productivity agreements with the management. We were naturally forced to object when, instead of discussing such matters with us, the management sought to break up all existing negotiated agreements with us by means of a totally unconstitutional ballot.

We are convinced that if you consider all these points together; the general atmosphere of optimism and the assurances about growing demand; the long-range control of a big export factory; rumours of large defalcations; the suggestion that the firm move to Ireland and the refusal to discuss ways of increasing productivity with us-you will appreclate our request that the firm be asked by you to hold off the closure until the whole affair has been investigated by your department.

Yours sincerely, Shop Stewards Committee, ENV Engineering, Willesden.

Fourth International A JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL MARXISI PUBLISHED BY THE INTERNATIONAL COMMI THIRD WORLD CONFERENCE OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE HE STRUGGLE FOR MARXISM IN THE STRUGGLE FOR MARXISM UNITED STATES (V)

Statements on the imprisonment ischer and Polish and Hungariar 186a CLAPHAM HIGH ST., LONDON, OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL CONTAINING Full report and documents from the FOURTH INTERNATIONAL and a poem THE CITY WITHIN Price 4s.

Available from:

THE NEW September, 17, 1966

The following information Irawn from the Report, will high light some of these problems.

Since 1951 world trade has been growing at a rate of about 6 per cent per year. World currency reserves (i.e. means of financing this trade) have been growing at only about 2.5 per cent per year.

From 1951 currency reserves have Slumped from 67 per cent, equivalent of all world imports, down to 43 per cent.

The mal-distribution of gold holding is also causing great alarm: total gold holdings are noW around 42,000 million dollars.

Of this only about 2,000 million dollars are held by the underdeveloped countries and the Us holdings have been halved over the last 20 years.

Lack of resources

As recently as 1960 US gold holdings were more than adequate to cover all US short-term commitments in foreign currency: now they barely cover half of these commitments.

The factors lying behind these figures are well known.

They once more indicate that the US, despite its enormous wealth and power, has been unable to provide enough resources to stabilise world capitalism.

Massive expenditures on arms abroad (£3 million each day is being spent on the war in Vietnam); large 'aid' programmes to those areas 'threatened with ommunism, plus a massive ex ort of capital abroad, have nov placed the US balance of payments in a critical position.

There has been a consistent drain of gold from America over the last 20 years and reserves are rapidly falling to the danger level of 10,000 million dollars which President Johnson considers to be an absolute minimum for stability.

The other side of this gold loss has been the large increase in the holdings of gold on the part of several European countries.

In particular France has rapidly increased her holdings over the last few years at the expense of dollars.

Private gold-holding This move has been followed by similar ones on the part of Italy and Western Germany.

In addition to this there has been a sharp increase in the private holding of gold.

Last year gold production was increased by nearly 1,500 million dollars but only 250 million dollars of this found its way into the reserve system.

This is a clear reflection of a growing crisis of confidence in the dollar: holdings of gold are increasing in anticipation • of a devaluation of the dollar (i.e., an increase in the dollar price of gold).

The main proposals of the IMF Report (which reflects the interests of US capital and to a lesser extent that of British Signs of growing international capital) are that a reform in the world monetary system can only be contemplated once the US and UK balance of payments deficits have been eliminated.

Such a move would give the US power to impose its will on European capital.

To correct the US imbalance the Report draws attention to the great dangers of inflation in America which threatens to depress the value of the dollar even more and calls for measures to limit consumption and slow down the rate of investment.

The end of last week saw announcements by President Johnson of measures to tackle the problem of inflation. The special allowances for investment are to be ended and Johnson is crisis to review the whole range of government expenditures.

The implications of these measures are clear: a slowing down in the rate of expansion of the economy with rising unemployment and cut-backs in the much publicised Great Society programme.

The Federal Reserve Bank has been worried by even these tentative announcements: they fear that the restriction on finance for investment will push interest rates up even higher and make over-large inroads into capital expenditure programme for 1967.

The world implication of these moves are extremely important. They must mean a growing crisis for European capital as world trade slows down and US imports • which 2s not onu Subandrio for Trial Bister done and upure beload fores to eig trial on October l.

• General Abdul Haris Nasution (left in picture above), chairman of the Peoples' Consultative Congress, one of the reactionary generals who took over after last September's abortive communist coup and began the massacre of millions of communists, announced that Subandrio will be tried for his role in the coup.

Nasution said the trial would be a warning to current Ministers that they must not repeat the activities of the 'old order'-the cabinet dismissed in March by army strongman General Suharto, who took over executive power. are reduced.

