Cheddington—The Reckoning
In just thirty-two minutes during the morning of April 16th, twelve men were sentenced to a total of 307 years imprisonment for their part in the great train robbery. Seven of the unfortunates received thirty years apiece and even the lowest sentence—on John Wheater the solicitor—was three years. Well might The Guardian describe the sentences next day as “a break from tradition", and point out that even in murder cases, a long term is only occasionally given.
It is no part of our business to argue for either side in the case, or to fall in with the idiocy of Methodist Dr. Donald Soper, who condemned the severity of the penalties but wanted Anglicans and Methodists to co-operate in working out a “Christian punishment". Justice Edmund Davies anyway would have had his reply — “A grave crime calls for a grave punishment"—and could probably quote plenty of Bible references and Christian ethics to support him. Probably, too, the majority of people would agree with him, although not without a sneaking admiration for the sheer daring and ingenuity of the whole plot.
Most of those sentenced said they would appeal, but whatever the outcome of this, it is worth repeating the point we made at the time. Those who practice armed robbery are just as much supporters of private property as any capitalist. The robbers of the Cheddington train, did on a much smaller scale of course, what whole groups of capitalist powers do when they go to war from time to time. There is no basic difference, even down to the detail of carving up the spoils afterwards.
In pronouncing sentence, the judge admitted that the crime in its enormity was the first of its kind in the country, and said “I propose to do all within my power to ensure that it will be the last". Which brings us face to face with the old question: does punishment prevent crime? The judge talked earnestly of deterring others “similarly tempted" but clearly failed to face up to the fallacy in his own argument. The thought of punishment obviously did not deter the men who did the robbery. It is too much to imagine that most of them at least had not weighed the possibility of arrest as one of the risks of the game, and carried on planning it just the same. In fact it has been seriously suggested that the Cheddington venture was financed from the proceeds of previous robberies, and if this is true, the deterrent power of punishment has obviously been sadly overrated
No, crime is just one of the many facets of capitalist society and neither punishment nor a police force can stop it. For the modern criminal has merely responded to the conditions of a scientific and technological age, himself becoming a technician, mastering the know-how of oxyacetylene cutters, explosives, electrical gear and many other gadgets in the practice of his work. So that most of the time it is a see-saw battle between the police with all their modern means of detection and the boys who seek to outwit them. A battle, after all, between those who already own private property and those who want to take some of it from them. How can this sort of problem be solved by one set of robbers punishing another? The conditions of robbery of any sort must go, and that means the end of capitalism.
Health Charges and Hypocrisy
Perhaps one thing about being a member of H.M. Opposition in The Commons is that you can get away with just that bit more hypocrisy than H.M. Government. After all, the electors won’t blame you for things which go wrong while the other lot are in power and workers’ political memories are notoriously short. Anyway, it is about thirteen years since the last Labour government.
And thirteen years is a long enough time to forget the indignities of Labour rule, to forget that quite a number of present Tory policies had their origins in the years of Labour government, and that the Tories have been no more successful in solving working class problems.
Maybe then you would have missed the point of the statement made in the Commons on April 20th by Mr. Kenneth Robinson, Labour M.P. for St. Pancras North and Shadow Minister of Health. The next Labour government would, he said with a flourish, end prescription charges without making cuts anywhere else in the health service to make way for it. Now does your memory stretch back far enough to recall that the very first charges of this sort were imposed by the 1950 Labour government ? But not a whisper of this from Mr. Robinson.
Such a pledge will of course go down well with pensioners and others, whose plight forces them lo count every penny they spend. At the same lime it gives us an inkling of the contempt in which Labourites as well as Tories hold those who vote for them, the assumption being that a miserable few shillingsworth of pep pills and potions mark the limits of working class ambitions. Ironically and tragically, though, this is pretty near the truth, because working class ignorance means that arguments over crumbs like this can often cause a heated election tussle, while a terrifying problem like nuclear war can be all forgotten.
But health charges or H-bombs, the one thing which does not occur to workers is that they have their origin in the Capitalist system. Stubborn in their political ignorance, they hope to eliminate these problems and leave the cause intact—and that perhaps is the supreme irony of all.
