The Newsletter, vol. 9 no. 463

PARTY SHOP STEWARDS and workers from the motor Sunday praised the Young Socialists for giving the lead in the present crisis.

They had just marched in a colourful 1,200 strong demonstration through Brighton past the Labour Party conference hall and Harold Wilson's hotel chanting 'Nationalize BMC-Unemployment Out!' tuarter-ola-mile on procession or Tong Socialists students and adult trade unionists from all over the country.

The increasing number of adult members of the labour movement on Young Socialist marches emphasises the political impact of the youth-their policies continue to mobilise more and more workers each time they turn out on the streets.

The convenor of a leading Liverpool factory connected with the motor trade summed this up when he said:

I have seen something this weekend to make me realise there is somebody prepared to act—with patience there will be hundreds and thousands who will come and act at your request.' A steward from BMC's Birmingham hoped that the YS would continue its campaigns with the 'same zeal' as it had in the past 12 months.

He was glad to see young people interested in politics. They soon found a road through politics, 'and the only road to socialism is through the Young Socialists and the Socialist Labour League,' he Several others at the meeting after the march (reported on page three) similarly praised the lead given by the YS.

Factory and shop stewards' committees represented on march-many of them officially delegated came trom LucasCAV (Liverpool); Shardlows, Tempered Springs and Daniel Doncaster (Shetheld); Rootes Pressings (Linwood), BMC (Bath. gate), Albion Motors and Singers (Clydeside)(all" in Scotland); Morris Motors (Cowley, Oxford); and representatives from major factories and sites in the Midlands, London, the North East, Yorkshire, the North West and South Wales.

Almost union - from to teachers-had members on the march.

Hundreds turned out to watch the demonstration-most of them delegates to the conference-as it wound its way along the Brighcon tront, into the town, ther back again along the front.

It was the most highly political highly-organised and disciplined demonstration ever held by the the youth towards behind the Wilson government towards the taking of power in this country.

Mersey dor BY WEDNESDAY, 7,000 Merseyside dockers were on strike against non-union labour following a call for a show of cards by Transport and General Workers' Union, branch committees.

Both T&GWU and National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers' ('Blue Union') members IN CONFERENCE Newsletter Reporter students and STS CAR HOUST FILE NO SACKINGS!

NATIONALIZE socialist policies.

Crunch for the 'left' FAR WORT But this is not Mr. Cousins' intention he wants to retain a Labour government operating capitalism with the Prices and Incomes Act removed from the Statute Books.

Here is the crunch for all the 'left' talkers. British capitalism needs the Act if it is to survive. Wilson and the right wing, who stand four-square for bolstering up capitalism, have no intention of removing the Act.

Even if they had been defeated at the conference this week they would have gone ahead, just as Gaitskell went right ahead supporting the H-bomb after conference defeated him in 1960.

Unless Cousins and his union are prepared for an all out political struggle against the government then bis opposition is simply 'left talk'.

Then there were others at the conference who imagine that because they have made one or two 'left' noises on the platform that means they have acquired great power and are now speaking on behalf of and to the working class. This is an old centrist illusion.

The same people glibly talk about the 'isolation' of the Socialist Labour League when they themselves have no organisation of any sort to fight the right wing.

They get carried away with the publicity of a few minutes speaking time on the platform, and completely overlook the vital necessity for training a revolutionary leadership to politically expose and fight the right wing on a programme for power.

Any 'left' delegate who spoke at the conference and overlooked or rejected this fact is simply talking 'left' in order to avoid reality.

Only those who fight for and believe in revolutionary organisation can organise the break which the working class is noW called upon to make from the MacDonaldite leadership of the Labour Party.

Book now for It is not the Socialist Labour League which is isolated but them, The magnificent 1,200liege OCTOBER 15 AGAINST NAT OLANDITHE

LABOUR PARTY CONFERENCE on Wednesday endorsed the Cabinet decision taken in Harold Wilson's hotel room in Brighton the previous night, under which the government took legal powers to enforce the Prices and Incomes Act. This : means that conference has approved the compulsory freeze of wages, with fines or imprisonment for workers who resist.

But had conference rejected the iniquitous Part IV, Wilson had given them fair warning that their views would be ignored. He said on Tuesday that it was the task of the government to govern for the nation, and the conference viewpoint was therefore secondary.

James Callaghan, Chancellor of kers strike are on strike. The rank and file is supporting the drive for trade unionism in view of the attacks inherent in the Devlin Report published last week, and many support the right of a man to join the union of his choice.

But T&GWU officials want 100 per cent unionism which will mean control by their union's bureaucracy. freezing SYLVIA PICK the Exchequer, asking for endorsement of the government's economic policy, gave very plain warnings that atter August II, next year, when the prices anc incomes legislation is que to lapse, the government would not cease to interfere with the rights of trade unions to free collective bargaining.

"These issues.' he declared, 'concern the future of collective bargaining, the right to which was painfully won by the pioneers of the last century. The document also indirectly raises the question of what role the trades unions are to play in a full employment society in which we forever use to the very limit of our resources in manpower and materials.

I hope that no one is going to suggest that he is more concerned than anyone up here on the platform for the preservation of full employment . . . or is more anxious to maintain the freedom of the trade union movement, than we are.' But later came the pill hidden beneath the sugar.

"The best prospects ... lie in the recognition that any group of people who are arguing about their inenmas mict annant hat the bargaining strength of the two parties is not the only strong demonstration on the Rachmanism Sunday. before the conference in Brighton proved for anyone who cares to see that hundreds of young leaders are now becontinues ing trained as Marxists for work inside the trade unions and later, when the split deepens inside the Labour Party.

THAT RACHMAN-TYPE exThe only way to fight the right cesses against tenants in certain areas of London still continue, in wing and their compulsorv wage freezing is to build up this orspite of the 1965 Rent Act, was ganisation to fight in an gate to the Labour Party con- revealed by Ed Rhodes, the dele- WART organised revolutionary way in- side the trade unions and both ference from St. Pancras North.

inside and outside the Labour He heard that 'big boys' were Party. taken along by landlords to overThis was partly achieved by the come opposition from tenants, Young Socialists between and that in one case a pistol had 1964 until they were expelled by been flourished. There was no Wilson without Cousins or the doubt that, though illegal, these VIETNAM "lefts' lifting a finger to help practices still continued. them.

The delegate was pressing for Here is the reason why we do an urgent review of the 1965 not accept the Cousins line Rent Act, in particular the operawholeheartedly as the 'left' fakers tion of the Rent Assessment do. Is he prepared to fight Wilson Committees. recognising that it is a political George Lowthian, the delegate fight against the government? There is still time for our readers to sign up to go to Liege for the Amalgamated Union of with the Young Socialists of Britain to meet socialist youth from Building Trade Workers, wanted We do not think so, and the government to create a Public Belgium and countries all over Europe. whilst we are prepared to sup. Building Corporation, though 'not port him and his union insofar They will be protesting against the war in Vietnam and against this stage asking for total as they mobilise the working the capitalist alliance of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, nationalization of the industry' which has its headquarters near to Liege. class against Wilson's line we Even so modified a step in the insist that the real issue is the The cost of the round trip to Dover-Ostend and Liege is direction of public ownership building of the alternative £8 10s which includes a free meal at Liege and dancing on board proved too much for Tony Green- leadership inside • the labour wood, Minister of Housing, who ship there and back. movement now-otherwise we said the government could not are on the road to further deDo not delay write now to Dany Sylviere, Liege Organiser, Young support the resolution since there feats at the hands of the right Socialists, 186a Clapham High Street, Londor, S.W.4, for further had been nothing about public wing. details or send a deposit of tz with your name and address. building corporations in This is the time for purposeful Labour Party manifestoes of 1964 action and not merely 'left' talk or 1966.

as a substitute for such action.