They must have serious implications for Britain, in particular, tied as she is to the world market and to stability in America.

Colonial countries will certainly suffer enormous blows. These areas are absolutely dependent on large US and UK deficits for their supplies of currency.

IMF loans ending

Already they face an enormous depletion in their reserves and have been forced more and more to make drawings on the IMF, drawings which are now rapidly coming to an end.

As a result of her balance of payments crisis the US has slashed her foreign aid programme and cut down on shipments of all grain abroad. Recipient countries have been warned by the State Department to expect reductions of 25 per cent in shipments of wheat abroad.

Stocks of surplus grain in the States are currently estimated at 61 million tons compared with over 115 million tons in 1961.

In other words the present crisis stems directly from the crisis in the US, the heart of the imperialist system.

That crisis and the steps which Johnson is taking in an attempt to relieve it will have repercussions throughout the world, not least of all in Britain.

Wilson concludes from the crisis that the working class must return to the conditions of the '30s.

We conclude that the future must now produce struggles in which the taking of power by the working class, in Europe and in the United States, will be the number one question.

WHILE SPEAKING at a meeting of 500 Indian workers in Southall, Middlesex, recently, Harkishan Singh Surjeet, member of the Politburo of the Left Communist Party of India, gave a display of the enigmatic policies followed by the leftwing'.

He recounted the mistakes and blunders of the Congress Party and its increasing inclination towards US imperialism without uttering a single word as to the solution of these problems.

Economic penetration of India by the US was endangering 'our freedom', he said, failing to mention that this same influence was strengthening the hold of the bourgeois ruling class on the workers, who will have to carry out a revolutionary struggle win their freedom by destroying the bourgeois state machinery.

Talk of 'our freedom and independence', even in an abstract political sense, is wrong because precise political status of India is semi-colonial.

Increasingly, India is becoming an economic colony of America; devaluation of the rupee and the draft of the fourth Five-Year Plan was the most visible result of US pressure.

Yet the speaker still preached a sort of social-democratic formula for the crisis.

He vigorously denied that there is a revolutionary situation in India, even at a time when starvation and rising prices have brought the working class into sharp conflict with state power; where workers have actually surrounded administration centres states like Uttar Pradesh• organised and Kerala; where squads workers have attacked • grain showers bullets from the police and army.

Instead of recognising this, the Communist Party of India-both left and right—today, and tol the past 20 years, has been en. gaged in a frantic rush for parliamentary and assembly seats.

They are now childishly talking about forming the state government in Kerala, Bengal and Andhra Pradesh.

But they must have forgotten the lesson of Kerala.

When Namboodripad took office as the Chief Minister, he swore on the bourgeois constitution to 'uphold and implement' the fundamental aspects of the constitution-these aspects are only to protect the bourgeois property relationship and exploitation.

The CPI. by offering this leadership', is betraying the revolutionary struggle. This traditional 'leadership' must be discarded and be replaced with a truly revolutionary leadership which can lead the masses in this situation to a victory over the bourgeois state and its US backers.

Expose truth about Ben Barka says his brother IN OUTSPOKEN evidence to the French court trying the abductors of Moroccan opposition leader Medhi Ben Barka, Abdelkader Ben Barka, brother of Medhi, demanded all the facts about how 'the abduction desired and ordered by the highest Moroccan authorities had been able to take place on French territory in Paris'.

Giving evidence on Monday Abdelkader felt sure that his brother, abducted last October, was now dead.

'How did he die? After what tortures?', Abdelkader asked, adding:

I am continually haunted by the thought of the. dagger blows of Oufkir' (Oufkir is the present Moroccan Minister of the Interior who is being tried in absentia).

Abdelkader felt that many of the circum tances behind the case still had to be exposed.

'In our opinion, all the complicities, all the responsibilities, whether they • were deliberate or the result of permissiveness and lack of responsibility, have not been exposed, he said.

He appealed to Louis Souchon, one of the police officers in the dock, to tell the truth, and for Marcel Leroy, a counter-espionage official, to explain omissions and silences.

Police superintendent Lucien Marchand came under fire on Monday after giving his evidence. He was asked, both by Abdelkader Ben. Barka and witness Philippe Bernier, a journalist, why he had not taken action against Oufkir, who was in the country at the time the investigations opened.

