The Common Market Special Survey: 1. The Background (1962)

From the January 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

A shiver of apprehension is running through the national press as cabinet ministers and captains of industry set about the task of preparing the public for what to expect if Britain’s application to join the Common Market should be accepted. Mr. Macmillan calls it “a bracing cold shower we shall enter, not a relaxing Turkish bath” and one of the industrial bosses thinks it will rather be “an icicled channel swim at nought degrees Centigrade.” Prophecy is dangerous, but the chances are that within 15 months from now this country will be part of the European Economic Community.

What reasons do the British ruling class put forward for having to join the Common Market? Why should Britain shift the traditional centre of gravity of her economy from the Commonwealth to Europe? Why should she wish to wind up the European Free Trade Area (EFTA) she had only recently been instrumental in creating? And what effects will this have upon the British working class?

Weakened and impoverished by the ravages of World War II, the rump of continental Europe lay prostrate in front of the Iron Curtain, useless to the bloc of Western powers dominated by the United States of America as a profitable market, useless in the game of power politics as a defence against the rival bloc grouped around the Soviet Union. Only an economically healthy Europe would offer reasonable guarantees of safety to the American world of finance and industry. And so from the dust and ashes there arose new life, frantic activity, a giant mesh of scaffolding throughout Western Europe, factories, banks, stores, communications shot up at breakneck speed—financed by a massive programme of American aid and investment. The Marshall Plan "of which the sole condition was that the countries of Europe must band together and agree upon a joint recovery programme.”

British industrialists watched with consternation ultramodern plant swinging into action across the channel. But with both the home market and the Commonwealth, with its established system of preferential duties, crying out for manufactured goods after the shortage and wastage of the war years, profits were still secure in spite of outdated plant and methods.

Powerful vested interests were haunted by the fear of a resurgent Germany, the spectre of Krupp and Thyssen—the giants of the Ruhr and the power behind the expansionist militarism both of Prussia and Nazi Germany. German industry was not to be permitted to swallow all the plums in the new Europe. Markets, capital, labour and raw materials were to be divided fairly between the power groups. By 1953 the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was a going concern comprising the coal and steel industries of Federal Germany, France, Italy and Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands and Luxemburg). The Origins of the Common Market.

There was one weak link; Belgian coal was too expensive. Throughout the mining belt across the south of Belgium mines were shut down and miners were out of work in their thousands. But the Belgian mine owners had been helped over the critical period with massive subsidies from the international High Authority administering ECSC. Capitalism had pulled a new card from its sleeve. For coal and steel, ECSC meant larger markets, bigger production, better exploitation of capital and labour, fewer irksome administrative barriers, discriminations and quotas. Why not extend the idea to the economy as a whole?

By March, 1957, there was signed the Treaty of Rome which launched the six participants in ECSC on the road towards the Common Market. Its object was:

“To permit goods to travel freely without Customs Duties or quota restrictions, throughout the area of the Six and thus to permit manufacturers to invest on the scale that modern technology makes possible and necessary.”

Customs duties between the Six were to be whittled down progressively in three successive phases of four years each. At the same time a uniform external tariff wall was to be erected around the Six. Allowance was made for differences between the Six in terms of industrial development and efficiency or productivity, for differences in wage levels between member countries. It was obvious that the impact of a progressive crumbling of Customs duties would have serious effects on certain industries and even countries. To soften the impact the Six adopted a device successfully tried out by the Benelux countries from the start of their Customs Union almost immediately after the last war—a Compensation Tax. Being flexible, this tax can be used to ensure, in the interest of the ruling class of the Six as a whole, that individual national groups of an industry do not cause too much of a disturbance in any specific field.

Big industry and banking seized the opportunity with both hands; American capital poured into the Six. Displaced Persons, human flotsam, waiting to be employed as cheap labour, were overflowing in German refugee camps. Italy, where starving millions were considered a potential communist threat, had been given a major blood transfusion of U.S. dollars and was starting a massive programme of industrialisation with huge reserves of agricultural labour waiting to be drawn off the land in Southern Italy and fed onto the new industrial treadmill.

Developments were rapid. Before the end of the first four-year period the programme of whittling down of Customs Duties had been exceeded by 18 months. Inter-Common Market tariffs are now 30 per cent. below their 1957 level and may be 50 per cent. down by the end of this year. The process may be completed by 1965 if not before.

In the meantime the British ruling class was taking only a modest interest in the Common Market. How modest will be seen from the fact that that even as late as 1960 British private direct investment within the Six (excluding oil and insurance) amounted to no more than £21 million as compared with £208 million invested in the Sterling Area outside the United Kingdom during the same period. In a good many fields British industry was not even interested in exports of any kind. These were the people who could sell all they could manufacture in the home market behind the cover of a high protective tariff wall and in the expectation that the halcyon days were here to stay. Their plant was being amortized at a comfortable rate and foreign competition could not touch them. To break into the fiercely competitive outside world meant hard work, expense, lower profit margins. Why bother?

But in the Commonwealth things had been happening. Preferential treatment of British goods had disappeared under a great many headings in the Customs Tariffs of Commonwealth countries which are fast building up a market for their products in Europe.

Nonetheless certain Commonwealth countries, notably New Zealand, still depended largely on the British market for their livelihood and raised vociferous objections to any thought of a British commitment with the Six unless their special interests were safeguarded.

Powerful British interests also disliked intensely the possibility of a political entanglement with the Six.

It was all too complicated. Couldn’t the remaining uncommitted countries of Europe (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Portugal) be brought into some form of association more to the liking of the British ruling class, without the embarrassment of. political implications and interference with existing Commonwealth trade? Their 97 million people (including the United Kingdom) would not compare with the home market of 170 millions of the Six, but it was better than nothing. And it would strengthen Britain’s hand in any later approaches to the Six. Thus was born the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) or “The Seven.” Finland has since joined making EFTA “The Eight.” Its purpose was to be strictly limited to the progressive reduction of Inter-EFTA Customs Duties and quantitive restrictions.

Now the prospect of an enlarged Common Market of 250 million people or more discriminating against U.S. goods is beginning to alarm the American capitalists. Already pressure groups are at work promoting a direct U.S. participation in the Common Market. This, to quote, the Herter report, “with its highly developed industrial and technological complex and its disciplined workers, would comprise the most efficient workshop in the world” where since 1958 trade among the Six had risen by about 50 per cent. . . .

What is involved in the British application to join the Six, for industry and finance, and what does it mean to the British working class?

If agreement should not be forthcoming, British industry could well find itself faced across the Channel with a fast-expanding, highly efficient and ultramodern competitor of great striking power. Many British manufactured products may disappear from the markets of the world which would entail a major re-alignment of industry. The usual flow of capital from the weak to the strong will be accelerated. The harder it became to export finished goods, the more British capital might have to seek investment abroad for overseas manufacture, albeit in return for smaller profits.

Designed to fit the present requirements of Western capitalist society, the Common Market has, like any other capitalist institution, no permanence. It will be discarded when it ceases to be profitable. To the British worker it reinforces the constant threat for the worker under capitalism of insecurity and unemployment,

Tisserand.

The Common Market Special Survey: 5. The Commonwealth (1962)

From the January 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is going to be a trying time for our politicians. British capitalism has been forced, after much dithering, to face up to the harsh realities of its own world. No more can it ignore the increasing challenge to its position in a highly competitive world market, and the fact that the relatively easy markets of the British Commonwealth are no longer sufficient to offset this. As The Observer pointed out almost three years ago:

“At the moment the Commonwealth accounts for nearly half our trade but it would be foolish to pretend that it offers anything like the growing market of Europe.”

This must be a major consideration to our rulers, despite the high-flown claptrap which they have talked on occasions about “Commonwealth family of Nations.” So Britain goes cap in hand to “the Six” and Tory Ministers make a flying tour of the major Commonwealth Countries in an effort to ride out the inevitable storm of protest which their decision has aroused.

Since the end of the Second World War in particular, successive Governments have never tired of telling us how important it is that Britain should export more and more. So perhaps we may be forgiven if we have forgotten that Britain itself is a large and important market for goods coming from Canada, Australia and New Zealand, for example. And it is the fear of losing this which is behind the undignified squabbles which have taken place over the past few months.