-Page :Two October 8, 1966 tober 1966

factor that can be allowed to decide these issues in the future. The public is in these negotiations as a third party, and I express my own view that when the powers become extinct next August, the public interest will remain in the arguments about the level of incomes. I do not know how this public interest will continue to be expressed, büt I am certain it is there to stay.' It is an easy guess that 'the public interest' will continue to be: 'expressed' in the form of government control, backed by the power of legal sanctions.

. Getting acceptance by conference of this compulsory clause was, of course, the crux and purpose of Callaghan's economic statement.

He slapped down those who suggest that cutting defence. or stopping the export of capital or ceasing to operate as a reserve currency country would have made the July measures unnecessary'.

This was his curt dismissal of those stalwart champions of the Labour government, the Stalinists and fake 'lefts', who have been advancing these solutions of the capitalist crisis, thus evading the manifest fact that the crisis can only be solved by ending the capitalist system itself.

Registered at the G P.O. as a newspaper Published by The Newsletter. s.W.4 186a Clapham High Street, London, Printed by Plough Press Ltd. (TU), r.o. 180 Clapham High Street, London. S.W.4 ment was a rehash of the circumstances, according to the government, which led to the 'necessity' of imposing the July measures. He stressed Britain's role as 'world bankers' , and the fact that foreign creditors "begin to get nervous' when they see 'that we are running a continual deficit in our yearly balances with them and others'.

Predictably, he blamed 'the loss of exports caused by the seamen's dispute' as a factor in the crisis.

He also declared: 'Not least, there was an outflow of funds caused by the world-wide rise in interest rates that has followed upon the efforts of the United States to deal with their own payments deficit.

Slowing down

"There was a temporary slowing down in the rate of increase of the productive capacity of the economy itself, reflecting the actual cut in working hours which accompanied the widespread move towards a 40-hour week during the last 18 months.' As a sop to fake-'left' opinion among delegates, Callaghan announced that there would be an 'extremely large cut of 20 per cent' in overseas spending. This would represent 'something like £100 million, mainly from defence'.

Regarding productivity agreements, he declared: It was only

MOTORS NOW! EDITOR LIKE THE TRADES UNION CONGRESS the Labour Party conference was split right down the middle. Wilson and the right wing won a majority for their Prices and Incomes Act and Cousins defeated them by a narrow majority on the issue of work-sharing and unemployment.

The labour movement may well ask; where do we go from here? The one thing that was conspicuous by its absence from the conference was bold decisive leadership. It is all very well tor frank Cousins to say that the trade unions will fight the laws if the laws are unjust, but this is not a simple question of unjust laws.

A Labour government which included Cousins in its Cabinet for well over 18 months has now legally invoked Part IV of the Prices and Incomes Act which instructs the employers not to pay any wage increases until the middle of August 1967.

All wage struggles from now on are not simply industrial struggles but political struggles against the government.

This was in fact the precise meaning of the seamen's strike. It was a fight against the government and because of this was political fight from the start.

Yet Cousins stayed a member of the Cabinet right throughout the whole of the strike. When he did publicly speak about the strike it was in the form of criticism-he blamed the strike leadership for making it a political issue with the government.

Yet, the government was only doing in the seamen's strike what it proposes to do now in the operation of Part IV of the Prices and Incomes Act against the unions.

Is Mr. Cousins and his umon now prepared to night the government? Because if they are then the question of power is posed, and not just a fight against laws. If the T&GWU is proposing to defeat the government then it should be calling on its members and the working class as a whole to replace the govern•ment with a real socialist government pledged to the application of

LABOUR PARTY of the Tories and workers 35 4. 33 FRESH from his mauling by redundant car workers, dockers and busmen on Brighton front, Harold Wilson appeared before the Labour Party Conference in more confident mood on Tuesday to give his parliamentary report. But his reception was cool and restrained when he came to the rostrum; no cheers, no standing ovation.

But at the end, when he had invoked what was surely the most sickly and unctuays appeal to religious sentiment to be heard at Conference since Ramsay MacDonald, delegates dutifully" rose to applaud him.

Wilson's main tactic in the business of bemusing the » Labour Party and trade union Pick on some word which exer- leaders * has always been ..to | By Newsletter Reporters cises an emotional spell over the labour movement and use it in precisely the opposite sense to that in which it has always been understood in working class organisations.

The theme of his speech was 'conservatism'.

Characteristically, he tried under this heading to lump together the conservatism of the Tories with the defence by trade unionists of the gains of the working-class over the past century, and the rights to independence of unions under a capitalist state system.

'We must be on our guard to ensure that conservative practices are not strengthened by the understandable reflex action of trade unions and their members to ill-considered provocative actions taken by some industrialists using as their pretext the measures the government have had to take.?

In other words, if the bosses use the government's anti-working class measures as a pretext for an attack on the wages and conditions of employees, it, 'conservatism' in those workers to resist and defeat such moves.

"The July measures,' declared Wilson, 'were required to deal with a crisis. But, however rough and painful their immediate effects, we must regard them, not as a backward reversion to stop-go, but as a necessary condition for the nation's advance to economic strength and independence, to industrial expansion and rising living standards. We reject Tory stop-go methods.' According to all this, it is 'conservatism' not to be able to see-simply because Harold Wilson assures that it is so-any difference between present Labour policies and Tory stopgo.

Retrenchment He referred to Labour's 'rejection-never found in the Tory stop-go--of the proposition that burdens of retrenchment should be placed on those least able to bear them. For we have matched with social advance retrenchment It is 'conservatism', in his view, to say that the burdens of retrenchment are still placed on those least able to bear them, the wage earners, the low-paid workers, the old age pensioners -while rich industrialists. dividend holders, judges, MPs and senior civil servants continue to increase their profits and fat salaries. In fact he attempted to hide these attacks on the working class by outlining the half-cock reforms carried out by the government.

'It is precisely because we insist, declared Wilson, "that an incomes policy must cover all incomes and not just wages, it is precisely because Labour budgets have attacked the system of fiscal privilege in expense accounts and tax free capital gains, while a new system of industrial taxation favours investments against dividends, it is precisely because we are ending the freetor-all for the speculator, the land protteer and the landlord' that in his view the government had a right to ask ah incomes policys country for The impudent hypocrisy of these assertions hardly needs emphasising.

*Ending the free-for-all for the speculator'?

What about the recent wild spree in the City when ICI's call for a £50 million loan was over-subscribed to the tune of thirty times that sum, in order that speculators might make a lush profit? What about the nation-wide rise in rents, giving landlords and money-lenders a fat harvest?

Wilson declared:

"The productivity, industrial modernisation, the sense of self-discipline and restraint for which we ask will provide the industrial base for social advance . • based on a fair and equal chance in life for all Britain's children' Britain's working-class children face a 'fair and equal' chance of seeing their parents thrown out of employment, and of leaving school to join the dole-queues themselves, unless they follow the leadership of the Young Socialists in an all-out fight against Wilson's attacks on their class.

I make clear again today, as I did at the TUC, that at the end of the day the government must take the final decision in the interests of the nation as a whole. We shall not shrink from that decision. For what is at stake is whether we can have economic planning for full employment, if prices and incomes are governed by a frefor-all' In plain terms, the government is to fix wages and take away from the unions their rights of negotiation and struggle to improve the standards of their members.