He had been told by • several people of Oufkir's position in politics and Bernier had told him that Oufkir was a 'killer' Marchand excused his inaction by saying moves against Oufkir were too serious to consider because he was a Minister of a foreign country.

SEVENTY DELEGATES from 32 lodges of the National Union of Mineworkers in South Wales attended a three-hour conference last Saturday to discuss pit closures in the area.

The conference, which included representatives of some of the biggest South Wales coalmines, had been called by the Cambrian colliery-due for closure on September 24. It was held at the Llwynypia (Rhondda) miners' club.

Meetings of lodges will be held - this week to discuss action in support of the Cambrian men.

On September 15, an 'official' coalfield conference is to discuss the closures. The area executive of the NUM refused to bring forward the date of the conference.

Pious declaration Mr. George Thomas, MP, Minister of State for Wales, has had meetings with Cambrian lodge officials and with the union's area officials.

Although statements issued after these meetings have been very non-committal, Mr. Thomas is believed to have merely repeated the government's pious declarations of directing industry to South Wales.

He has not explained how new industries are to be set up when a tight credit squeeze is operating including big cuts in public spending. Nor has he explained the closures and sackings already hitting workers in light industries in the valleys.

Few taken on A few weeks ago, Sewing Industries Ltd., in the Rhondda, closed, making 300 redundant. At hat time it was said a large proportion would be taken on at Apollo Leather Products, another Rhonda factory. According to workers at Apollo only five of the 300 have been given work.

So much for direction of industry. This can only be carried out under a thorough-going programme of nationalization under vorkers' control. (Mr. Thomas went on record long ago as believing nationalization to be "a dead letter'.)

CORRECTION ROOTES PRESS INGS, Night shift ends From THE MANAGEMENT of Rootes Pressings, Linwe Scotland, has announced that the night shift for all production workers is to cease and that 550 men will sacked at the beginning of October.

Shop stewards walked out of a meeting to which they were called by te readames to 'discuss before the meeting was officially opened.

They allege that as informal discussion was going on notices were already being posted in the factory announcing the sackings and a statement had been handed to the press.

The management decided to go ahead with the cuts and the shop stewards feel they were treated with contempt.

Difficulties

At this factory the Emerson Consultants Ltd. produced a scheme for the management to boost production and to draw the shop stewards into production committees.

Now: the Chrysler-backed Rootes combine is in difficulties and the Emerson plan is turned into a scheme to rout workers • Nationalize on Thursday.

They thought they may get immediate support of the 850 Coedely colliery miners. This could spread through the valleys.

Miners and their tamilies were travelling to picket the conference in Porthcawl.

-INWOOD to be laid off Lsd, :ar be out of the factory instead cars.

The 550 men to be sacked will be selected on a three-point plan which assesses them for:

ability and performance, timekeeping and attendance, job skill.

All will be selected from the car production sections of the factory.

Rootes Pressings is the third company in Scotland backed by US finance to announce redundancies since the wage-freeze and restrictions on credit.

The sackings and unemployment cannot be fought by appeals to the government to direct more industry and work to Scotland, or by attracting new industries to replace the old.

Commenting on the sackings now taking place in Scotland, the 'Glasgow Herald' gloomily forecasts that Wilson's figure of half a million unemployed will be rapidly left behind.

In a year's time, they say, the figure may well be two million.

To the employers and bankers this means a squeeze on profits. But to all workers it means real hardship.

A fight against the sackings now means mobilising all workers such as those at Rootes Pressings in a campaign to fight against the Wilson government.

Car workers should join forces with the Young Socialists in the Glasgow and Paisley area and fight for a massive lobby of the Labour Party conference on October 2. Corporation condemn BIRMINGHAM CORPORATION school cleaners and. caretakers have condemned their 'union's backing of the wage freeze. The standstill has deprived them of a wage rise-negotiated by the National Union of General and Municipal Workers in July before Wilson's clamp-down. It was due this week.

Protests have already been made by the National Union of Public Employees-most of BirmBUSMEN at the South Croydon, Surrey, garage are boycotting an automatic food machine, which now provides meals in their canteen. They are considering strike action if the canteen not opened for both early and late shifts.

The men say the meals are inferior to those cooked by canteen staff. London Transport With the stark alternative for workers of the ever-lengthening dole queues or jobs at Shorts' Sydenham plant, the new employers will almost certainly offer jobs at lower wages; these will probably go to the 'young marrieds' and members of the Masonic Order.