Canada

In a recent survey by The Times we read that “. . . . there is an undoubted fear that by Britain’s closer association with Europe, Canada is going to suffer in what is her second best market, especially in agricultural and chemical products as well as in a newly found market for her manufactured goods.” So seriously do the Canadian capitalists view the prospects, that only on November 11th last, The Observer was able to report that relations between Canada and Britain on the Common Market issue were worse than at any time since preliminary negotiation began.

Over the other side of the world in New Zealand, there is near-panic at the threat of a shrinking market for primary products—lamb, wool, butter and cheese—in Great Britain. Understandably so from the viewpoint of the N.Z. farmers. Apparently fifty-seven per cent. of their total exports were sold in the United Kingdom in 1959. And more recently The Dominion (Wellington) asserted that some eighty per cent. by weight of N.Z. dairy products now go to the British Market. The remarks of Prime Minister Holyoake further emphasise with what trepidation the future is viewed; just listen to his words, reported in the National Party Journal Freedom for July, 1961 :

“It is no exaggeration to say that our dairy industry and our lamb production have been based on and are designed to serve the needs of the United Kingdom Market. They have been based on the idea that our expanding production could receive a full and remunerative outlet. Without it, the whole economic future of New Zealand is thrown out of balance.”

Strong words indeed! And matched equally by (hose of leading government spokesmen in nearby Australia. Their Common Market Communique issued on July 11th speaks of “. . . the serious adverse consequences for Australian producers and for the Australian balance of payments which would confront Australia if the United Kingdom were to enter the Common Market on a basis which failed to safeguard Australian trade interests for the future.”

Australia Looks Elsewhere

Wheat, meat, dairy products, bas; metals, sugar and fruits constitute the bulk of Australian exports to Britain and are currently valued at almost £200 million Sterling. The Minister for Trade, Mr. McEwen, has asserted that Britain is Australia’s biggest market. So little wonder then, that there was such “full and frank” discussion with Mr. Duncan Sandys when he paid his visit a few weeks before.

But despite the forebodings of official spokesmen, it does not seem that Britain’s decision has taken the Australian Government completely by surprise. For some years now, attempts have been made to find alternative markets, and it is interesting to learn that Japan has now become the biggest buyer of Australian wool and a top-level buyer of many other important products. Trade with Japan in 1960 was worth £160 millions.

In a press interview on last July Mr. Menzies admitted the great political implications of the Common Market. He has described it as possibly “a third power” in the world :

“(But) we record our view that the Commonwealth will not be quite the same . . . this will lead to a loosening of Commonwealth relations.“

So where will they turn then? Might there be just the possibility that yet “a fourth power” will emerge, embracing Australia, New Zealand and other far eastern States, and with Japan as a leading member? Does it sound too far fetched? Nothing should surprise us in a capitalist world. Canada in her turn could swing politically in favour of the U.S.A. if the tariff walls of the Common Market go up against her. She already has close economic links and American capitalists have large investments in Canada.

And for the workers of the Commonwealth? Well, there is one market which they have always had in common with their opposite numbers in every other part of the world, and that is the labour market. This basic fact will not, of course, be altered. They will remain workers facing the common problem of Capitalism—and how to get rid of it.

Eddie Critchfield

The Immigration Question (1976)

From the July 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Migration is described in the Encyclopaedia Britannica as “an outstanding feature of human life”. That spells misfortune for it, for there are no features of human life that are not exploited and mangled under capitalism. In mid-1974 there were 1,673,000, or 3.2 per cent, of the population, in Britain who were “of New Commonwealth and Pakistani ethnic origin” — that is, black. The figure for 1967 was 1,016,000, or 2.1 per cent, (figures from Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, quoted in The Times, 27th May 1976). An estimate for 1954, given in The Colour Problem by Anthony H. Richmond (Pelican 1955) was 100,000.

Not all immigrants to Britain are black, of course. Approximately 4 million people left Ireland for various countries, including Britain, between 1850 and 1900. and nearly half a million again between 1951 and 1961. In 1931-38, 150,000 people entered Britain from Eire together with 350,000 from European countries. However, in contemporary usage “immigrant” means black. The freshly-coined official term “New Commonwealth” means this, and excludes immigrants from Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In that frame of mind Indians, Pakistanis and Africans are made to appear as menacing invaders.

The latest phases in this alleged problem are claims that every Asian has a tribe of probably-bogus relatives claiming entitlement to join him, and unrest which has included four apparently indiscriminate racial murders. There is now widespread agreement that something must be done to control immigration. The secretary of the Punjabee Society of the British Isles wrote to The Times on 29th May: “Enough is enough.” Bob Mellish MP, former Labour Chief Whip, in the News of the World on 30th May: “Controls must be stricter. Numbers must get fewer and fewer until we arrive at a complete stop.” And there are the National Front and Enoch Powell, neither of them funny. The former deal in fear and ignorance, as did the Nazis whom they admire; the latter has talked repeatedly of racial carnage in a manner which, to quote Bernard Levin, “is making it more likely that his predictions will come true”.

The Myths

The argument put by Mellish and others is that the number of immigrants is too great for resources inside Britain.

Is there anything that can be done to control the number of newcomers in any one year to take account of the problems of employment, housing, schools and social services?

(C. Legum and A. Raphael, The Observer, 30th May)

Mature and sober as this sounds, it is only a nicely-stated confirmation of what largely underlies racial tension: “If I blacked my face I might get a council house . . . The teacher’s too busy looking after the black kids who can’t speak English . . . They get endless Social Security, but if we went we wouldn’t . . . etc.” Either it is true that black immigrants rob the natives of jobs, houses and services, or it is not. Some recent facts are as follows.

The 1971 General Household Survey showed that 35.5 per cent, of the black population in Britain are skilled manual workers, and 30 per cent, semiskilled or unskilled; 17 per cent, have non-manual jobs, and 10.5 per cent, are “managerial and professional’.’ In The Economic Impact of Commonwealth Immigration by Jones and Smith (Cambridge 1970) the average benefits received per black head from Social Security totalled £16.30 a year, as against £28.30 for the “home” population; for Health and Welfare £18.30 as against £18.60; in Local Authority housing £0.90 as against £3.00. The General Household Survey showed also that 23 per cent. of black households were overcrowded (insufficient bedrooms) as against 6.2 per cent. white ones, and 33 per cent. lacked the use of a bath as against 12 per cent.

If it is argued that the presence of immigrants nevertheless exacerbates existing problems, that simply is not true. The housing problem has been acute throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, yet at all times sufficient houses have existed. A report in The Times on 22nd April 1976 said: : "There is a surplus of about 850,000 houses in the United Kingdom, according to the Nationwide Building Society, which yesterday published its latest survey on housing trends.” At the same time, in 1972 there were 13,000 homeless persons in London (Shelter, Paper 4) and in 1966 60-70,000 overcrowded households in London (Census). The “shortage”, as always, is because housing is beyond the reach of those who need it, not because of any absolute scarcity. What on earth has that to do with immigration or alleged differences between black and white?

The Truths

The provision and extent of welfare services and education is a matter of government policy at any given time. However, if the concern really were about population pressures on “a tiny nation of over 50 million” (Mellish) the official figures for both-ways migration should allay it. For several years the numbers entering Britain have been substantially fewer than those leaving. In 1974 the net “loss” was 85,300; from 1969 to June 1975 it was 368,100. This has practically always been the case; the sole exception was the 1931-38 period, when the world depression at the beginning caused a fall in emigration and an inward balance of 23,821. It is stated also, in the annual report On the State of the Public Health published by the DOHSS on 28th March, that in 1974 Britain had “an unprecedented low birth rate of 13 a thousand” and “The population rose by only 55,173, the smallest increase ever recorded in peacetime”.

Were immigrants to respond to declarations of the capacities and needs of “host” nations, they would be scurrying about the world everlastingly. In 1948 the Royal Commission on Population recommended a policy of “combining encouragement of emigration with with a policy of selective immigration to make good any shortage that might arise in Great Britain”. During the 1939-45 war a number of West Indians were imported to work in factories in the north of England, while the United States repealed its sixty-one-year-old policy against Chinese immigration. On 2nd June 1976 the Australian Minister for Immigration announced that workers from anywhere were wanted, mentioning "East Timor, Indochina, Chile and many other places” (The Times, 3rd June).