According to this word-spinnert traitors the powers to do all this is 'conservatism'!

He described the July measures as 'a necessary condition for national advance to economic strength and independence, to industrial expansion and rising living standards' Economic independence, when the government becomes more and more tied hand-and-foot to the bankers of Wall Street and Zurich?

Rising living standards, at a time when thousands of car workers are being thrown on the dole, preparatory to a general beating-down of wage rates in the industry?

Wilson made considerable noise about the government's intentions for 'the reform of our ancient system of laws and lan procedures' and promised Ombudsman, whose duty Will be to enquire into alleged injustices affecting the lives, happiness and welfare of the individual'.

The main reform of law to date has been legislation shacklcapitalist state and threatening with fines and imprisonment workers who resist. And in return for this we are to be offered an Ombudsman!

In his relentless hunt against 'conservatism' Wilson slated what he termed 'dinosaur-type thinking in our own Party.

'We cannot afford,' he declared, 'to fight the problems of the sixties with the attitudes of the Social* Democratic Federation, nor in looking for a solution to those problems seek vainly to find the answer in Highgate, cemetary' (A reference to the fact that Karl Marx was buried in that place.)

To Wilson it is 'conservatism' to turn to the only solution-the Marxist one-which makes any sense or coherence in this time of mortal crisis of the world capitalist system. SPEAKING IN Southall, Middlesex, last weekend on 'Imperialism and India Today', R. Palme Dutt of the Communist Party exposed completely the counter-revolutionary role of world Stalinism.

Sidestepping the task of how to build a real communist movement in India-there are now minese and pro-Soviet Uniproby saying this was an internal question for the Indian communists, Dutt played strongly to the nationalist feelings which he assumed his audience, most of them Indians, possessed.

'Chief difference'

Lenin, he said, considered the socialist revolution was decisive for the USSR and Asia and far more important than the revolution in Western Europe.

'This was one of his chief differences with Trotsky, who said that Russian socialism could not succeed unless there was a world revolution!' Lenin, Dutt continued, was right, adding that the Asian revolution was two-thirds completed and that the Indian revolution itself, 'the decisive stage' world socialism, had now reached its A grosser misrepresentation of Lenin, or a grosser complacency in the face of hostile facts, is hard to imagine.

His praise for Nehru was unstinting. By non-alingnment, at a time when the imperialists were proposing military blocks, Nehru was really supporting the Soviet block, he claimed.

The partition of India, the fact that in 1953 even Nehru admitted that imperialist profits here were greater than before "independence', • that the majority of peasants continued to exist at or below subsistence level, with rising prices, starvation and mass unemployment was the responsibility of the imperialists.

'United fight'

What was needed now, he said, was not a 'centralised international communist movement, 'but a 'united fight of the left and all progressive parties'.

When asked to pledge CP to join a . united fight 1D this country with the Young Socialists, he answered that the CP was not interested in 'alliances with impatient little groups who get up and wave a flag.

The Young Socialists will, however, continue fighting to build a centralised international communist movement and will unite with all workers, including CP members, who are fighting against reformism and Stalinism.

R. PALME DUTT:

Praise for Nehru.

Embassy

confirms release of Hass IE POLISH EMBASSY in London this week confirmed that Ludwig Hass, one of several Polish Trotskyists jailed earlier this year for issuing a document criticisthe Polish Workers' Party leaders, has been released.

Hass was sentenced to three years' jail along with Romuald Smiech, Kaismierz Badowski, Karol Mozelewski, Jacek Kuron and others following secret trials.

The embassy official refused to comment on the position of the others, but it is thought they will stay in jail.

In May, the Socialist Labour League and Young Socialists marched to the embassy to ** demand their release.

A resolution •handed in at that time stressed that the demonstration was not hostile to the Polish state, but that like the Stalinists' murderous acts against the Polish Communist Party leadership in 1938 and the jailing of the present Prime Minister, Wladislaw Gomulka, between 1949 and 1956, the present sentences were an attack on the international working class.

MANY DELEGATES were du - conference to raise any real issi only Thursday mörning was devc i But " Wilson hinted quite broadly that all that he was saying about the need to prop up the economy at the expense of the working class would also guide any decision on actions abroad.

* Speakers on this rostrum on Thursday in the foreign policy debate will rightly express themselves in strong terms. But for their speeches to be more than mere they have got to recognise realities we shall be debating on Wed"Hesday?

(Wednesday. was the day of the economic policy debate.) ** In veiled terms, he was again reminding : delegates that the @foreign policy depends on the pound also being boosted by imperialist allies. In return for the money of, for example, the United States, the British government must support Johnson's • policies in Vietnam.

* PRINCIPLES?

Cynically, he also referred to *standing by our principles' . on the Rhodesia question. This: was, he which is now against racialism far more of a divisive and explosive factor in world affairs even than thermo-nuclear power'. Britain Standing by principles, had kept the Commonwealth together!

Principles certainly were not Showing power the Labour government lichtened up on immigration this. country, thereby strengthening whole sections of racialists Who openly attacked coloured people.

"We shall defend those principles, ' Wilson *i continued is-blandly, and" we "have: the right to ask the Conservative Opposition whether' they will at their conference continue to insist that there must be guaranteed and unimpeded progress to majority rule, proof against gerrymandering or any racialist inspired braking mechanism, whether they will bious about the ability of the ues concerning foreign policy as sted to this vast subject.

continue to insist, as we are insistin" is acceptable to the reached people of Rhodesia as a whole, all the people, whether they will insist, as we are insisting, on a real return to legality as a condition for negotiation.?

But what else has it been but 'braking mechanism', in consideration of big business interests in Rhodesia, and not those of the Rhodesian people, which has prevented the African people from regime? Power from the Smith REAL ATTITUDE • Wilson continually referred. to the democracy of the Labour Party and labour movement, and of the right of delegates to express themselves strongly.

But he really summed up the whole right-wing attitude of his speech when he said:

'But I say to this conference —as I said to the TUC-that that influence, that weight, that power to intervene lin great issues], perhaps decisively, that power to lead, all these depend not only on our moral strength, they depend neither on resolutions nor on demonstration, they depend on our material strength, on the mobilisation of our economic power and vigour' (Our emphasis.)

He was saying, in fact, that all the decisions had been made: the Labour government, under Harold Wilson, has decided to make the economy work for capitalism, whatever the expense, and that no conference or opposition Will change that course.

This was an apt reply to those Communist Party shop stewards from Birmingham, led by Mr. Dick Etheridge, who were carrying out their Party's policy of 'pressurising' Mr. Wilson to change his policies.

As one Sunderland miner was heard to say in a Brighton Wilson's speech: This is a restaurant immediately democratic country, but do as your told!'

THE COOLNESS of the reception for Wilson's speech was not simply the coolness of the right-wing delegates at conference.

One of our reporters found that it was an expression, as one Party agent put, 'of that nagging feeling in the back of your head', which was rife throughout the constitutency parties.

The loyal certainly want to remain loyal to the image of the Party and Party leader, but there are growing doubts even amongst this most unthinking section of the labour movement.

Another agent, from a depression area, claimed proudly that direction of industry had slowed down the lay-offs and redundancies in his area.

'But we feel indecisive,' i he said. 'The wage freeze supposd to end in six month's time. But what after that?' If I knew what was coming after the freeze, ! would much more confident in going into a trade union branch to convince members that it was for their good, said another. 'But I don't know, and it worries me? Moray Firth humble, for timate son of a farm labourer, but he was to do more than anyone to ensure that the British ruling class held on to their power.

MacDonald went to London Party, came secretary of the Labour Representation Committee at its foundation in 1900.