The apparent difficulties of Imperial Chemical Industries-laying off 1,000 workers, reduced profits and their attempt to float a new loan-must be causing disquiet amongst those employed at ICI's Kilroot plant, and also those working • for Courtaulds and British Enkalon.

These Northern Ireland plants are only subsidiaries. They can be afforded in a period of expansion, but are usually first to be closed when these combines feel the need to economise.

Already the Selective Employment Tax has caused unemployment in the Belfast Ropeworks, and the Anglo-Irish trade pact (between Britain and the Irish Republic), which has only just begun to operate, has hit Northern Ireland industry connected with agriculture.

So far, 1,000 meat workers have been threatened with redundancy—many work in areas where there is no possible alternative employment and the jobless figure already stands at 10 per cent.

This is caused by the high subsidies paid in the Republic of Ireland to farmers which means they can easily undercut the prices if the Northern farmers and their distributors.

But workers are beginning to react with increasing militancy to the prices and incomes policy.

Everton Engineering and McNaughton building supply workers have been on strike, the latter nearly crippling the building industry.

Slow reaction Trade union officials, on the other hand, have reacted slowly— only two days before the Trades Union Congress conference did they call a protest meeting in Belfast.

Not only did they refuse speakers from the floor, but they also made no call for official support for demonstrations at either the TUC or Labour Party conferences.

While they attacked the prices and incomes policy, some speakers claimed that some sort of policy was necessary.

Northern Ireland is feeling the full brunt of the dealings of international capital. The only answer is to smash capital through the organisation of the working class behind a revolutionary Marxist leadership and party.

workers union ingham's 15,000 Corporation manual workers are in NUPE. Many live in council houses and flats, the rents of which have been raised by the lory-controlled council in defiance of the freeze.

Shopworkers and hairdressers are facing the sack and cutbacks due to the payroll tax. Their Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers is keeping 'a very careful eye' on developments.

food machine says the staff could not be retained-the men say higher rates should be paid. Their T&GWU branch secretary says the management is paying f20 to a man just to watch the machine.

He maintains that well-cooked meals are essential to busmen, many of whom suffer from stomach disorders owing to irregular shift work.

In last week's Newsletter quotation from one of the candidates for the presidency of the South Wales area of the National Union of Mineworkers was incorrectly attributed to Mr. Ben Morris. The name of the candidate quoted is Mr. Ben Davies. Mr. Ben Morris is chief administrative officer of the South Wales NUM, and is not standing for post of president.

Painters

sacked— site stops 300 BUILDING WORKERS employed on the Bernard Sunley site in Horseferry Road, Westminster, stopped work on Monday in support of painters sacked for taking strike action in defence of their shop steward and chairman.

The shop steward and chairman, who had been newly elected, were offered transfers to another site. When they refused, they were sacked.

Following this the painters struck in sympathy, and were sacked on Thursday (September A mass meeting on Monday decided to stop work until all the painters are reinstated.

Registered at the G.P.O. as a newspaper Street, London, s.W.4 Printed Press Ltd. (TU), ro 180 Clapham High Street. London. S. W.4 Here is a man who opposed the Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists, when we fought for a lobby against the Prices and Incomes Act on January 26, now advising his fellow trade unionists at the BMC to 'have a bash'. What exactly does he mean?

Has he not heard about the seamen's strike, which became a political strike against the Labour government?

If Etheridge wants a strike then it will be a political strike, and neither he nor the Communist Party are prepared for such a strike.

A political strike poses the problem of power, but this means, immediately a struggle to nationalize the engineering, shipbuilding and motor car industries. It also means the building of a revolutionary party to take the power.

The Communist Party believes in the "peaceful road', but is there anything 'peaceful' about the BMC decision to make thousands of workers unemployed?

Apparently not, because Etheridge proposes a strike (which is not a peaceful solution) to deal with the BMC management.

We say that the fight ahead for the working class is a political fight. The next big step forward is the October 2 demonstration in Brighton on the eve of the Labour Party conference.

Are you coming, Dick Etheridge, or are you sabotaging it in the same way as the Communist Party sabotaged our lobby against the Prices and Incomes Bill on January 26? Let us have an answer.

BY A CARDIFF CORRESPONDENT car industry.

South

Wales pits to walk CAMBRIAN COLLIERY'S 750 workers struck on Monday against the closure of the pit on September 24, and were making a demand for a South Wales walk-out in support at the special coafield conference Short Bros.' aircraft factory has started to lay off 400 men and only. now are shop stewards beginning to put up a fight.

