Tobacco smoking: the end of the road? (1962)

From the August 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Tobacco has been known to us for quite a long time, cigarettes not nearly so long, but long enough for the smoking habit to be very well established by the time the Royal College of Physicians issued their report on lung cancer earlier this year. Although it is probably true to say that medicos have never been really happy about the effect of smoking on health, it is only in recent years that they have felt able to pin some of the blame on it at least for stomach irritation, chronic bronchitis, heart attacks, coronary thrombosis, and last but not least—lung cancer.

The Royal College’s report Smoking and Health, published last March launches a swinging attack on the smoking habit—cigarettes mainly—but it is not the first of its kind. In 1950, Professor Hill and Dr. Doll published results of their first investigation into the incidence of lung cancer in relation to men’s smoking habits. Then at the beginning of 1952 the American Cancer Society began a survey of nearly two hundred thousand men between the ages of fifty and seventy. Its grim findings were announced to the American Medical Association convention in 1954.

Tobacco shares fell at the news, but Alistair Cooke, writing in The Manchester Guardian at the time, was a little hasty when he assumed that it would “. . . induce profound melancholia or even penury in the American cigarette manufacturers.” Sales of tobacco have continued to rise since then, with cigarettes reaching an all time high in 1961. In that year also, there were 22,000 deaths from lung cancer in Great Britain alone.

In the twelve years since the Hill and Doll report there have been similar independent surveys conducted in at least eight countries. All have reached the same broad conclusions, so that the R.C.P. report this year only set the seal really on the impressive weight of evidence which has been building up in the meantime. It is difficult to say at this stage how seriously this latest report will be taken; there is still a very strong social habit to be taken into account. But that is not the whole story. It is really only the fag end.

The tobacco firms are rich and very well established. Some idea can be gained of the persistent money spinner that tobacco is, when it is realised that in this country alone last year £825 million went to the Government in revenue from this source. Almost exactly the cost of the National Health Service, as one noble Lord put it. Which gives us a glimpse of the dilemma facing our rulers—powerful tobacco interests and a huge tax income on the one hand and a rising lung cancer rate on the other.

Maybe they can take some solace from the fact that others before them have had to tread a similar path. Over the centuries since its discovery and the beginning of its use in England, tobacco has been violently attacked and just as stoutly defended, but its consumption has increased and with it the tax yield. Even James I, who campaigned vigorously against the weed in such works as A Counterblast to Tobacco (1604) was not slow to slap on an import duty of 6s. 8d. a pound the following year. Some say that James’ antagonism toward tobacco was really an expression of his hatred of Sir Walter Raleigh. Be that as it may, and whatever his original motives for imposing the tax, he was cute enough to realise its possibilities. By 1613, he had rescinded his earlier tax and in 1624 made tobacco a Royal Monopoly.

Nicotiana Tabacum — common tobacco — native of Central and South America, is now grown the world over and accounts for about three-quarters of all that is smoked. It was introduced into Europe about 1530. There is still some dispute over which of the colonists in the time of Hawkins and Drake brought the plant to England. What we can say is that smoking slowly took hold here between 1565 and 1590. Ironic that today it should come under such heavy medical fire, when in those days it was thought to have great curative powers and in many places took root because of this belief.

The first cigarettes known to be manufactured in England were by Robert Gloag in 1856. He opened a factory in Walworth, London. This form of smoking gained rapid popularity (probably because of its comparative cheapness) and the various cigarette firms, familiar to us all, were well established by the turn of the century. Seventeen of them combined in 1902 to form The Imperial Tobacco Company Ltd., as a counter to the threat of American competition. They were strong enough to win the “tobacco war” with the American manufacturer James Buchanan Duke, and secured his withdrawal from the English market.

As the market for tobacco, and particularly cigarettes, expanded, so did the government’s interest in it as a course of taxation. This applied even more in times of war. During the first world war, for example, the duty was raised enormously and eventually reached 8s. 2d. a lb., where it remained until 1927 when there was another jump to 8s. 10d. Again, the second world war gave a tremendous fillip to taxation and at the end of it, the duty had reached 35s. 6d. per Ib. Successive governments have continued the practice since then.