Since the “bread-and-butter” argument against immigration is false from beginning to end, what we are left with is racial prejudice. Moreover, it is racism of a particularly dishonest kind which knows that in the open it has not a leg to stand on, and so hides behind plausible-sounding theories of population pressure and injustice to the home population. Over twenty years ago Dr. Roger Pilkington, the geneticist and anthropologist, wrote in the British Medical Association’s magazine Family Doctor:

Leading experts had declared that available scientific knowledge provided no basis for believing that the groups of mankind differed in their innate capacity for intellectual and emotional development. “Given the same opportunities of education and environment the performance and ability of individuals does not differ appreciably from one race to another.”

(The Guardian 28th April 1955)

Profit and Prejudice

The capitalist class are too well aware of their interests to practise racism. They may have individual private sentiments, and they are pleased to see it dividing the working class. But while Enoch Powell sees immigration “foaming with much blood” (April 1968) and producing “firearms and explosives” (May 1976), the capitalist’s vision of it is a lather of surplus-value and fizzing with interest-rates and profit. The Times on 9th June carried a report on Southall, the London industrial suburb where 20-30,000 of a population of 70,000 are immigrants, mostly Indian, and where disturbances have taken place recently.

According to the report, Indians first went to Southall in the early nineteen-fifties to work in a rubber factory. It continued: “Today there is still plenty of work, mainly unskilled, available in the district. Heathrow [London airport], especially after dark, seems to be entirely serviced by Punjabis in their bright turbans and saris. There is a fair amount of light engineering and there are some food-processing plants. The engineers in the local coach-works are Indian, and many of their coaches are on hire to the town hall to take Indian children out of Southall to integrate them and to improve their English.”

Therein is the whole position. Immigrants are wage-workers, or peasants who think they will improve their condition by becoming wage-earners. Coming to Britain or any other country, they are not instituting a separate fraternity; on the contrary, they are joining one massive group in a common situation — the industrial working class. Don’t be mistaken about this. The working class are all those who own nothing but their ability to work and so have to sell that, week by week or month by month, for a price called a wage. The resultant problems of being hard-up, badly housed, uncertain of employment and generally short of the essentials for a decent life, are universal in that situation. Real or fancied differences are unimportant beside it: this is what everyone in Southall, and nine-tenths of the population of the capitalist world, has in common.

The idea of a national identity which becomes a personal one and makes the others “foreigners” is a direct product of the nation-state which is the political unit of capitalism. Thus, each nation has its own history studded with its own partisan myths, and each represents its traditions and customs as the acme of civilization. The legends about immigrants all reflect this, which is why they repeat themselves indiscriminately. Everything said about Indians and Africans now was said about Jews, Irish, Poles, Italians, Chinese etc. in the past (the contemporary story that black people eat tinned cat-food was preceded by one, in the nineteen-thirties, that Italian immigrants ate cats). Its counterparts the world over are the same: for example, in France all murder, rape and offensive conduct is attributed to Arabs. This nonsense is easily disposed of; what is more important is to see whence and why it arises.

What to Do !

“Liberal attitudes” and anti-discrimination laws are no answer. Are we really to believe that having black policemen and magistrates and enabling Indians to join golf clubs is the road to social harmony? The obvious outcome of these policies will be divisions and rancour among the immigrants themselves, and that is already happening. On 30th May The Observer reported an interview with a Mrs. Singh, who is a young BSC from Calcutta and lives in “a pretty suburban house in Hounslow”. Her opinions were that illiterate Indians should not be allowed in, and It was regrettable that “lower class, illiterate Indians collect together in places like Southall and Bradford”. Liberal legislation may be handy for Mrs. Singh and her like, but whose interests are served by trying to persuade people to live contentedly together in districts from which they would like to escape but can’t?

The solution to the problem is not “integration” or fresh restrictions, but recognition by all workers that they are in the same boat. The working class have no country: only their class identity. Those who enter Britain and those who emigrate from it — and the position is the same for other countries — are on the whole leaving adverse economic or political conditions, hoping for something better and influenced by a possibility for reaching it. Inevitably, in huge numbers they are disappointed and made the objects of the frustration of people already on the other side of the fence where the grass is not greener after all. For all of them there is a practical alternative, the establishment of a classless society without frontiers. Stop listening to the rabble-rousers and the liberalizers, and find out about Socialism.

Robert Barltrop

Action Replay: Gaming the system (2023)

The Action Replay Column from the September 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Commonwealth Games are nowhere near as big a sporting gathering or media show as the Olympics, but are still pretty sizeable, with twenty sports, over five thousand competitors and 1.5 million tickets sold for last year’s Games. They have taken place in the UK several times in recent years: Manchester in 2002, Glasgow in 2014, Birmingham in 2022.

But things have started to go pear-shaped. The 2022 Games were originally awarded to Durban, but after possible financial problems were given to Birmingham instead. The Australian state of Victoria has decided not to stage the Games for 2026, on account of the rise in costs, with claims that the original estimate was likely to be doubled. The Commonwealth Games Federation is searching for a replacement host, and has said it could delay the Games until 2027 to allow for arrangements to be made. The Canadian province of Alberta has pulled out of a bid to host the Games in 2030, with a government minister saying the cost was a burden ‘too high for the province to bear’.

On the other hand, it has been argued that, in recent cases, for each dollar spent by governments on operating costs and venues, two dollars was generated for the local economy, with improved transport links and more jobs. ‘That feelgood factor is great for business, and it really helped businesses to boost their profile,’ said the head of the Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce after the 2022 Games. One possibility for 2026–7 is that Birmingham could step in once more. But as usual under capitalism, visions of profit and economic growth are not always enough to persuade people to put their money in. Championships in other sports are often more attractive to sponsors and broadcasters.

There have been suggestions that the Games may not be held again, or that if they are, it will have to be in a very different format, perhaps with fewer sports or in more than one location. One former badminton medallist said, ‘the really sad thing about the news … about Victoria withdrawing is it’s hard to escape the fact that this is almost certainly the beginning of the end for the Commonwealth Games. It’s really hard to see how it has a long-term future now when so many governments and countries are just so reluctant to pay the cost’.

The Games began in 1930 as the British Empire Games, and are sometimes referred to as the Friendly Games. The Commonwealth Games Federation website states: ‘We create and celebrate a uniquely inclusive and diverse sporting movement, levelling the playing field and addressing inequality in sport in all its forms, so that all people of the Commonwealth know that sport is for them’. Nothing to do with international rivalry, flag-waving or making a profit, then.

Paul Bennett

Britain and the Common Market (1967)

From the July 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

After a lapse of four years Britain has again applied to join the Common Market. Last time it was a Conservative government. This time it is Labour, showing that capitalism imposes similar programmes on its political parties in power. The line-up for and against Britain’s entry draws support from both parties as it did in 1962. In fact Labour rebels have taken a stronger stand on this issue than on any of the other controversial measures of the present government.

On May 2 Harold Wilson declared in a House of Commons statement:

“This is an historic decision which could determine the future of Britain, Europe and the World for decades to come.”

Leading Labour opponent of Britain’s entry, Emmanuel Shinwell, said in the same debate:

“In view of the unqualified approval by three members of the opposition benches, can I assure the Prime Minister that with all the force of which I am capable even by myself, I will give him the most relentless and ruthless opposition.”

In view of the claims of both sides it is worth examining the question in relation to working class interests.

At the end of the nineteenth century world trade and industry was dominated by the states of Western Europe with large empires under their control. The world wars of 1914-18 and 1939-45, which were the outcome of the struggles between these powers for supremacy, resulted in their decline and in the emergence of America and Russia as the leading industrial and military powers. A struggle developed between them with Eastern Europe dominated by Russia and Western Europe by America. They stationed their armed forces in these areas and geared the economies of these territories to their own.