During the past few months it has become clear that Shorts' pledge to diversify has been abandoned and that instead other firms will take over space previously occupied by Shorts.

This will result in workers being forced to negotiate on jobs on an individual basis with strong trade union organisation being by-passed.

Lower wages

DURING THE SEAMEN'S STRIKE, National Union of Seamen members of many races and nationalities picketed and demonstrated side by side. Some Somali seamen recently told our reporter of their experiences since the strike.

Eight of them, many of whom had sailed on the same ship before, found a new captain and first mate in charge when they returned. They allege they also found that their food consisted of boiled rice and an egg three times a day, with the rice being cooked once a week and served cold the remainder of the time.

'How could we live through could have bacon or ham. The an eight-month voyage on captain must have known that, as that?' they asked.

Three weeks later, having not eat pork. docked in Holland, they asked to The men told the captain they see the captain. If they were not would give him 24 hours to satisfied, they were told, they change the food, or find another Sid Bidwell House of Commons Dear Comrade, Trial by Daily Telegraph and the SLL Your long-winded reply to my shortish letter led you from bad to worse. You started off with a falsehood, repeating a story from —of all papers-the 'Daily Telegraph'. You are not over fussy about accuracy or sources.

You ignored entirely my request to send a back copy of your paper wherein you may have applauded my unconditional support of the Seamen's strike.

You seem to have wanted me to vote with the Tories against the Labour government on Incomes and Prices legislation.

You are misinformed (as …on other matters) about my stand on raciali m which is well understood and respected in my Constituency. I am currently under attack by Tories and racialists. 1 get absolutely no help from the SLL. You have been wrong so many times. You seem to be the most sectarian of all such people —you are a sort of SPGB but much more vicious and thoroughly nasty.

Your free ure of other people's names in your barrel-scraping Moslems, many Somalis would character assassination technique seems to fit in with what 1 have been hearing about you over the years. It is apparently the reason Your silly secretarianism in dealing with my letter is selfexposed. That secretarianism, tantamount to romancism, is portrayed in other parts of your paper.

It is a great pity; it makes the three or four SLL lads in my Constituency virtually inettective within the local trade union and labour movement. Let us hope they have not gone beyond recall.

Yours sincerely, Sid Bidwell.

Mr. Bidwell's letter is printed as he sent it, but we believe he is referring to 'sectarianism' and 'romanticism' in the penultimate paragraph. crew. Even the 1894 Merchant more food than that seamen to But the NUS delegate they contacted said he could do nothing.

Twenty-four hours later, with no improvements forthcoming, the eight men walked off the ship.

The next day they went to the Dutch immigration authorities and asked to be repatriated to England. ( The captain said they were deserters and he would not have them back on board, so the authorities took them to jail pending repatriation, and kept them there for five days.

Their discharge books were endorsed with DR's so that for the rest of their working lives as seamen they will carry the sugma of a bad discharge.

After being sent back London, they said, they had each been fined £51, the whole of their wages for the weeks already worked. They applied to the Shipping Federation for benefit and were told they would have to await the findings of a disciplinary committee.

The employment exchange refused them dole money as they had walked out of their last job.

The local NUS official said he could do nothing until he had a report from their delegate in Holland-four weeks later he is still waiting for it.

After nearly a month, the disciplinary committee met and decided they would get no benefit until they got another ship, when the question of their contract would be reconsidered.

With DR's in their books, it is likely to be months before they are back at sea again.

The defeat of the seamen's strike has opened the way for bigger attacks on shipboard conditions, and heartened those arrogant officers and petty bureaucrats who enjoy throwing their weight about.

All seamen must now strengthen their ranks, irrespective of nationality in their union which leadership will fight for them.

Unlike the Tory Fleet Street press which dictates the policies of your leader, Harold Wilson, The Newsletter has no need to resort to lies. We published a report from the 'Daily Telegraph' of August 11 about your attitude towards the Prices and Incomes Act, but we also queried its accuracy. Please re-read the second paragraph of our comment in The Newsletter of August 13(1). Now re-read our remarks in The Newsletter of September 3(2).

We can appreciate that floundering around inside the Parliamentary Labour Party as you do, it is difficult to recognise a lie when you are told one, but come off it. We have no need to lie about Mr. Bidwell and we would not under any circumstances do it.

Our movement is based upon the principles of the Fourth International founded by Trotsky. You are a deserter from this movement and we believe everyone should know this, despite your efforts to cover up your desertion with a 'left face.