Which is just about where we came in. All governments have to levy taxes to finance their administration of capitalism’s economy, and they are not particularly worried about where they get them from. Tobacco has been a sure source of income up to now and cigarettes take the brunt of this because they form at least 4/5ths of the tobacco consumed in Britain today. So although strong medical suspicions have been voiced for over ten years, cigarette consumption has continued to rise and the government has continued to cream off some of the profits.

It must be a bit perplexing for our politicians to have to set about discouraging a widespread habit which they have themselves helped to foster in the past. Remember the huge quantities of “fags” distributed free to the forces during the last war, and how they were considered vital in boosting morale? But 22,000 deaths in one year and the rate still rising cannot be ignored. Let the tobacco companies gripe if they like. The more astute capitalist politician will have his eye on the threat to production if the incidence continues to rise. And remember that it is not uncommon in the younger age groups now, the ones who matter so much in the productive scheme of things. That is why the anti-smoking propaganda has been directed so conspicuously at school children, and not old age pensioners.

Just how successful the government’s campaign will be is anybody’s guess. The smoking habit is certainly well established, but if it threatens the overall interests of the capitalist class they will try to do something about it. What will happen to the tobacco firms then? Some may go broke, but there will be other fields of profitable investment. Labour will be transferred elsewhere, and the government will start looking in other directions for its taxes.

But by then we shall probably have other problems to worry us anyway. Poor health, after all, is not something for which smoking is solely to blame. Inferior diet, poor working conditions and the sheer strain of modern living are constantly wearing workers down. Add only three of the factors which are to that the fact that medical research itself is never very high on the priority list of expenditure, and you have an idea of the magnitude of this problem. To say that it is social is to stress the obvious, and despite the best intentions of the medical profession the task of tackling it can hardly begin until capitalism is well on the way out.

Eddie Critchfield

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 Passing Show: Who are the hungry? (1965)

The Passing Show Column from the March 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Who are the hungry?

When I was a youngster, my parents had the sort of struggle to clothe and feed their children that was common enough in those days. With the Old Man often out of work, Ma had to turn her hand to any job available—charring mainly—for a few shillings. Like many other working class children, we were badly clothed and housed, and while perhaps we did not actually starve, we were often hungry.

At that time, it would have been ludicrous to suggest that we give to funds aimed at preventing starvation or alleviating poverty in other parts of the world. Ma would have laughed that one bitterly out of court. We were already recipients of charity in one form or another—coal, food parcels and other children’s leftoffs—and it was cold comfort to be told that there were always those worse off than ourselves.

Times have now changed, we are assured. Ma is dead and Pa draws National Assistance to keep him ticking over in his declining days. The overt charity has more or less dried up, although he does get occasional gifts and treats from the old age pensioners’ club. He doesn’t go hungry, although from what I can see of it, a lot of what he eats is starchy filler with not much food value. Ironically, two or three years ago he was frequently an interested reader of The Good Food Guide, a yearly catalogue of recommended eating houses in the British Isles.

Ironic from another angle too. This book is published by The Good Food Club, which recently allowed OXFAM access to its address lists for circularising an invitation to an “austerity supper.” The meal would consist of a bowl of herbs and rice, with cold water. The charge, said the letter, would be two guineas, the balance after meeting costs to go to OXFAM funds. Pa got one of the circulars.

Now no one is suggesting that there was any calculated insult intended. Of course OXFAM could not know that they were writing to an old age pensioner, and anyway, he did not take it amiss—merely laughed. It is the whole basic concept of such bodies as OXFAM that must be challenged. In a world where there are over forty million refugees and around half the population underfed, an organisation like this can barely begin to scratch the surface of the problem, granting their sincerity every inch of the way.

I have before me one or two of OXFAM’s appeal adverts. One tells us that:

“Millions of the world’s families have no great hope for 1965. To them it will be just another year in the endless battle against hunger, disease and the terrible, grinding poverty.”

And another says that OXFAM will be:

“Helping them get enough to eat, buying them medicines, giving them a roof over their heads. But most important, helping them free themselves from a life sentence of poverty—with education, training, new tools.”

So from this you could be forgiven for thinking that these problems are associated perhaps with the “backward” areas. Politicians do anyway lend credence to it by talking about “aid to underdeveloped countries” (e.g. Mr. Wilson at the beginning of January). But it is not so. The foremost capitalist country in the world—USA—has such an appalling poverty problem that writers are often drawing attention to it.