Good Grivas
It’s funny how in the field of statesmanship, supposed enemies of yesterday can become friends of today, and vice versa, depending on the needs of the various ruling groups at the time. History is full of such instances. Stalin after 1945 for example. That was a right-about-turn if ever you saw one. Forgotten were the days when he was a comrade in arms of Churchill and Roosevelt, as the cold war got under way, and more than once the world was pushed perilously close to the brink of another major war. Now the pendulum could be swinging the other way as China develops and Mao becomes the bogyman of the Russian rulers. Then there is President de Gaulle with whom the British government must on many occasions have sworn eternal friendship, but who has been cutting up rough against British interests in Europe and pursuing his own semi-isolationist policies. Will he be the villain of the piece at some future date?
Take a look as the struggle in Cyprus. A few years ago, Makarios was interned in the Seychelles, only to come back later and shake hands over a peace agreement. But the peace was short lived and the British press rediscovers the blood-stained hands of the Cypriot president. Then into the news steps Grivas, another former enemy of earlier years, described by The Guardian of April 13th as “the brains of terrorism”.
General George Grivas was prominent for his direction of the campaign against the British from 1955 to 1959, and waged a ruthless struggle against an equally ruthless enemy, with murderous attacks against soldier and civilian alike. So in your innocence you might be astounded to see The Guardian editorial, again of April 13th, saying this about him:
. . . Whether we like it or not, Grivas is a man of influence, purpose, and decision, and ex-enemies with these qualities have helped us mightily in the past. . . If the General does go back . . . it might not be the worst thing that has happened to the Cypriots lately. The combination of a strong general and a weak president is not usually desirable, but in a country as lawless as Cyprus it can often bring peace more quickly, even if it does not bring justice.
A few years ago no name was too bad for this Grivas as British troops hunted (but never caught) him from one place to another. But times are changing, and with them the whole balance of strategy in the Mediterranean. What’s the betting they'll he pinning a medal on his chest yet?
Status Symbols
The world is full of them, and workers are among their most ardent supporters. What are we talking about? Status symbols of course. In a sane world where things were produced for use, you would expect an outlook in keeping with it. People would have a pride in producing the best at any given time because this would be the only way to give satisfaction to anyone, either in producing or using a particular article. Within Socialism, therefore, we would take great pride in producing things and in using them but not in owning them.
For pride of ownership is one of the false values that arise from capitalist society, where the forces of production are geared to the profit motive, and social approbation for a person is usually in direct ratio to the amount of wealth he owns, not to his usefulness to society as a whole. It is not surprising then that the status symbol has such a firm place in working class affections, and is encouraged by the advertising blurbs with words like ". . . You can be the proud owner of a . . . " But more than that, for many the status symbol is the pie thin crust that conceals the poverty beneath. This is the explanation for the paradox of enormous (mainly second-hand) cars often parked outside the slummiest dwellings, in Windsor a few years ago, over two hundred houses were checked by the G.P.O. and found to have T.V. aerials— but no sets.
Since then, the T.V. craze has slowed down, and people arc beginning to discover that cars are not an unmixed blessing in present frantic road conditions. Anyway, a status symbol loses its purpose if everyone has it so when this happens, the seekers must turn their eyes elsewhere. One certainty is that they will never stop looking. According to The News of the World recently, sun tans are now much sought after, and for as little as thirty shillings you can get your neighbour thinking you’ve just come back from a spell in the south of France. A travel agency in London's West End has started a sun bathing salon with ultra-violet lamps, to acclimatise their clients before they go abroad. Now they find that the majority of those using the salon are not going abroad anyway.
Pitiful, you might think? Tragic would be a better word, and as damning an indictment of capitalism as any. This is the system which never lets us really be ourselves, untrammelled and unashamed, but subjects us all the time to the strain of pretence. For many workers self-delusion plays a part in all this—the vain hope that maybe the pretence will one day be transformed into reality if they can only keep it going long enough and strong enough. Socialism, if it did nothing else, would release us from that sort of indignity at least.
Eddie Critchfield
No comments:
Post a Comment