Let us get a closer look at that face.

You say: 'You seem to have wanted me to vote with the Tories against the Labour government ou incomes and prices legislation.' the conclusion that a left iP has either to abstain or vote with Wilson, otherwise he votes with the Tories. What rotten opportunist rubbish.

If you had an ounce of socialist principle, you would have made your case in the House of Commons during the debate on the Prices and Incomes Act, both against the Tories and Wilson, and then voted against.

Under these circumstances how could anyone misconstrue your position as supporting the Tories? if what you say is true, then no Labour Member of Parliament can oppose Wilson.

Pack it up, Bidwell, you are trying to justify keeping one foot in Wilson's camp and one in the 'left' of the Parliamentary Labour Party.

Don't bother us with your protests. This is what you wrote about Wilson in your election address last March :

"The Labour Government and nation, under the outstanding leadership of Harold Wilson, is tackling our serious economic difficulties. A start has been made with a national plan and a productivity, prices and incomes policy?

Now that Wilson, the tool of the international bankers, has introduced unemployment and wage freezing, perhaps you would like to make another statement which would expose him to the Southall electorate? But we won't.

You knew all along that he was very little different from Ramsay MacDonald.

What you chose to do as an opportunist, was to keep quiet and climb on to his band wagon. In other words, it was Sid Bidwell for an MP's job in Southall, and to hell with Marxist principles.

We can prove that. Here what you wrote about yourself your election address:

'Sydney Bidwell is 49; he is married with a grown-up son Hayes, Midder and was born in and daughter. lives Southall. For 10 years he was tutor/organiser of the National Council of Labour Colleges (North Thames Area) and for many years directed Trades Union summer schools in Britain. He has a life-time of service in the Trade Union, Cooperative and Labour movements. He has been a member of the Labour Party since he joined the League of Youth at 16. at tate is 83, lives in Southall and a foundermember of the Labour. Party. Sid left Tudor Road School, to go to work at Paddington Station during the great depression of the 'thirties. He says the profound socialist wisdom of his father hit him "like a bomb" as he mingled with skilled unemployed workers and encountered the of capitalist civili ation. Sid became an officer of his branch be the is led nd is still association with the Labour College Movement and he attended classes, took postal courses in his spare time and won scholarships to cummer schools. He studied politics, economics, geography, modern history and journalism. At 20 he was assistant secretary of the NUR's London District Committee. He became a voluntary tutor of the NCLC and was constantly studying. All through the war he was a shunter in a marshalling yard-this period included the height of the "Blitz" on London. In 1951 he was elected to Southall Borough Council on which he served until his change of employment. He was Chairman of the Borough's Road Safety Committee and a member of the Health, Entertainments and Housing Committees. At the General Election of 1959 he contested the Tory strong• hold of East Herts. In 1964 he fought S.W. Herts., reducing a 10,000 majority to 6,000. So this is his third Parliamentary Election experience. He is a specialist in socialist theory and history?

But all this blurb is nothing more than an evasion. For most of your adult political life were a member of the organised Trotskyist movement.

Why did you remain silent about this when you wrote this election address for the people of Southall? - We would suggest that it was for the same reason that you gave a boost to Harold Wilson during the General Election. Silence where principled questions are involved is always the hallmark of an opportunist.

Now about racialism. Were you or were you not expelled from the state capitalist group of International Socialism over this issue? An answer please!

Did you or did you not address a meeting of the racialist Southall Association home, Residents' shouts of Send them reply.! understand your justifiable anxieties, but I think you have expressed them very badly?. Somewhat different language from that you reserve for The Newsletter.

You describe us as 'thoroughly nasty and we plead guilty so far as opportunism is concerned. In this respect you could also be described as "thoroughly nasty' when you were a member of the Trotskyist movement.

One final point, MP Bidwell.

Now that Wilson's policy has brought unemployment to tens of thousands of workers, What is your attitude towards the closure of the ENV factory in North London?

Why have you not led a public protest against this closure?

Most peculiar, since a lot of your old comrades in the International Socialist group are involved.

Could it be for example that you don't want to fight on this issue also, because a leading member of Communist Party, Mr. Reg Birch, has publicly associated himself in opposition to such action? You are worried because you might be called a fellow traveller by the Wilson gang.

Is that the reason?

You say you get 'no help from the SLL. Quit being an opportunist and you will.

As far as the Southall SLL lads' are concerned, they can look after themselves.

Editor.

1. If 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"

a correct de it onu, did, was that