“According to government figures … 56 per cent of low-income farm families were deficient in one or more basic nutrients in the diet. The rural poor were ever worse off. Seventy per cent suffered from this deficiency. Thus there is hunger in the midst of abundance.” (Michael Harrington, The Other America.)

Yet OXFAM would think it ridiculous to spend their funds in the USA. They concentrate exclusively on the extreme poverty and hunger which are rooted in primitive agriculture and inadequate physical means of production, poor land etc. These may of course aggravate a local condition under capitalism, but there is no doubt that the world at large is capable of feeding everyone—if properly organised.

Aye, there’s the rub. Wheat stored away in river backwaters, lettuces and potatoes ploughed back into the soil, and land deliberately taken out of cultivation, all to try and keep up the prices to a profitable level. The fact that people starve in the meantime is a mere incidental. The market is the all powerful god under capitalism. And this not only in Western countries. Only last month we drew attention to the deliberate burning of cocoa in Ghana for precisely the same reason as above. If OXFAM are thinking of spending some of their money in this backward area, we wonder what they think about such news as that.

The tragedy of OXFAM, Freedom from Hunger, War on Want, and other such organisations is not just their failure to make any worthwhile effect on the problem. It is their refusal even to glimpse its causes or to question a world which can destroy food stocks wholesale in one place and let millions starve in another.

Conservative Security

I noticed a giant poster, presumably a leftover from the general election, on a hoarding at the top of our road a week or two ago. “For a safer world, vote Conservative” it screamed at me from the usual bilious red white and blue colour scheme. It was the use of the comparative “safer” I found intriguing. Did it mean safer than right now. Or perhaps safer when the Conservatives were last in power, or just safer in a general sense?

Whichever way you look at it, the underlying theme is that political parties in general and the Conservative Party in particular, can appreciably affect the safety of the world by their policies. The Tories would not of course suggest that their opponents were deliberately pushing the world to the verge of another war. Rather would they be inclined to say that it was their ineptitude which was doing the damage, and that only the return of the Conservatives can restore matters.

Well let’s have a brief look at it. In the past fifty years there have been two world wars, both supported by the Tories. They were in power for quite a large part of that period. Not a particularly peaceful one. In the years of the postwar Labour government, it was remarkable how Tory support could be guaranteed for actions involving armed force or the threat of it, such as Greece, Berlin and Korea.

What of the years which followed? When they returned to power in 1951, the Conservatives had already made the usual vague promises about “our contribution to peace,” but whatever this may have meant to them in theory, what happened in practice was the almost chronic bloodshed in Cyprus, and the crises in Suez, Lebanon and Berlin (again). A safer world?

I would not have called it that, but there’s an amazing flexibility of meaning to such words when spoken by capitalist statesmen. Anyway, they were not discouraged and were busy telling us again later that “Peace is one more reason why Conservative government is good government.” (Guardian advert 17.8.59.). In the five years which followed that little piece of double talk, we have had more bloodletting in Cyprus and the agonising Cuba affair, not to mention smaller incidents in various parts of the world.

The truth is that the Conservative Party is no more a party of peace than of war. Like its Labour counterpart it is committed to running British capitalism and protecting its interests at home and abroad. At times this will mean sending men out to fight and die. That is why, even allowing for differences of opinion and errors of judgment, the views of government and opposition are so close, especially in the field of foreign policy. That is why also, there will always be those on either side who will jeer that the others are stealing their thunder, or protest that their party is becoming contaminated with the other side’s ideas. This was the very gist of one speaker’s complaint at the Young Conservatives’ Conference on February 7th.

But the net result is still the same. It is still a very unsafe world in which to live because the conflicting interests of capitalism make it so. Far from influencing the course of events to any great extent, the Conservative and other capitalist parties must frame their policies to meet the events and then hope for the best.

Propaganda Broadside

Have you noticed a crop of newspaper adverts about South Africa recently? Those I have seen glowingly describe the place as “a developing community of nations” or “rich in resources and rewards” or “the British Motor Industry’s biggest single export market.” The South African government is obviously anxious to build up a favourable picture particularly, it seems, in Britain, and if in the process the truth gets a bit discoloured that’s not likely to worry them overmuch.

Take for example their claim of January 26th:

“The structure of non-white wages has been, and is constantly being, raised to realistic levels of economic and social requirements . . . thousands of African workers . . . seek an opportunity to work and earn better wages on South African farms and in the mines and factories.”