In Western Europe America consolidated its military power through NATO. The economy was revitalised by American government funds through the Marshall Plan with the condition that the countries of Europe must band together and agree on a joint recovery programme. Thus America, in meeting the challenge of Russian state capitalism, was forced to finance the revival of industrial competitors.

Expansion in world trade soon allowed production to exceed pre-war levels and one country after another had its “economic miracle”. European capitalists had a large pool of unemployed displaced workers at their command along with the latest plant and equipment. Britain, on the other hand, survived with much of its industry intact and its order books were filled for years ahead to supply the backlog of demand from its traditional markets. Its workers were in a relatively strong position as a result and were able to enforce demands for pay increases and to maintain working practices which became more and more of a hindrance to efficient production as manufacturing techniques developed.

In spite of early enthusiastic pronouncements by Churchill and Attlee on European unity no practical initiative to this end was taken by Britain. The first move to set up what is now known as the Common Market was the establishment in 1951 of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) by Belgium, France, Holland, West Germany, Italy and Luxembourg. Its aim was to regulate the production and marketing of coal, iron and steel in this area. The ECSC was soon faced with problems in Belgium, with its uncompetitive coal industry. Mines were closed and thousands of miners laid off. Mineowners received compensation from the ECSC; miners got compensation from the dole and industrial retraining for other work. The employer-employee relationship remained as before.

The difficulties facing the ECSC have continued. With increasing iron and steel production and with mergers and streamlining to meet world competition, profit margins have dropped. The coal industry has its troubles with mine closures recently in the Ruhr. In Britain the coal and steel industries face similar problems and membership of the ECSC would only give them access to a market which is already oversupplied—and this would affect the present ECSC members. Whichever of the partners gains from entry the position of the workers, the insecurity of living on a wage or salary, will remain.

In 1957 the Rome Treaty setting up the European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) was signed by the same six states. The EEC, or Common Market, aimed at

“… the creation of a customs union with a common external tariff and by the abolition of internal tariff duties and quotas, the establishment of a common agricultural policy, the free movement of persons, services and capital; and a harmonised transport system” (Westminster Bank, The Common Market and the United Kingdom).

British capitalism, with the bulk of its trade located in the Commonwealth and Sterling Area, took little interest in the Common Market. The European Free Trade Association (EFTA) was set up by Britain, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria and Portugal in 1960. Its main aim was the progressive reduction of customs duties on industrial goods. There was no provision for common external tariffs nor a commitment to political unification, which made the idea more acceptable to the British government. By 1961 trading conditions were changing in the Commonwealth and Sterling Area, making it harder for British goods to be sold there. Countries such as America and Japan were taking a growing part of their trade. The Common Market, with the prospect of a home market of 250 million people including Britain and some of its EFTA partners, became an attractive proposition. The first application came at a time when EEC itself was making heavy weather of formulating a common agricultural policy. Britain’s conditions, on agriculture, Commonwealth trade and concern for EFTA, proved too much and negotiations broke down in January 1963.

Since then there has been a change of government and Labour soon found themselves as impotent as the Conservatives to deal with the economic ills of British capitalism. Meanwhile the trends in world trade which had made application desirable earlier continued. Britain’s share of Commonwealth trade continued to decline. Trade with Europe, on the other hand, increased. With EFTA, where customs tariffs were lowered, it increased 70 per cent since 1960. In the EEC where external tariffs were going up it increased by 100 per cent for the same period (Financial Times, 2 March 1967). Hence the new application.

The Common Market has come about as a result of the pressures of world capitalism. It is an effort to give Western Europe the political and economic structure to compete commercially and militarily with America and Russia. Britain’s desire to join is not motivated by some newly discovered principles of internationalism by Wilson and his government. Rather it appears to offer the best hopes of a solution to some of the problems of British capitalism. The Confederation of British Industry has made it quite clear that it favours entry: As reported by The Times they said:

“This is the move that industry has been waiting for and the CBI have been urging the government to make. The CBI’s recent report, based on a year’s analysis, concluded that on balance entry would be to the benefit of British industry” (3 May 1967).

The interests of the working class are not served by debating the merits of being in or out of the Common Market. The Common Market amounts to the re-arrangement of tariff barriers amongst member states. The alternatives posed by opponents of Britain’s entry vary from keeping present arrangements to forming a North Atlantic Free Trade Area and to greater trade with East Europe. All of these proposals leave capitalism intact. Production for sale and profit would continue; the working class would still exist; and the social problems of the system would still be there.

Joe Carter

Australia takes guard (1956)

From the August 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

A sure fire subject of conversation with almost any reticent Englishman in the summer of 1956, is the latest Test match score, and many a City gent, on bearing of another fallen wicket must have locked his office door and with his umbrella shown himself just how he would have put Lindwall away to the boundary.

Yet not all the headlines about an Australian “fightback” and “aggression” need refer to happenings at Lord's or Old Trafford, for in the pot of international disputes there is something of a trade war brewing up between England and Australia. The director of the Commonwealth Bureau of Agricultural Economics has said in Canberra that Britain's “attitudes, policies and behaviour” are “unfair” and “reprehensible” and among the mumblings of Australian politics is that of Mr. John McEwen, Minister of Trade, who has recently described his government as “hurt” by Britain's trading policies. Mr. McEwen, with a substantial press backing, is currently peddling a “get tough with Britain” line.

What are the reasons for this tetchiness in Canberra? First, Australia's trade with the U.K. is badly out of balance—in the nine months ended in March of this year she imported goods from Britain worth £A269 million compared to exports in return of only £A181½ million. Then there is the matter of wheat, of which Australia is one of the world's major exporters. The stockpiling scramble of the Korean war caused a vastly increased production of wheat and a consequent fall in its price. The end of the boom left Australia, growing some of the cheapest wheat in the world, with an unsellable surplus and looking sourly on the British policy of supporting home production on the one hand and preferring to buy Argentine wheat on the other.

Another source of irritation is the present state of trading preferences. In the Ottawa agreement of 1932 Britain and Australia agreed to grant entry to each other's imports at a lower duty than they charged on other countries goods. Australia accepted a preference based on fixed duties and the benefits of this have dwindled in our post-war inflation, just as money which was banked in 1932 has by now been devalued. But Britain secured a preference based on a percentage of their exports values and this has enabled her to keep a relative advantage on the Australian market. So a measure which was supposed to promote international friendship has turned out to be a cause of dissension; but there is nothing new in that.

To ease her problems Australia would like the U.K. to restrict imports of cheap wheat (unless, of course, it comes from Australia) and to re-negotiate the Ottawa pact so as to give Australian products new preferences. The difficulty in the way of both these suggestions is Britain's membership of G.A.T.T., whose rules forbid any such moves. Even so, Australia is pressing for a new. comprehensive Commonwealth trade agreement; this was one of the points raised by Mr. Menzies at the recent London conference of Commonwealth Prime Ministers. If Australia cannot gain any concessions here, she may, in return, take steps to end her status as Britain's largest single export market.

Meantime in the past few years Australia has several times drastically reduced its imports, the latest of these restrictions being introduced on July 1st. last. These cuts were designed to prune Australia's imports by about £32 million in a full year. In addition Australia is making a strong bid to capture as much as possible of the U!k.’s trade with New Zealand.

Another reason for the deepening rift between the two countries is the change in the strategic relations of the Pacific since the war's end. Before the sharpening of the Russo-American conflict Australia's military interests extended to the Middle East. Now that Asia is a centre of tension these interests have been forced back to the Pacific, where the gap left by Great Britain's waning power has been largely filled by that of America. Increasingly, Australia is dependent on the United States to keep intact her perilous existence between the great powers on the one hand and an almost indifferent Asia on the other. Whitehall gets hardly a look in.

Now the conclusion which we can draw from all this is that the much-boosted bonds of the British Commonwealth of Nations do not hold against the pressures of Capitalist competition and international conflict. Australia, as a normal Capitalist power, has trading interests which she will defend in any way open to her, even if that should mean offending her partners in the Commonwealth. For example, the recent import cuts came at a particularly bad time for the struggling British car industry but, as The Economist has put it, “trade cuts across politics.” Even the politics of the supposedly united British Commonwealth and with the government of the traditionally Empire-fostering Tory party bossing it in Whitehall.