This was the body set up by the trade union leaders and the promote independent working-class representation in thas later changed to she abor number of MPs elected increased in the years up to 1914, MacDonald was the main architect of the pacts, accoperiod.

as 1907 trade union leader Ben Tillett wrote that Labour MPs class supports them'.

During the First World War, MacDonald was supposed to be an opponent of the war. But he

DECISIONS TAKEN at the Labour Party conference would not mean a thing—the real decisions have already been täken in Wall Street and Washington, said Gerry Healy, national secretary of the Socialist Labour League in Brighton last DELEGATES from the Lucas-CAV factory who joined Sunday's Sunday. He was speaking to an by New Rep Reporters Wiser 1s

Ramsay MacDonald, like Harold Wilson, was a leader of the Labour Party who came to power at a time of economic crisis. He found himself in this situation only able to carry out policies that attacked the working class. The centenary of MacDonald's birth is a convenient occasion on which to discuss his unhappy career and to show that Wilson has already followed him a long way down the same disastrous road.

JAMES RAMSAY MACDONALD, the most notorious politician in the history of the British labour movement, was born 100 years ago on October 12 1866, in Lossiemouth, a small fishing village on the shores of the never made a principled stand of any kind against the war, merely uttering a few pacifist phrases about 'the nation's honour and its 'tradition'.

In September 1914 he even wrote:

'History will in due time apportion praise and blame, but the young men of this country must, mediate question of victory, im.

In other words, British workers must slaughter as many German workers as possible, whatever the issues involved.

As a result of his alleged stand against the war at this time MacDonald won the reputation as a man of the 'left' and many workers. looked to him for leadership. It was trom the Clydeside, where working-class militancy had been at its strongest, that the 'left' MPs came in 1922 who were decisive in securing the election of MacDonald as leader of the Labour Party.

First government In 1924 the first Labour government was formed with MacDonald as Premier.

One of the main aims of this government has been described as 'to dispel any apprehension as to the government's radicaiism.' The same policy was again pursued when the second Labour government was formed by MacDonald in 1929 in a period of massive economic crisis.

MacDonald maintained that in this situation he could not pursue a policy at variance with the wishes of the British capitalists and the international bankers.

He promised that if workers were willing to accept sacrifice in the short term, eventually there would be a solution to the problems of capitalism. Because no real fight was put up against these policies, the way was open for MacDonald to cut the wage of government employees, to create unemployment that ran into millions, and to cut the dole. These measures pleased the foreign bankers and heralded a decade of misery and suffering for the working class.

The adoption of these Tory policies by MacDonald in 1931 forced him eventually to leave the Labour Party altogether and to join with • the Tories in the so-called National' government.

Some other leaders of the Labour Party condemned MacDonald for this final step, but they had followed every stage in the preparation for Tory rule and working-class misery. They had shared MacDonald's treacherous policies, if not in his political logic.

It is easy now to look back on MacDonald's career as a whole and to condemn the betrayals that ended it. But these were not isolated from the rest of his career.

In 1909 he said that socialists must ignore the class struggle and 'begin with the facts of social unity.

Such a starting point made him quite incapable of anything other than carrying out the dictates of the bankers when he came up against any real problems.

He said in 1924 that 'socialism • must repudiate force', • yet when in power he threatened strikers with the army and carried on the same oppressive policies as the Tories against the colonial peoples.

Before the open class betrayal of 1931 many workers thought that MacDonald should be 'given a chance'.

By failing to build up an alternative to MacDonald in time, they were faced with dole queues and depression. MacDonald's policies from the beginning could only lead to the betrayal and defeat of the working class.

'Left' poses

Harold Wilson, . like MacDonald, has found it convenient to adopt 'lett' poses. In 1951 hith Bered orer the introduction of health charges, but was never part of the Bevanite group.

During the crisis in the Labour Party 10 years later over foreign policy and defence he stood against right-winger Gaitskell for the leadership of the Labour Party.

As with MacDonald in 1914, the reasons for this stand were somewhat obscure. He was opposed Gaitskell's methods rather than to his policies. Yet, as The got the supthe left' MPs who ensured his election as leader of the Labour Party in 1963 after the death of Gaitskell, just 41 years after the election of MacDonald.

Like MacDonald, Wilson has promised workers a golden future without altering the structure of In the 1950s as in the period after the first world war, when employers were able to grant concessions, such policies might have seemed realistic.

In periods of economic crisis like 1931 and 1966, such policies can lead only to defeats and betrayals of the working class.

Wilson's actions and Wilson's policies lead in the same direction as MacDonald's, and to the same defeats and betrayals of the working class.

Only the policies of the Young Socialists and the Socialist Labour League in fighting to build an alternative leadership to Wilson will make it possible to

conference, he said.

The government had dent Johnson.

GERRY HEALY, National Secretary, Socialist Labour League audience of over 1,000 in the Ocean Restaurant, West Pier, following the highly successful demonstration by Young Socialists, workers from the motor car industry, other trade unionists and students through the town (reported on page one).

No one could have any illusions about what was going to happen at the Labour party "This will not be a conference, because all the issues were decided in advance on the day the Labour government came to power in April 1964' in the first few weeks of its office to accept the complete dictation of the • international bankers headed by Wall Street and PresiTIED It had no independence from these forces because British capitalism was tied hand and foot to the economic requirements of this system and all decisions would be taken along these lines, irrespective of what 'left' speeches were made.

"The government has embarked on a policy of attacking the working class because it wants to. . take back from the working class some of the most important gains which the strength of the rank and file has won over the last 20 years, he said, adding: "They are out to make tens of thousands of workers unemployed and reduce our standard of living.

'Whilst we are speaking, meetings are taking place between the employers and the various government ministries, as well as the trade union leaderships, to discuss the invoking of Article IV of the Prices and Incomes Act. The employers will now enjoy the complete backing of this government when they resist all wage demands.' Every strike that is • taken against Article IV could be considered an illegal act.

Trade unionists would now be sent to jail.

'What is the purpose of bringing legislation into force if you are not going to put teeth into it?' he asked.

The Prices and Incomes Act was a capitalist law. The government operating the law was a capitalist government, but different from Tory government because it rested on the working class.

'So, when the struggle of the working class builds up, workers will disown and split from it. Instead of the working class being driven into confusion and disillusionment, the main task is to provide leadership that will prevent them being disillusioned.

ABUSED

'But there is no doubt that the Wilson, workine, he stressed. class will repudiate The confidence of millions of hard-working trade unionists throughout the country had been abused by the government. Not a single Labour candidate had gone to the electorate and said they would create unemployment and put trade unionists in jail.

'Many workers find it hard to believe this government will do what it proposes to do. There is confusion among those threatened with unemployment.

'For so long they have hoped to ta thun employment. it is bing to take a little while, but not too long, for that hope to fade away' Industries most affected by unemployment were the most automated and forward industries today. What would be the position in the other industries when the crisis developed?

It was not just a British crisis. It was international. The dollar was shaky, and the pound was based on the dollar, said Comrade Healy.

Today there was an enormous mass of capital investment that had to be held back.

Production had to be Douglas Jay, drastically reduce president of and when the Board of Trade, had said the dollar should be revalued in relation to gold, he had voiced something : that many capitalists were saying-that devaluation was on the way.

*This conference next week cannot take a single decision which matters one damn. The real decisions are taken in Wall Street and Washington,' Comrade Healy said.

The government was placing legislation on the statute book which would be there when Wilson went out of office. It was establishing the fascist principle by making the state the arbiter of wages and conditions.