Somewhat vague, but definitely calculated to create a good impression would you think? Now compare it with a United Nations report only two weeks earlier:

“Africans working for foreign companies in S.W. Africa live as though in slavery. . . . The policy of Apartheid . . . offers . . . every opportunity for the exploitation of the indigenous inhabitants. . . . The very low level of African wages, the lack of development of the native reserves, and the evils of the migratory labour system, result in misery and untold sufferings.”

Maybe it’s as well that Socialists have a sort of built-in scepticism which makes them examine everything they are told with a supercritical eye. But as you can see, we don’t always have to make conscious efforts at disproving the falsehoods spread around by one ruling class or the other. South African racial policies have provoked hostility among the new “coloured” states, and some of the older capitalist states are coming out against them too. So it’s not surprising that reports like this one appear from time to time, and South Africa comes under fire from the other paragons of virtue at the U.N.

What we should bear in mind is that there has been evidence of harsh and oppressive conditions there for many years, but it is only recently that outside interests have demanded any fuss be made about it. Quite clearly brotherly love is only a minor consideration in this new-found desire for racial equality. “Exploitation for all workers, regardless of race” is the real battle cry behind the pious slop uttered by the winds-of-change-merchants.

Eddie Critchfield

SPGB Meetings (1963)

Party News from the December 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

So, this is Social Security (1966)

From the November 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

"During the last 50 years a comprehensive scheme of national insurance has been gradually developed to become the central feature of our system of social security.” These were the words of the then Minister of Pensions and National Insurance Richard Wood, in a forward to a government booklet: Everybody’s Guide To National Insurance, May, 1964. If this statement does anything at all, it underlines capitalism’s continuing, indeed developing, need for all sorts of compulsory insurance provisions for its working population.

We have come a long way since the days of Lloyd George and his five shilling pension proposals, and the very limited dole and "panel” medicine of the inter-war years. To even these comparatively modest measures, there were always the objectors who thought “the country could not afford it,” but it was Lloyd George himself who shoved his opponents contemptuously aside with the observation that paying a pension was cheaper than maintaining old people in work-houses. And this has been the sort of criterion which has guided the reformers ever since; despite the professed humanitarianism of the Labour Party, their spokesman Jim Griffiths was under no illusion about the aims of national insurance when he commended his sweeping post-war proposals to the Commons on February 6, 1946:

The loss to the Nation caused by preventive illness alone is appalling, for it has been estimated at £300 millions a year, equal to 3/5ths of the cost of the scheme in its initial year. To those who fear we cannot afford this scheme, I would advise them to ask themselves if we can afford to go on without it. 

Under this National Insurance Bill, a wide range of “benefits” was enacted based to a large extent on the old Beveridge proposals, and estimated to cost some £452 millions in 1949 and £496 millions in 1955. Contributions were to range from 2/2d. to 4/7d. a week from workers, and their employers were to make weekly contributions ranging from l/9d. to 3/10d. per employee. There was also to be a grant from the Exchequer, and all of this money was to be pooled in the National Insurance Fund, to which would be charged the costs of benefits and administration.

This arrangement has remained largely unaltered over the years, but it is nonsense to suggest, as some Labourites and others were doing then, that the scheme would abolish poverty. Prime Minister Attlee claimed in a Commons speech (February 7, 1946) that “the Bill would help to maintain the high standard of purchasing power among the masses of the people.” But just take a look at some of the benefit rates then, and see if you agree with him: — 

Unemployment or sickness               26/-per week (£2 married couple)

Pension  . . .   . . .                             26/-per week (£2 married couple)

100 per cent Disability Pay                45/-per week 

Nat. Assistance (ordinary) . . .            50/-per week

    for man and wife (begun 1948)      65/- per week

Incidentally, an interesting and pertinent comment is made on the scheme by M. Penelope Hall in her book The Social Services of Modern England. She says:

One drastic modification in the Beveridge Plan was made at the start. Benefits have never been paid at subsistence level. Beveridge regarded this modification to his scheme as disastrous. 

In the 20 years since 1946, government cost estimates have been sadly put out by continuously rising prices and increases in the cost of living, so that various amending Acts have had to be passed, stepping up the benefits and the contribution rates. By 1959, for example, unemployment, sickness and pension rates all stood at 50/- per week single, while National Assistance was at 76/- (normal) and 96/- (special) for a man and wife. This was the year, you may recall, that the Tories were pointing with pride to their achievements in this field, ignoring such uncomfortable facts as 1¾ million people having to apply for National Assistance—about 1.4 millions of them old age pensioners.