Australia's position in the affairs of international trade and conflict was neatly depicted by Manchester Guardian cartoonist David Low just after the Foreign Ministers’ conference a couple of years ago at Geneva. His sketch showed a path bordering a lake and into the picture from the left ran Anthony Eden, dressed as a nursemaid, dragging behind him a pram full of tattered Union Jacks. As he ran he stretched out an imploring hand to another nannie, scampering off to the right with her pram. This one was identified as United States Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. His pram was labelled “American Sphere of Responsibility” and it held a lot of bonny babies of various Far Eastern nationalities. One of the bounciest, sucking a stick of striped candy, was called “Australia.”

Ivan.

What about the Common Market: A socialist guide (1971)

From the July 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

What is the Common Market?

The European Economic Community (EEC), to give it its proper name, is a customs and economic union between France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holland and Luxemburg set up in 1957 under the Treaty of Rome. The aims were to create one huge market by abolishing all customs barriers between the Six  and by erecting a uniform tariff against goods from outside and to establish common agriculture, indirect tax, transport and energy policies. These have largely been achieved. The next stage, to which tentative steps have been taken, would be full economic union with a common currency and after that maybe military and political union.

Why was the Common Market set up?

Basically because big industry needs a big market. After the war the rulers of the industrial countries of western Europe, whose economic rivalries had twice plunged the world into war, realised somewhat late that the traditional European nation-State was not large enough either as a market or as an outlet for investment. In this sense the Common Market is an example of the continuous centralization of capital into bigger and bigger units and it was no accident that it grew out of the free trade in coal and steel the Six had introduced in 1953. Also, Germany wanted free access for its industrial goods to France and France free access for its grain to Germany.

Why didn’t Britain join at the start?

Britain’s pattern of trade was different. The Commonwealth was not only a market for British industrial goods and an outlet for investment but was also a source of cheap food and raw materials. To have joined would have meant giving this up for something whose success was uncertain.

Why does Britain want to join now?

Growing industrialisation in the Commonwealth changed Britain’s pattern of trade. Towards the end of the 1950’s Europe emerged as the best alternative market for Britain’s industrial goods. After failing to stop the Common Market by organising a wider European industrial free trade area, Britain under a Conservative government applied to join in 1961 only to be rejected. The present negotiations arise out of a second application to join made in 1967 under a Labour government.

So, this is all a question of markets?

More or less, and so is essentially a capitalist problem. Joining the Common Market is an attempted solution to the problem of finding new markets for British capitalism whose goods have not been selling so well in recent years. It is not a problem that concerns wage and salary earners, either here or in the Six.

But aren’t some British industrialists opposed to entry?

Yes, those with investments and trade interests in the Commonwealth. They are in a minority but do have some influence on sections of the Conservative Party. The argument for and against the Common Market is basically between those firms who think they will gain and those who think they will lose from entry. Russia, too, is opposed to the Common Market as a rival capitalist power and so therefore is the British Communist Party and the pro-Russia section of the Labour Party who have concocted various allegedly socialist reasons why workers should take the side of those against entry.

What will happen if Britain joins?

After a transitional period Britain will have to bring down its tariffs against the Six (and any others like Ireland, Denmark and Norway who might join at the same time) and to put up tariffs against outsiders, including the Commonwealth. British agricultural policy will have to fall in line with that of the Six.

Won’t that mean an increase in food prices?

Yes. For historical reasons continental Europe has protected agriculture through high prices while Britain has pursued a "cheap food’’ policy. The British industrial capitalists were strong enough in the 19th century to abolish the Corn Laws which kept food prices — and wages — high. The continental capitalists were weak and, to get protection for their industry, had to ally themselves with the big landowners and to agree to protection for agriculture too.

But won’t this make wage and salary earners worse off?

Not necessarily, since the level of wages is largely determined by the cost of living. Lower prices mean lower wages, as the workers of Britain found after the Corn Laws were repealed in 1846 and as the Six recognise when they say that for Britain to keep its "cheap food” policy would be unfair competition. Similarly, higher prices mean higher money wages. This is not an automatic process of course. Workers have to fight through trade unions and strikes to keep money wages rising along with prices. But this is what they’ve got to do all the time in all countries, and what workers in Britain must do whether Britain is in or out of the Common Market.

What will happen to wages if Britain joins?

They say money wages are higher in all the countries of the Six except Italy, but this is what you would expect if food prices are higher. And these wage levels were not achieved without struggle. There was a General Strike in Belgium in 1960 and in France in 1968 and a wage explosion in Holland after the failure of job evaluation; in recent years strikes have become more frequent in Italy and have even broken out in Germany.

Won’t there be an influx of cheap Italian labour?

Maybe, but the answer would not be co-operation with the anti-Common Market section of British industry. The important point is that workers in all countries face the same problems and so have a common interest in uniting to solve them.

What about taxes?

The governments of the Six raise their money more by indirect than by direct taxes. Critics say that indirect taxes fall more on the poor and give this as a reason why workers should support those against entry. That indirect taxes — such as the value added tax — fall on the poor is only an illusion. All taxes in the end fall on rent, interest and profit as only the rich can afford to pay them. The tax system is irrelevant as far as the overall standard of living of wage and salary earners is concerned. Insofar as taxes raise the cost of living they can, if the workers are strong enough, be passed on to employers as higher money wages.

What about social benefits?

Supporters of entry say they are better, but as you would expect some are and some are not. Family allowances, which generally are higher in the Six, were long looked upon with suspicion by trade unions in this country as a wage subsidy for employers, which is what they are. The higher the family allowance paid by the State the less the employer need pay the family man. In any event, “social benefits” along with contributions and income tax are a means of evening out the income of workers so as to ensure that nobody is paid either too much or too little to keep fit to work, and leave the overall standard of living unchanged.

Will we lose our sovereignty?

What do you mean our sovereignty? Not having a stake in the country we have nothing to lose. Our rulers may have to hand over part of their law-making powers to the Common Market, but that’s not our worry. It makes no real difference whether we are ruled from Brussels or London.

But won’t we be ruled by bureaucrats from Brussels?

That’s a bit of an exaggeration. The powers of the EEC Commission in Brussels were granted by the governments of the Six which (like those of the four who are applying to join) depend on popular election and majority acceptance. Governments and bureaucrats can only get away with what people let them.

Isn’t a United States of Europe a good idea?

No, it would just be another capitalist super-power armed with nuclear weapons. Some nationalist delusions might disappear, but this would be no advance if they were replaced by another, different one.

What is the attitude of The Socialist Party of Great Britain and The World Socialist Party of Ireland to the Common Market?

First, that whether or not Britain joins is a capitalist, not a working classe issue. Second, that Britain’s joining would not solve, and is not meant to solve, working class problems; it may not even solve British capitalism’s problem of markets. Third, that, equally, working class problems will remain if Britain stays out. We are neither for nor against entry and regard this as an irrelevant issue. We advocate instead the establishment of a world community without frontiers based on common ownership with production solely for use.

How would you suggest we vote in any referendum on the Common Market?

The government don’t want to risk one in Britain for fear that the anti-German and imperialist prejudices stirred up in the past might result in a vote for “no”. But in Ireland there’s got to be one. We suggest abstention, or rather rejection of the false choice by writing “World Socialism” across the ballot paper.

Labour Party and Immigration (1965)

From the June 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

High-flown phrases about "the brotherhood of man” fall thickly from the lips of the Capitalist politician, and perhaps some of them are sincere, at least some of the time. Fenner Brockway, until last October the Labour M.P. for Eton & Slough, tried and failed no less than seven times to interest the Commons in a bill to outlaw racial discrimination. "When a child is born", he said with a note of Christian piety on December 13th, 1961, “ it is not its physical form or the pigment of its skin which makes it sacred—it is the spiritual life, the personality within ”,

The precise meaning of those words is a matter for discussion, but what is undeniable is the anxiety of Mr. Brockway and other M.P s over the growing signs of racial friction in Britain. However, it is one thing to condemn racialism, but quite another to deal with it effectively in a world of private property, where antagonisms and prejudices of all sorts are fostered. In any case, whatever Mr. Brockway’s opinions may have been, he was a Labourite and cannot escape responsibility for his party's actions over the question of racialism and immigration control.