TWO SCHOOLS Once the state took over control of wages and working conditions, then trade unions had no existence.

'Only the strength of the working class is left to fight any government which does this,' he said.

There were two schools of thought on how this fight would be waged.

'Ours says that the task is to bulld a leadership, to go amongst all workers threatened by unemployment, to build up a unity between the employed and unemployed, to prevent them being driven into disillusionment, and to explain that all struggles are political.

• The other school of thought says "Do not go into mass action, but go into the courts and ask a judge". Suppose the dockers refuse to operate the Devlin report, then they can be taken into court and forced to by law!

Sir Hartley Shawcross had supported the court action because once the state decided on wages there was no further use for the trade unions. It was a cover up for Wilson.

Comrade Healy then turned and dealt with the role of the so called 'lefts'. They would not visit workers in their trade unions and industries and call for support. They would appear to act on the workers' behalf, but they would not want action.

'We believe the most powerful force is the working class. We build the party by working and fighting with you. They use you and do not want to consult you', he said.

When Wilson made workers unemployed, the fake-'lefts' said, 'Hold back, we are in a bad way'. They did not want to fight Wilson when he fought the working class. Marxists did.

FIGHT TODAY "When Wilson attacks the working class, the working class has no choice but to build up a leadership to fight him. What more could the Tories have done?' he said.

The Tories were extremely cagey. They wanted Wilson in power. They wanted to split the working class. To fight the Tories in the future, Wilson had to be fought today.

"Who is going to control the Iron and Steel Boards? Not the workers who work in the industries. Sir Neil MacDermid and Lord Melchitt, son of Sir Alfred Mond, who proposed after the General Strike that the trade unions should link up with the state. Also Lord-I beg your pardon-Mr. Ron Smith, who Will not fight.

'What more proof do you want that this government is 380666 JOHN POWER, BMC Shop Steward.

capitalist one?' he asked.

The same government would only channel the profits back into private enterprise.

Imperial Chemical Industries, one of the first to announce unemployment, had appealed to the City of London for a loan, which was : oversubscribed cause the financial sharks hoped to re-sell and make a profit on the Stock Exchange.

Capitalists could do this, but workers had to be unemployed.

The war in Vietnam was a continuation of the war waged by Wilson against workers in this country. This was why when workers fight back, they support the workers in Vietnam.

'There is no need to be pessimistic about the coming struggles, said Comrade Healy.

'We have a big fighting front led by the youth who are supported by the Socialist Labour League.

'We are inside the movement and will fight for policies of nationalization and to end the war in Vietnam.

GREAT EFFORT 'We are confident we can build up this movement into a socialist victory, Bo forward to a Opening the meeting, Dave Ashby, national chairman of the Young Socialists congratulated the demonstrators on their magnificent effort, and especially the Young Socialists who had campaigned day in and day out for strong delegations from each area.

Ashby stressed:

'We have not come to Brighton to protest. Nor are we here to persuade Wilson to change his mind.

It is impossible fight against the wage freeze and unemployment today without making an open break from the right-wing Labourites in the government who are directly responsible for this policy' The demonstration had not been organised so that a little 'left' pressure could be exerted on Wilson, but to bring together and organise socialist alternative to Wilson.

'We intend in this meeting to speak out against Wilson and all those who clean break refuse to make a from him, said Ashby.

Frank Cousins, of course, still called the Prime Minister by his name and was expressing some criticisms of the way 'Harold' was carrying out his policies.

'Let us break the silence and say it at this meeting,' Ashby insisted. 'The whole episode of Cousin's departure from the Cabinet was phoney from start to finish; it was riddled with the whole method of the "Tribune'ite —left.

The Young Socialists had called their demonstration for the Labour Party conference in July, knowing full well what Wilson's policy would lead to and the reaction of the lefts'.

It was no accident that the Young Socialists, who had the experience of 12 months' campaigning against the anti-union laws of the government, were out in front making a timely intervention against the policies of the Wilson government.

Ashby's last remark was confirmed by the immediate reaction of adult trade unionists who came to the platform to praise the work and lead of the Young Socialists.

One younger worker from the Lucas-CAV combine in Liverpool said he was overwhelmed with the demonstration and with the sincerity of everyone who was protesting.

He explained the background to the recent strike at LucasCAV where the convenor had been sacked for going from • one factory to another to deal with a dispute (this was reported in last week's Newsletter).

A Sheffield AEU member, in a short and direct speech, said it had been the first time he had been anywhere with the Young Socialists.

1 just want to say how much I appreciate all they have done. l am highly satisfied and I would join them, but I am a bit too old,' he said jokingly.

CORPORATE A shop steward from BMC's Tractor and Transmissions factory in Birmingham said he period the Young Socialist.. long maintained for a •contention that Britain was heading for a corporate state.

He felt that no lead against this could come from the shop floor; they could not resist redundancies without resorting to the 'full means'.

BMC depended for their investment profits on their export markets. They could run out of stocks in six weeks. In six weeks we could win if we stuck together, he said.

One did not have to be a genius to work it out that there would not be a return to fulltime working until the company had 'got a little bit of what they have wanted to impose on us for years'—job evaluation and other methods used by British firms dominated by US capital.

This would mean a large reduction in wages for BMC men.

'The firm wants to create the climate through redundancies to make workers more conditioned to accept these new wage schemes,' he said.

He hoped that the Young Socialists would pursue the campaigns they had been carrying out in the last 12 months with the same zeal. He was pleased to see young people with an interest in politics as they 'soon start finding a road'.

There was only one real road to socialism-through the Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists.

AILEEN JENNINGS, Editor of 'Keep Left' The sacked Lucas convenor claimed he was attacked because of the wage freeze. But there was more than the wage freeze there was now an Act against the trade union movement.

He cited the case of Australia where an Act had been used as a threat, but had now snowballed into a position where the trade unions were completely ineffective. All gains were now made through unofficial action.

If the situation there was linked to England then a man elected by trade union members as their representative in London could be opposed by Birmingham men, and a court action begun against the representative to prevent him taking office.

"The whole trade union structure is being threatened,' he added.

He had waited in vain for people who should act to begin campaigns against this situation. But they had not moved.

I have seen something this weekend to make me realise that there is somebody prepared to act,' he said.

He appealed to the YS not to be impatient with 'those not quite prepared to believe this situation is happening'.

With patience there will be hundreds of thousands who will come and act at your request,' he said. DEGRADATION BMC, Oxford, shop steward John Power said thousands of car workers, some of the most workers in the country, faced a future of degradation.

There had recently been a 28 per cent. cut in production at BMC Oxford; where 6,000 cars had been produced, only 4,000 were now coming off the lines. Yet the company was still stockpiling.

This would mean that many more thousands would lose there jobs and there would be massive redundancy in the trade.

As a steward, he said, he had periods of disappointments.

'But there is always one beacon. That is the Young Socialists. I want to thank you all very much for your action'.

Summing up the discussion, Aileen Jennings, Editor of the YS newspaper 'Keep Left', • said: 'No other organisation but the Young Socialists could organise such a demonstration as the one which has marched through the streets of Brighton today.' The YS had achieved this, she said, because they had always fought on the basis of socialist principles and not on the basis of a compromise with Wilson and demonstration.

the right-wing Labour bureaucracy.

The so-called 'lefts' were completely bankrupt because they relied on reforming through the structure of the Labour government and not through the mobilisation of the working class.

To fight the anti-trade union legislation and unemployment it was necessary to have a movement which could prepare the working class for a struggle against the employers.