Indeed, despite fierce Labour opposition to the Commonwealth Immigration Bill in 1962 (and we shall come to that later), it may not be generally remembered that it was two Labour members, H. Hynd (Accrington) and M. Lipton (Brixton) who over four years before (on April 3rd, 1958) had said in the Common that “. . . the time has come for reconsideration of the arrangement whereby British subjects from other parts of the Commonwealth are allowed to enter this country without restriction ”. At that time, it was the Tory spokesman, Miss P. Hornsby-Smith, who resisted their motion and reminded the freedom lovers of the Labour benches of the part coloured workers had played in taking jobs rejected by whites:

Anyone who uses public transport in our big cities, will know that they have filled a very great gap in staff and . . . have done a very good job.

But as she also had to admit, the heavy demand for labour was easing, and coloured workers were finding it more difficult to find employment than before. Here we can detect one of the economic pressures which made the question politically explosive in the early sixties, and perhaps cost the Labour Party three constituencies in 1964-5.

It was convenient for the Macmillan government that so many people seemed to forget that housing and employment problems existed long before coloured immigrants set foot here in any numbers. The Tories saw the issue as a political godsend, among other things an opportunity to deflect criticism of their own failures to solve these problems onto the innocent shoulders of the coloured minority. And despite their assurances to the contrary, the subsequent Immigration Bill was far from colour-blind in its provisions. The Tories were in fact pandering to the worst prejudices of public opinion and, by using a minority as a scapegoat, were taking crafty advantage of racist sentiment without incurring the stigma usually attached to it.

Here it was that the Labour opposition under Gaitskell committed a first class tactical blunder in assuming that it was still enough to label a party racialist to condemn in in the eyes of the public. Conditions in British politics were changing, but Gaitskell showed little awareness of this when commenting on the Queen’s speech on October 31st, 1961:

. . . whatever hon. Members opposite may say, whatever the Home Secretary may say . . . this will be regarded very largely throughout the world as the imposition of a colour bar over here.... To impose restrictions is a very grave step indeed, and , one that I personally hope the Government will not, when they come to it, actually take.

This bitter and unqualified attack was resumed the following day by George Brown. He threw the words of the Tory Cyril Osborne into the Government’s face (“This is a white man’s country and I want it to remain so ”), and ended by saying:

The proposal to take these powers is not really to solve the difficulties and the real consequences of the proposal is to give themselves gn alibi for what they are refusing to do, whether for brown, black or white.. . . The casual way in which this is dealt with is a gross reflection on H.M. Ministers, and if the house were easily to accept it, it would be on the house.

It is old news now, that the government’s measure was passed in the teeth of fierce labour opposition, something which was to cost Gordon-Walker his seat at Smethwick three years later. By then, however, Labour policy under Wilson’s leadership hail undergone a right-about-face on the issue. Forgotten were Gaitskell’s words (“ immigration from the Commonwealth has been of economic benefit to us.”) for the new leader was wily enough to see that the old stand was a positive vote loser.

So the 1964 Labour manifesto talked of retaining the very measure of which they had been so scornful, and indeed since their return to power, Labour have actually tightened control at all points of entry. Of course, they are at one with their Tory sparring partners in denying any racial bias, but in the light of this, the words of their home secretary, Sir Frank Soskice, have a strange ring. In a Commons debate on Match 23rd, he resisted any extension to the law because:

I should have to ask you to give these powers to be used against Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders, against all members of the old Commonwealth countries as well as the new. They would have to be operated against visitors and students, from all these countries with complete impartiality.

True, the Labour government have since introduced a bill outlawing racial discrimination in certain spheres, but this is as much a question of public order as anything else. Statesmen can learn from the mistakes of their counterparts elsewhere and British capitalism cannot afford another Selma or Little Rock in Smethwick or Brixton.

However, even if immigration restrictions achieve their purpose, there are almost a million coloured workers in Britain and they are here to stay. They will have children and their numbers will swell. They will suffer the same problems as their white brothers, but with the added indignity of resentment and prejudice which no law enactment can cure. The coloured vole will also increase and this is something which no Labour or Tory politician will be able to ignore when trying to keep the situation in check.

They have all pandered to ignorance and bigotry in the furtherance of their vote catching—racially prejudiced workers are always impressed by government restrictive measures against minorities—but the boot may not always be on the same foot. The present set-up could conceivably produce an offspring in the shape of mounting coloured resentment against while workers in the future; already some ugly signs of this are appearing elsewhere in the world. But whatever happens, it should be interesting to watch Labour and Tory antics as the drama is played out. and should prove as instructive a lesson in political tightrope walking as we have ever seen.

Eddie Critchfield

World View: Seychelles: the strategic stakes (1998)

From the September 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Seychelles comprise 115 islands and atolls scattered over the western Indian Ocean, with Malé the largest island, 1,000 miles east of the Kenyan port of Mombassa. More than 90 percent of the population of 75,000 live on Malé.

The Seychelles were seized as a French colony in 1768, but were captured by Britain in 1794 and were incorporated as a dependency of Mauritius in 1814. They became a separate colony in 1903, achieved internal self-government in 1975, and gained independence as a republic within the British Commonwealth the following year.

Unlike many other British colonies, the Seychelles never had a strong nationalist movement before independence. The first political party, the Seychelles Democratic Party (SDP), was formed by a flamboyant lawyer, James Mancham, in 1963; two years later, another lawyer, Albert René, formed the People’s United Party (PUP). Mancham campaigned for integration with Britain, whilst Rene argued for independence.The SDP was considered to be left-wing, the PUP right-wing. Both were thoroughly reformist.

By the early 1970s, Mancham was persuaded, on advice from Britain, that integration with Britain was not acceptable, as it would not be tolerated by the former British colonies in East Africa, and would cause friction within the Seychelles. Mancham therefore opted for independence, but demanded that Britain help with the formation of the Seychelles’ security forces.The United States was allowed to construct a nuclear detonation monitoring satellite station on Malé island.

In 1976 James Mancham (who was to be knighted) became President and Albert René became Prime Minister of the newly independent Republic of the Seychelles. Meanwhile Mancham had forged strong links with South Africa and René with Tanzania. Within months of Marcham’s election as president, René began plotting his overthrow.

When, at the beginning of June 1977, Mancham departed for the British Commonwealth Leaders’ Conference in London, René’s supporters, armed with AK-47 rifles and accompanied by 500 Tanzanian soldiers who had secretly entered the country, seized control of the principal government buildings, including the barracks and the police station in the capital,Victoria, on Malé. It was a walkover. By the following morning Albert René had complete control of the Seychelles.

René became president in place of Mancham. News was strictly controlled by the Ministry of Information; all residents were obliged to register their personal details with the government. President René took extreme precautions to ensure that he was not ousted from power. He initially recruited a small force of Tanzanian troops to protect the principal buildings and then later, acting on advice from his new Defence Minister, he replaced the Tanzanians with an elite detachment of North Korean guards. The Russian embassy increased its staff, of whom some were KGB and GRU officers, to about 50 “diplomats”. In 1979 René introduced a new constitution under which a People’s Progressive Front declared itself to the 23-member People’s Assembly of the Seychelles to be the sole legal party.

There have been numerous attempts to overthrow René and his government. Two plots involving French mercenaries were uncovered, in 1978 and 1979. In 1981 the infamous Mike Hoare, with a group of South African mercenaries posing as a rugby team, planned an attack on the Seychelles, but were pre-empted by the Seychelles security forces. Hoare and some of his men arrived at the airport of Malé but, after a fierce gun-battle, managed to escape back to South Africa.

In 1992, after the collapse of state capitalism in Russia, René recycled himself as a “democrat” and Sir James Mancham was allowed to return, protected by military bodyguards and, it has been alleged, members of the British SAS.

The strategic position of the Seychelles is the main reason why so many governments interfere and try to control the islands. Their value lies in their proximity to numerous trade routes in the Indian Ocean. Moreover, there are more than 80 islands with coves, harbours and mountains that have great military and naval uses. The islanders are mainly concerned with small-scale agriculture and fishing. Many of them, over the last 30 years or so, have been employed in hotels and the ever-increasing tourist industry but, at the moment, due to the recent economic problems across the Indian Ocean to the east, there has been something of a downturn in tourism in the Seychelles as elsewhere.The future is uncertain.

Peter E. Newell

News in Review: South Africa out (1961)

The News in Review column from the May 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

South Africa out

The usual products of Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ conferences have been toothy photographs and solemn, empty communiques. Astonishing, then, was the campaign to expel South Africa.

Astonishing, too, was the fact that the campaign succeeded. Why should the Prime Ministers get so upset about the apartheid policy?

Racial discrimination is quite detestable, but it is only one of many types of suppression. If the Prime Ministers wanted to scotch such things, they were right to get rid of South Africa—but why did they not then also expel Australia, India, Ghana, Ceylon—the United Kingdom itself?

It was not just a matter of the Premiers making a pact with their consciences. The Commonwealth, despite the unctuous propaganda about it, is nothing more than a world-wide trading tie-up, as was appreciated by the City Editors who, in the first few days after South Africa’s withdrawal, anxiously looked into the commercial effects of it all.

The ganging-up against South Africa may have been partly inspired by political motives, but was also a reflection of the South African industrialists’ opposition to Verwoerd's policies.

Let nobody think that it was the result of charitable concern for the African underdog. To mix our metaphors. capitalist nations have other fish to fry.


Washington Whirlwind

Everybody in Washington has been fascinated by the ruthless energy of President Kennedy. No one is safe from the new chiefs eye. “This guy,” said one official, “eats up reports.”

White House correspondents are fond of telling us that Kennedy is busy because he is building a new America There are hopeful murmurings about young aspirations, new frontiers, and so on.

There is nothing new in this. Franklin Roosevelt was hailed in much the same way. Eisenhower was described as the man to bring probity and courage to American government Yet it was under Roosevelt that America suffered the Second World War. And the Eisenhower era left behind a sticky unemployment problem; during the first quarter of this year there were 5½ million people out of work in the United States.

Unemployment is only one of the new President's headaches; others are the situation in Laos and the continuing disarmament wrangle. If the Kennedy administration sorts these out, it will find that American capitalism has turned up a few other problems.

Whatever the personal characteristics of a leader, his actions and his reputation are largely governed by the conditions of capitalism which he tries to control. Perhaps it is as well for U.S. capitalism that the President is so lively.


Kicked Upstairs

Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn has fought a furious fight against his transfer to the House of Lords. Despite his struggles, the government showed that they were determined to have him kicked upstairs.

Some lobby correspondents whispered that Mr. Macmillan personally gave the thumbs-down to Mr. Benn’s efforts to renounce his peerage. The P.M., said the rumour, is at odds with Lord Hailsham, and doesn’t want to set a precedent which might bring him back to the Commons.

Mr. Benn’s predicament is not free of irony. The Labour Party, of course, once stood for the abolition of the House of Lords. And Mr. Benn’s constituency used to elect Sir Stafford Cripps, who was at one time an ardent opponent of royalty, titles and the rest.

By the time Labour achieved power in 1945, they had dropped their old pledge about the Lords. Now, in fact, they do their bit towards helping the Upper House alive by supplying their share of life peerages.

It is Mr. Benn’s bad luck to have been born the son of a peer. His membership of the Labour Party is a different matter. He may not be able to resign his title: but he can always leave the party which has supported the system of pomp and privilege.


Salisbury Too

Some of the five M.P.’s who were disgorged in the Parliamentary Labour Party’s latest spasm wasted no time in getting their feet blistered on this year's Aldermaston do. Mr. Alan Brown, the member for Tottenham who gave up the Labour whip because he thinks that the party is too soft on the unilateralists, was not bothered by such discomforts.

This was another stage in the long Labour wrangle over defence. The Labour leaders, who know that British capitalism must have the most efficient weapons and armed forces possible, object to the “eat-our-cake-and-have-it” attitude of the unilateralists in the party.

While all this was happening, an announcement from the cool dignity of Hatfield House told of Lord Salisbury’s virtual resignation from the Conservative Party. For a long time, Salisbury has been opposed to the government’s colonial policies, the last straw was the easy way in which they have gone along with the African nationalists.

Sadly for him, Salisbury’s resignation caused scarcely a ripple; Mr. Macmillan has ridden much heavier punches in his time. But it is as well to be reminded that the Tories also have their splits, on colonial policy and other issues.

Need we say that there is one cause on which all Tories unite, with all Labourites solidly beside them? Whatever incidental quarrels they may have, they all agree about wanting capitalism to stay.

New Boy Learns

Politicians in different countries make speeches in different languages and different idioms, but there is one theme beloved of them all, one speech that every Prime Minister and Finance Minister carries in his brief case: the speech about the need for the workers to shun idleness and work harder.

Tanganyika has just achieved its independence, and as the politicians there have been telling the workers that this is the most glorious event in their lives, they had visions of celebrating the great occasion with a nice long bout of fun and feasting under the African sun. But their new Prime Minister, Mr. Julius Nyerere, lost no time in warning them that, for the workers, life under capitalism is real and earnest:—

  A day’s rejoicing is enough. We will make nothing of Tanganyika and we will set no example in the world unless it be by renewed efforts of hard work.

A few days later in a broadcast “he exhorted the unemployed not to loaf on the roadsides but to open up the Rufiji basin, a fertile but unpopulated area as large as England.” (Guardian 7/4/61).

People on another planet noticing the universality of this speech may wonder if there is some agency from which all the politicians get their speeches, but the explanation is much simpler; how will the rich be assured of their riches and their abundant leisure unless the workers work hard and long and cultivate habits of diligence and frugality?

Unique New Zealand (1969)

From the August 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

New Zealand’s development has perhaps been unique in two fields. First, certain reforms were achieved in New Zealand at a very early stage. As early as 1879 men had the vote, and by 1893 women were also entitled to vote. But even today certain restrictions are placed upon Maori voting. By 1894 New Zealand was the first country in the world to have established the system of compulsory state arbitration for fixing wages and settling industrial disputes. This was a retrograde step as far as the workers were concerned, for as all class-conscious workers know, in practice, courts for fixing wages etc. are there purely to prevent workers from striking as further pressure for their claims. Arbitration courts are often long-winded and the capitalist knows that the majority of workers can be distracted from their original determination if things drag on too long.

These early reforms and others, like the eight-hour day in 1897, plus a restricted programme of immigration (thereby maintaining a fairly full state of employment) have tended to give the New Zealander a false sense of security.

As well as long hours of overtime and wives going to work, secondary employment has become to the New Zealander an accepted way of life. He has his house, car, and washing machine, but the price has been high, New Zealand being only second to America in the number of hours worked per head of population. The veneer of affluence, like that of any so-called affluent country, for the working class is very thin.

The second unique aspect of New Zealand’s development is that it has been a farming community from the start and has remained so ever since. This can be a very precarious situation since New Zealand’s exports, the greatest bulk of which go to Britain, are made up almost wholly of agricultural produce—meat, wool, tallow, butter, cheese, powdered milk, and some timber.

Reading an extract from The New Zealand Trades Alphabet, 1968 edition, we can see just how far New Zealand is committed to agriculture as a means of overseas earnings, and to Britain as the buyer.

  For more than a century, Britain and New Zealand have been trading partners. New Zealand, whose whole economy is based on our ability to produce cheap foodstuffs, has sold them to Britain in return for goods and services we cannot provide for ourselves. The money which changes hands in trade between New Zealand and Britain now exceeds $860 million a year.
  New Zealand’s farming industry has been developed primarily to suit British needs and tastes, and Britain now buys some 85 per cent of New Zealand’s butter exports, 92 per cent of the lamb, and 78 per cent of the cheese. Last year sales of these three products were worth $216 million, or 30 per cent of this country's total export earnings. Outside Britain there is simply no substantial market open for any of them.

It is no wonder then that the clouds of economic anxiety began to gather over New Zealand when in 1958 the European Economic Community or Common Market was formed.