"Today we publish our 12-page "Keep Left". For us this is a big advance at a time when the is turning its attention to socialist youth in Europe. will be taking a contingent of 500 to Liege in Belgium on October 15 to meet European youth demonstrating against the war in Vietnam and NATO!

The National Committee of the Young Socialists urged all those at the meeting, both adult trade unionists and Young Socialists, to join this trip and make it the most impressive intervention they have ever organised.

IN THEIR LATEST pamphlet on the current economic crisis, the Communist Party of Great Britain demonstrates once more that it has no policy which can take the working class forward along the road to power. In fact the role of the Stalinists is deliberately to underplay the depth of the crisis and to ignore its international signicance.

Bert Ramelson, industrial organiser of the Party, author of the pamphlet,* suggests that the present crisis can be tackled by means of the following remedies. As usual a few phrases are added about the need to extend public ownership.

• A cut in military penditure abroad; A ban on all capital ports from Britain; An end to the wage freeze, with a strict freeze on all prices; The end of sterling's role as an international currency.

These, briefly, are Ramelson's 'remedies'. • Some are sheer nonsense.

For example, all those who tan the CP in ho Tribune such fail to explain how this is possible within a capitalist economy, where prices are determined by competition between the capitalists on the basis of the struggle for the highest rate of profit.

Cover up

Nor does Ramelson explain who would impose such a freeze. The Labour government?

In fact the Labour government used the 'incomes policy' and 'price control' as a means to cover up its real intention: to impose a freeze on wages alone.

Second, Ramelson argues that a wage freeze is bad for the capitalists.

"Higher wages will not only benefit the wage and salary earners; but by keeping up demand, it can the economy going again, get All one can conclude is that the capitalists are a bunch of misguided fools!

Of course not. Capitalists are always interested in forcing down wages to their lowest possible level; they do not produce goods for the benefit of the working class but in order to make proht, Which is extracted from the labour of the working class.

What of Ramelson's other proposals?

Take the question of overseas investment.

Ramelson proposes that a ban be placed on this-it imposes a terrible strain on 'our balance of payments.

Last year £300 million was privately invested abroad.

But again the question arises, if the capitalists know that this imposes a strain on their externai payments, why do they conpolicy for the crisis tinue to send such sums abroad?

In fact in the last 10 years they have sent abroad over £3,000 million of capital.

A similar trend is true of the United States which has again produced serious balance of payments strains.

Again, it is all connected with that six letter word 'profit'.

For British capitalism over the last two decade's net income from overseas investment (i.e., income over and above that paid to holders of capital invested by foreign concerns in this country has totalled more than £5,000 million.

A section of the capitalist class draws its major source of income from these activities and would be quite horrified at Mr. Ramelson's suggestion!

Without outlets for capital exports, this mass of capital Which nas gone abroad would have hac to find profitable outlets at home in competition with other capital and with wage rates often considerably higher in the British economy, than they are abroad.

Little need be said on question of military expenditure.

The pattern of this expenditure, concentrated as it is in the Middle East, South East Asia and for NATO forces in Europe, is inseparably bound up with the maintenance of British imperialism and its markets and raw materials throughout the world.

To call on the Labour government to slash this expenditure is to ask them to agree to the winding up of British imperialism and break up of NATO. They give no indication of doing either.

Finally Ramelson calls for the end of the role of the pound as an international currency. only snag here is that such 'remedy' plans of the Us, Contrary to the The only reason for the massive support given by President Johnson to the pound since 1964 is that a devaluation of sterling would wreak havoc in the international monetary system.

It would lead to a certain valuation of the dollar with a peat of the disastrous cycle devaluations of the 30s.

Ramelson makes absolutely no mention international character of the crisis and ir is a British treet. origin in Wall For him question alone.

In fact Stalinism is unable to face up to these questions. Its role is to cover up the bureaucracy in its 'own' labour movement. It can have no international outlook.

In any case the end of the role of the pound and with it that of the sterling area would hit sections of the capitalists at home in a direct way.

Over £200 million is earned by the activities of the City" of London each year in shipping, insurance banking and other services. All this income would be lost if the capitalists were to carry out Ramelson's advice.

In other words the document is a real cover up for the actual problems facing the working class.

In dealing with the fight against the wage freeze Ramelson is of course unable to say one word about the role of the YS in this campaign, supported as they were throughout by the Socialist Labour League.

He is also unable to make one point of criticism of those "lefts' in Parliament, not one of whom either voted against the Prices and Incomes Act or led the slightest semblance of a campaign against it.

The actual process by which the Bill became law is strangely missing from Ramelson's account!

Frank Cousins receives

criticism for his lack of any leadership: the fact that he sat in the Cabinet for over .18 months while the Bill was being actively prepared.

Service

Cousins' letter of resignation from the government, says Ramelson, did a positive service. It ... disclosed what many had long suspected, that the deflationary budgets reducing demand by utting our spending power, were dictated by the bankers of Wall Street and Zurich'.

In fact of course, as Ramelson knows full well, the YS and SLL had pointed this out right from the refusal of Wilson to give an immediate rise to the pensioners in October 1964.

Ramelson's only 'perspective' is closer work with the official machine to defeat the anti-trade union laws.

"The rank and file should not shrink from unofficial action in certain circumstances but such action should not be seen, not as some ultra lefts do, as directed against the official movement, but its aim should be to move the official moveaction against the freeze and the Prices and Incomes Act, and to bury once and for all the incomes policy in whatever form it appears.' The Trades Union Congress conference at Blackpool showed that the official leadership, far from being able to fight this Act has been the main instrument, along with Wilson and company, in bringing it on to the Statute Book.

As the crisis develops these leaders will swing further to the right, despite Ramelson's hope that they can be pushed to the left, a 'theory' which he holds in common with all the revisionists of whatever hue.

The present economic and political policies of Wilson will only be defeated by a new leadership which can mobilise the rank and file of the working, class against the official leaderships. In this fight an all-out battle with Stalinism and an exposure of its role, in theory and practice, is absolutely essential. * Incomes Policy: The Great Wage Freeze Trick?

Bert Ramelson CPGB 1s.

Page F

"Traitor, traitor, TRAITOR!.

Wilson, looking tense and unsure of himself, was unable to speak until car workers' leaders appealed to the crowd to 'hear what he's got to say'.

For a moment there was silence, and ine frime vunister got as lar as 'ot course you nave a perfect right to come here today ..: waen a turiner storm 0I boos and shouls drowned his words. It was surely the most daunting example of workers' nosumy to a Labour Party leader for many a decade.

Nearly 450 car workers from Birmingnam Midianas special train on a demonstration organised BMC Joint shop stewards' There were delegates also from bachgate and trom Llanelli.

Wilson finally retired into the hotel to discuss the situation with twelve representatives of the car men. These included Dick Etheridge and D. Robinson, oi the Longbridge BMC factory, Arthur Harper of fractors and Transmissions, and Peter Nicholas, of the Rover factory, Birmingham, all prominent Communist Party members.

BMC workers had last weekend received the first batch of redundancy notices.

Austin men In the demonstration described the present situation *a Vicious spiral downwards', in which work schedules in the factory would not be maintained and further redundancies would be the inevitable result.

Ignorance

With regard to finding native jobs. they said Ministers were talking from ignorance' when they suggested it would be easy.

There were, for example, one hundred and one different trades among toolroom workers, all employing different skills. None of these could do the job of the others except after retraining, which might take a considerable time:

While the car workers were waiting for the results 'of their leaders' discussion with Wilson, two Midland Labour MPs had an uncomfortable time trying to "sell' the government's measures to a big gathering of workers on the seatront. Chapman. MP for Northfield (the Longbridge factory is in his constituency) tried to mollify the workers by reminding them that he had once stood on the picket lines' with car men on strike.

He declared that he did not support government policy which had brought about this situation. He deplored the use of 'this crude, blunt instrument which knocks the car industry and you chaps for six' CAR WORKERS outside the Grand Hotel, Brighton, In centre toreground is Dick Etheridge, CP convenor at Austins (wearing glasses). and make known his conclusions in his speech later in the Conference!

Etheridge said the car workers must continue to use all the pressure in their power, and if it produced nothing, to go to wherever Wilson was and take it up with him again.

sending load of sendint. a letter.

Bob Hilton, T&GWU steward at Morris Motors, said that Etheridge and the other Communist Party stewards who had gone into the Grand Hotel with Wilson, had been taken in by the Prime Minister's glibness.

He absolutely flummoxed them, and nothing's been achieved,' he added.

They all resented, the fact that Etheridge had been telling a joke about BMC chief Sir George Harriman while our lads are getting the sack.

Certainly many others felt the same as the Oxford workers.

Despite the big build up for Etheridge as he came, cloth capped, from the hotel, led by an Irish piper and hordes of Fleet Street and television representatives, his report back fell flat and swamped the anger and enthusiasm of the workers he had brought all the way from Birmingham. cut-back

HAROLD WILSON was publicly repudiated by hundreds of redundant and short-time car workers and by London busmen, dockers and engineers gathered outside his hotel on the first day of the Labour Party Conference. A burst of booing had previously greeted the appearance of James Callaghan, Richard Crossman, Roy Jenkins and other Labour Party leaders: But the reception given to these could not compare with swelling roar of rejection which met Wilson as he came down the steps. This crystallised into rhythmic chanting of • Conference endorsi BY NEWSLETTER The government was at fault in that it had not yet evolved a system of putting on the brake gently in place of this 'disproportionate smack in the teeth'.

He was asked if at any stage he had voted against the government's freeze and anti-union measures. His reply was:

'No, I take no steps which would bring a Labour government down.' A worker shouted 'you've got a ma,ority of 97 now, mate, not four'.

Pressed, he admitted that he intended to vote for Part IV oi the Prices and Incomes Act, giving the government compulsory powers to enforce the freeze. He pleaded that the government 'didn't particularly want to enforce Part IV' but their hand had been forced by the actions of such people as Clive Jenkins (general secretary of ASSET) in going to the courts for a verdict against employers who observed the freeze.

There was a howl from the workers at this reply.

Result same

Another car worker said:

'For all this talk of using a soft instead of a blunt instrument, the result would be the same. Labour should have got away from Tory solutions and Tory policies to a Labour policy, with a bloody great dose of socialism in it?

This was loudly cheered by the workers.

•What the government and employers want is fewer men working in the factories producing more for lower wages, and don't you be kidded into thinking all this is for any other reason, he added.

Christopher Rowlands, MP for Meriden, also admitted that he intended to vote for Part IV. It was necessary. in his view, order to make legal the freeze on Mr. Callaghan thought it discreet to pass on.

Anticipation had been well built up by the time Etheridge returned from his conference with Harold Wilson. He had kept his lobbyists waiting 70 minutes. As he began to speak, there was only a short time available before the men had to catch their train back to the Midlands.

He was obliged to admit that the Prime Minister had 'made no commitment to us at all'.

He had agreed to refer all points to the appropriate Ministry Oxiora stewaras incensed by CP tacties THERE WAS an even more angry reaction from some shop stewards from the BMC factory at Cowley, Oxford, after Etheridge had given the report back of his meeting with the Prime Minister.

"They said the discussion had been "fruitful" and then they come out and say they can't get anything now, there will be details later. It's a load of cod's wallop,' commented John Power, BMC service shop steward.

"They are precisely in the same position as when they went in, he added.

It's fair enough to plan further action, but to pretend you have got something when you haven't is to completely mislead the lads?

Jack Cartwright, another BMC service steward, said: 'We were hoping to hear something definite. But it was the sort of reply you could have got by

wages and prices. There were shouts of 'nonsensel when prices were mentioned.

Bill Jones, chairman of the Transport and General Workers Union, said the government was carrying out in every way the policies the Tories carried out before them, 'only a little harsher'.

They were completely bankrupt of any ideas how to solve the problem.

Gunter, Wilson, Callaghan and Brown could like it or lump it, but if any members of his union took action against this diabolical policy, the union would support them.

At this point workers caught sight of Callaghan on the other side of the road. On the loudspeaker attached to a van they shouted a challenge to him to 'come and confront the people who are being thrown on the streets by your policy'.

For the rest, Callaghan's stateA CUT-BACK in the maintenance and overhaul of BOAC aircraft due to the lack of spares now looms over the heads of thousands of engineering staff based at London (Heathrow) Airport.

Presumably, the same situation exists at BEA, because this is not due to this mismanagement of the two corporations, but is a direct result of Wilson's and the international bankers' credit s legal wag after very serious consideration that we decided that the standstill must apply to them as well as to every other type of income for a limited period.' For the future the government would be anxious to allow such agreements to go through 'provided they serve the national interest as well as the interests of the workers and the employers concerned: that is to say they will need to be directly linked with productivity improvements and not paid simply on account'.

For the failure of the voluntary system, Callahan| blamed trade unionists who said 'we will challenge the government at every opportunity and exert our legal rights to the full'.

The consequences of this attitude, he declared, would be that 'the nation would be faced with the collapse of the standstill. That is what some people want: that is why they issued the challenge. They are opposed to the standstill. They are unwilling to stand back and some of the most vociferous, who are also some of the highest paid, are determined that nothing will stop them'.

This was clearly a slap at the car workers who on Monday booed him 'vociferously' as he left his hotel.

Callaghan lamented a little over the prospect that 'profits over the next year will not increase and may well fall. This will, in its turn, have its own effect on distributions, including dividends'.

'Nevertheless' he declared soon?

squeeze.

This squeeze is designed to bring about mass unemployment and cut back production in the engineering industries.

Any lack of required spares will hold up overhaul work and could very possibly lead to the managements trying to enforce short-time working or even complete redundancies.

The third and last instalment of a local three-year package deal was due to be paid this October, = freezing 'companies are expected to conform • with the general principle of not increasing their dividends and to consult with the Treasury where there is any question of doubt.' No question here of fines and imprisonment. Companies are merely 'expected' to conform.

"There may not be perfect justice or perfect equity in the policy we are following', admitted Callaghan. He is certainly telling Car workers have already shown him how much justice and equity they see in his policies.

ENV RETURN WORKERS WHO have been locked out of the ENV engineering factory in Willesden, North London, for a week following their refusal to take part in stock taking are being asked by the management to return to normal working on • Monday. The ENV factory is under notice of closure, but no date has yet been given by the US-based management.

A meeting of 900 of the workers on Tuesday night passed resolutions against the factory's closure, phased redundancy and the lock out.

On Wednesday, 50 ENV workers lobbied the Labour Party conference and met union officials and MPs.

The firm's plea for a return to work is claimed as a 'partial victory' by the shop stewards. but is now frozen by the wage freeze.

The BOAC joint shop stewards' committee insists' that this should be paid. But this insistence' can be determined by a statement the stewards have issued referring to the agreement.

The statement was addressed to TUC delegates. It outlined the package areement signed in 1963 which gave the workers a consolidated rate, better holidays, sickness and pension benefits and a 40-hour week in return for flexibility of labour, work study methods, ends of certain demarcation lines and other concessions.