Looking at New Zealand over the past few years, one can sense the air of change. Unemployment has crept into existence, something until recently almost unheard of, and while the government tries to tell us that today we are back to full employment it fails to take into consideration the 11,064 persons that constituted a population loss to New Zealand in 1968, (see Auckland Star, December 10, 1968). Industrial unrest has been greater than ever as workers are trying to maintain their standard of living. Big mergers are taking place with almost indecent haste to constitute a position of strength for the struggle that is almost inevitable. We see Mr Holyoake a very worried man, chasing around the world talking and almost pleading with prime ministers of various Common Market countries in a puny effort to try to avert the disaster that could come to New Zealand if Britain joins the Common Market. We can see a great need for trade union solidarity. But most of all, if there is a lesson to be learned from this, it is that we can see a greater than ever need for socialist organisation for the overthrow of capitalism.

Ernie Higdon, 

Socialist Party of New Zealand.

Behind the Race Riots (1958)

From the October 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Recent disturbances in Nottingham and London have brought up the question of the attitude between people of different colour; as if there must always be a fundamental difference in outlook and conduct between people with differently coloured skins.

Although on the surface the feeling associated with the recent disturbances is anti-white and anti-colour, and the rougher elements on both sides have taken the opportunity to turn this feeling into an occasion for rioting, the origin of the feeling has a deeper cause than just anti-colour.

The origin of the conflicting attitudes is fundamentally economic. Out of economic relationships arise emotions that take many forms which do not appear to have any connection with the relationships and are transformed into a variety of beliefs; for example, the false belief in the mental and moral superiority of people with white skins.

The conditions of capitalism produce a mental, or intellectual, atmosphere in which many conflicting attitudes flourish and older attitudes are modified. For instance, a pro-war and anti-war, a pro-religious and anti-religious, a pro-nationalist and anti-nationalist, and so on.

When the West Indians and Nigerians first came here in force there was no particular antipathy to them: there was only some amusement and admiration of their liveliness and colourful clothing, as well as the customary patronising attitude that is generally displayed towards any “foreigner,” whatever his skin colour. Labour was scarce then and unemployment was practically non-existent. However, when unemployment began to grow and the housing question remained acute, sufferers, and prospective sufferers, looked around for something to blame their troubles on and newcomers, as always, appeared to them to be an obvious part cause of their sufferings. In these circumstances the general attitude towards coloured people began to change and they became scapegoats for a failure of capitalism to meet society’s needs. In earlier times when there were few coloured people in England unemployment was common and the country was cluttered with overcrowded and festering slums. In those days part of the blame was put upon the Irish, or the Jews, or “foreigners” with white skins. Once this kind of idea is set going it becomes enlarged and transformed into many kinds of absurd views that are finally accepted and taken for granted by otherwise intelligent and reasonable people.

An illustration in another field furnishes an example of how outlooks that have a source in social conditions can suffer transformation.

The economic rivalries of sections of the capitalist class brought about the last two great wars. They had a purely economic origin. Yet patriotic feeling and feelings concerning democracy and justice became so emotionally stirred up that, on both sides of the conflict, wealthy young men from the ranks of the capitalist class were prepared to lay down their lives in the struggle in a fervour of blind idealism.

West Indians came to England because times were bad in their home country and they thought they could do better here. On the same ground thousands emigrate from England to the United States or the Dominions because they think they can make a better living there. In England working conditions were easier than the emigrants met in places like Canada and the emigrant took time to acclimatise himself to the faster pace and other conditions. Consequently, he was not at first made very welcome and employers were inclined to think him lazy. But they had to put up with him whilst labour was scarce. Similarly, the West Indian, who has been accustomed to a slower labouring speed, is not now as welcome on the job as he was when there were more jobs than job-seekers. But in time all workers become integrated with the conditions of the country in which they settle.

When workers are struggling for homes and jobs anything that appears to stand in their way becomes a menace to be got rid of, particularly when they see coloured people overflowing with life and expressing it in late and noisy hours. Consequently, the unusual influx of people from overseas was bound eventually to appear in the light of a menace, notwithstanding the fact that about 100,000 emigrants have left this country annually since the war and only a total of 200,000 coloured people have settled here during that time. (See Evening Standard, 10th September, 1958.)

Mr. Norman Manley, Chief Minister of Jamaica, has come over here to try to smooth out the difficulties that have arisen. He has made impassioned speeches, urging England “to preserve her reputation for being able to maintain in England absolutely decent inter-racial relationships.” (Evening Standard, 10th September.) He has good reason for his passion. He got rid of a portion of his unemployed problem by the emigration of Jamaicans, and he doesn't want them back on his doorstep again.

It is worth mentioning another objection that has been urged, one concerning sex relationship. Many people are disturbed at seeing coloured men associating with white women. They base their antipathy on moral grounds, though the moral grounds do not appear to be so strong when white men associate with coloured women. The coloured man is at a disadvantage here because he is so easily distinguished, whereas his white brother associating in the same way with a white woman would generally pass unnoticed. However, on whatever grounds the arguments are based, the association has nothing to do with colour. It is still true that some white men, both at home and abroad, are pursuers of women of any colour. One has only to remember the antipathy here to American soldiers during the war on account of the sex question. Further, it should be remembered that white soldiers who brought home Malayan, Chinese or Japanese wives incurred no odium, in spite of the differences in colour.

Now let us glance at another aspect of the subject.

Amongst white people belonging to the same country there has been bitter, and bloody, antagonism, as instanced by the civil wars in England, the United States, Germany, France, Russia, and Ireland. This, apart from the wars between European nations. But amongst coloured people there has been similar strife: the massacres in the struggle between India and Pakistan; the antagonism between the people of Northern and Southern Nigeria, the recent strife in Ceylon between the Tamils and Sinhalese. No sooner was the new State of Ghana established than some of its coloured citizens were expelled. In South Africa and Kenya there is bitter antagonism between the Indians and black people. Again, there is everywhere oppression of poor coloured by rich coloured, just as there is oppression of poor whites by rich whites.

We may also note in passing that there are “wide boys” among the coloured just as there are among the white. One example will illustrate this. It is taken from a letter by a “London Landlady” that appeared in the “Manchester Guardian” for the 13th September. The landlady in question had been in the habit of letting her rooms to African, Indian, Chinese and European students and now and then had a bad tenant, which did not trouble her until she ran into the following difficulties:—

  "The trouble really started when I had to remind a certain African tenant that he was in arrears with his rent. This immediately drew the comment that I was discriminating against him—quite illogical in the circumstances. From then on both he and another African tenant consistently refused to pay their rent until it was considerably overdue. Occasionally one of them would go away and I would find a strange African in his room—and again, when I mentioned this I was accused of colour prejudice.”

The whites who bilk landladies are too numerous to count and bring no condemnation of whites in general. But when it is done by some coloured people it becomes exaggerated into a condemnation of the coloured in general. At the same time the past experience of coloured people is apt to make some of them walk about with a chip on their shoulders.

Another side of the question concerns accommodation. The fact that many landlords are reluctant to let accommodation to coloured people is not, in itself, an example of colour discrimination. Landlords are in business to make money and therefore wish to let their houses and flats as profitably as possible, no matter who desires the accommodation. Consequently they steer clear of impecunious, quarrelsome, drunken tenants; tenants who are disturbing others by frequent parties, or tenants who bring others in to overload the premises. They avoid these people because they are liable to drive others away and lower the letting value of the premises. Many of them are convinced that this would happen if they let to coloured people. The latter are lively, sociable and inclined to be noisy because they come from a part of the world where liveliness is common. Also, owing to the housing shortage, as they must find somewhere to live, they are inclined to crowd together in the only places available and put up with the discomfort.

Finally, we, of course, deplore attacks of workers on each other, regardless of the colour of their skins.

The root of the present problem is therefore not colour, but social conditions that are produced by capitalist society. Various solutions to the problem have been put forward, but these solutions ignore the root from which the problem grows. Present racial antagonism is bound up with the general conditions of capitalism. Like the other evils of capitalism it will only disappear when capitalism itself has been replaced by a social system in which all human beings will be able to move freely over the earth and live in harmony because their interests will be identical. This can only be a reality under Socialism.

Gilmac.