This helped BOAC gain increased productivity of 9.3 per cent in 1963-1964 and 13 per cent in 1964-1965, the statement said.

Cost per capacity ton mile decreased from 3.3d to 2.92d, saving of £1,774,917 on 1,121,000,000 capacity ton miles produced.

Further improvements are possible, says the statement, "improvements which will serve the nation's interests as well as those of the industry itself'.

It asks what will happen to the third payment of the package deal now the wage freeze is in torce. It asked TUC delegates to reject the wage freeze and incomes policy 'in its present form'.

Many of the shop stewards are Communist Party members or sympathisers of the Party whose policy is to go as far as possible with the management without involving the workers in any real struggle to better their wages and conditions.

The above statement is typical of the CP-compromise covered over by fake militancy.

Next in line will probably be a long, drawn-out, go slow or work to rule as part of the 'insistence', which will lead to demoralisation amongst the workers.

Instead workers should call for a massive strike involving both BOAC and BEA, as well as calling for support from other engineering industries like the motor • car industry; action on this scale is necessary if airport engineering workers are to maintain their relatively high standard of living.

He reiterated 'we are prepared the extent that you are prepared to follow us, but we must not conduct ourgovernmen in ace of a Labour Lest the car workers should begin to think they had come a long way for very little, he said:

"The lack of consultation with the unions was discussed, and the Prime Minister seemed conabout this point. In spite of what some people have been saying about collusion, he denied he had had any conversation with BMC before their announcement. I prefer to believe him rather than the employers; so tar as 1 am concernec a man is telling the truth til he's proved a liar.

No strikes Etheridge said they had asked Wilson if he could postpone redundancy notices till further consultation had taken place, and had assured him that they did not want strikes and trouble!

He concluded triumphantly 'We think we have done a good job. We did not think we the Prime Minister! Should see good measure threw in a tribute to the police, who in his view had handled the demonstration 'a bit more sensibly than usual'.

Such a complete abdication of leadership by both Labour MPs and Communist Party "leaders' must have made it clear to many militant workers that the urgent task before them is to develop a new leadership capable of waging a victorious struggle against Wilson and the employers. Newsletter Reporter 'YOU HAVE been offered a razor to cut your own throat with, and have been told that if you don't someone will cut your head off! This was how George Doughty, leading official of the Draughtsmen's and Allied Technicians'' Association, described the so-called 'voluntary' wage freeze policy to a meeting in Birmingham.

Together with the Association of Supervisory Staffs, Executives and Technicians and the Association of Scientific Workers, DATA called the meeting to discuss the crisis facing trade unionists.

Doughty compared the threat of penal sanctions against trade unionists to the situation in Italy under Mussolini's corporate state.

In Germany between 1933 and 1939 there had been a Labour Front wholly subservient to the government, and any trade unionists not complying were 'clobbered' and usually ended up in a concentration camp.

The very term 'a parliament of industry' had first been used by Oswald Mosley to describe a 'classless' organisation of employers and employed whose function was to control wages, with sanctions against the employed.

This new situation was not happening in a Britain under a Conservative government. It was happening in •a Labour Britain 'under our friends and our own party.

Crushing unions

The legislation now hanging over the heads of trade unionists would just about crush the life out of the unions.

Clive Jenkins, general secretary of ASSET. said it was a question of whether there was in fact a crisis or whether the government was simulating a crisis in order to do something it wanted to do.

CLIVE JENKINS: 'No crisis' claim He did not believe there was a crisis. Every worker thrown out of work was thrown out unnecessarily.

An Amalgamated Engineering Union member present said:

'I disagree with Clive Jenkins that there is no crisis. There is a crisis of capitalism all over the world which starts right in America. It can only be resolved in one way; the capitalist system must be overthrown and all industries taken over.' He asked:

'What is Wilson preparing? Who will operate the state after this government? There are all the ingredients here of a fascist state. It must not be forgotten that it was the trade union unions' rights. Voted away the leaders Another trade unionist said:

'Capitalism needs a smaller labour force; that is the reason for the short-time and unemployment at the present time. Those dismissed will not get back. The socialist answer is the nationalization of industry and the land.

We are not going to have the 30s back with misery and unemployment' LEADERS avoid these defeats in ing period.

A celebration dinner is to be held in the House of Commons to remember MacDonald, and Wilson will be one of the main guests.

Will he explain then how his policies differ from those of MacDonald?

Will he explain why 'socialist' MacDonald acted at the behest of the bankers and cut the dole and created unemployment?

Will Wilson explain how he expects his policies to lead anywhere but to the open class betrayals of MacDonald?

Will Wilson explain why he too needs to attack the working class in order to achieve 'socialism'?

In the tace of this hypocrisy workers will have to demand:

• Throw out the WilsonMacDonald traitors!

Fight to build the Young Socialists and for policies of nationalization and workers' control as the only solution to the economic crisis! Any other policy merely open:

he wav tor worse unemplovmeni and misery than in the 30s. LEEDS

LEEDS BUSMEN, who are operating a no-standing_ban, were last week attacked by Alderman Rafferty, Labour head of the transport committee. He called on passergers to ignore the ban, to continue standing when asked not to by the conductor, and to press the bell if they considered that the bus should stop to pick up more passengers.

Since this statement, the extreme-Tory 'Yorkshire Evening Post' has conducted a witch-hunt against busmen both through its editorial and correspondence columns.

Needless to say, they have given complete support to Rafferty.

In the last few days there have been repeated cases of abuse and assaults against busmen. "It is reported that a shop steward is off work as the result of a wrist injury he received.

The busmen are acting to force the transport committee to pay an agreed increase of 9s 3d a week which has been stopped by the pay freeze.

There has been an attempt to set other workers against the busmen and pass off the difficulties caused to workers by the pay freeze as the fault of busmen. The real reason for the long bus queues in Leeds is the fact that the Corporation short of 600 bus workers: it is claimed wages and conditions are so bad that it is impossible to recruit them.

NO LEAD In this situation, the busmen's union (the Transport and General Workers' Union) has given real lead from its officials. The union local leadership has failed to explain the political reasons for their members' conditions and has merely told them, even after Rafferty's remarks, not to go too far.

Despite all this, the bus crews' support for the ban is solid. It is reported that crews from the Yorkshire Woollen District Co. and other private bus companies around Leeds are taking supporting action.

A meeting to discuss the ban was called for Wednesday evening.

Three busmen, who felt that the union leadership might call off the ban, told the 'Yorkshire Evening Post':

'We can see an end to the no standing ban in the near future. You can see, day by day, that the relationship between us and the public is deteriorating.' They said that Rafferty's statement was like inciting a riot'they had faced abuse and threats for several days.

Queues in the city, they said, were not caused by the no standing ban, but by the staff shortage, which means that the correct number of buses is not running.

Quite a few busmen had left the service since Rafferty's remarks.

The men quoted from the manual issued by the transport department that no passenger must 'enter or remain in or on a vehicle when requested not to do so by the authorised person ...

when the vehicle is carrying its full complement.

One said: 'Our union says we should not carry standing passengers, and therefore complement is made up then, "ul)

LATE NEWS: At a meeting on Wednesday, 700 Leeds busmen decided to call off the standing passengers ban. Union officials claimed to have got agreement with the city council on negotiations over a bonus scheme, and an apology from Rafferty-in fact he has not withdrawn his advice o passengers to stand, only delored the assaults on bus crews.

T&GWU officials have not got any written agreement on negotiations, and many of the busmen felt they had been sold out after having dutifully followed the official union call to implement the ban several weeks ago.