But even the Conservatives, jubilant at their 1959 election victory, could not pretend that provisions were adequate, even by the miserable standards that capitalist politicians set, and not long after that their graduated pensions scheme was introduced, which meant larger contributions from those earning over £9 a week, to secure proportional payment in addition to a flat-rate pension. Under such an arrangement, you would get an extra sixpence a week added to your flat-rate pension for every £7 10s. paid in, and when you consider the piffling extent of these changes, you might wonder what all the song and dance was about. Certainly there was nothing from the workers’ point of view, although from the Government’s angle the new scheme gave the pension system some flexibility, and so no doubt was intended to keep down the extra cost.

The whole question of National Insurance was tossed about by the main parties at the 1964 election, and it was becoming apparent anyway that an overhaul was due in the system of payments and contributions. For example, while there was not the heavy and persistent unemployment of the twenties and thirties, there was the question of “labour mobility” and the tiding over of unemployed workers when retraining for new jobs, following the decline of some of the older industries. So the Labour Government’s measures now include compulsory compensation payments to any worker made redundant after a minimum of two years at the same job.

In the government’s social security arrangements, it is interesting that they have retained essentially unchanged the graduated pension scheme of which they had been so scornful when the Tories introduced it. In addition, there is the “Earnings-Related Short-Term Benefits Scheme” which just means that there will be a flat-rate sickness and unemployment benefit of £4 a week minimum, plus further payments, depending on your average weekly earnings between £9 and £30 a week. Here again we see the pressure of present-day conditions in the government’s attempts to offload at least some of the burden of the rising cost of benefits from the central Exchequer. Quite clearly also, the 1946 scales and payment methods no longer suffice to keep workers ticking over in sickness or between jobs, and once more the modern emphasis is on “flexibility”. It could be that this is something we shall see more of in the future, what with the growth of new industries and the decline of the old, to say nothing of plain old-fashioned unemployment because of trade crises.

And what other changes have there been recently? Oh yes, the old Ministry of Pensions and Njational Insurance has been replaced by the brand new “Ministry of Social Security” (surely a contradiction in terms) with responsibility for all the schemes which were formerly administered separately, such as National Assistance. These particular payments will be known as “supplementary benefits” and are a fitting reminder of the way in which reformers' plans can misfire. In 1953, Lord Beveridge admitted that he and the experts had originally expected National Assistance payments to be on a small scale only and to gradually diminish. But, in fact, the very opposite has' happened, and the government has resigned itself to the fact by allowing for increased rates of benefit when the new arrangements start in the autumn.

What all these measures add up to is merely the organisation of 1966 poverty by 1966 methods, and the usual attempts to maintain the workforce at the appropriate standards of health and efficiency to keep capitalism’s production and profits going. It has been the irritating habit of Labourites to claim that these Acts bring dignity to workers’ lives, but their very existence is an indication of the essential indignity of working class life. And despite the increasing intricacy of state insurance and widening of its scope, there are many who stay stubbornly poor even by “Supplementary Benefits” standards. Like the 15,000 families admitted by Assistance Board Chairman Lord Runcorn to be “living on assistance at the moment, at an income well below their needs, because allowances are based on the best estimate that can be made of a man’s future earnings.” Or like “those whose take-home pay is less than they need by assistance standards, although in full employment.”

Eddie Critchfield

The Passing Show: A sad, sad story (1966)

The Passing Show Column from the November 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

A sad, sad story

A week or two ago a four-page leaflet fell out of a laundry parcel. I read it later the same day in snatches, between mouthfuls of food at lunch time. It was a lament — in black, white and brown printing—by a group of launderers and dry cleaners, over the new taxes and other hardships they are having to bear under the present government. Did you know, for example, that the Selective Employment Tax will add another £7 million a year to the launderers' labour costs?

But the amusing note is struck in a paragraph on the prices “standstill”. The launderers have found a loophole (one of many) which allows them ‘‘some latitude" because their costs are affected by government action. "So you can see," they wail, ‘‘that our dilemma lies in balancing co-operation against financial suicide." A neat turn of phrase, coined to sugar the pill, because the local laundry has now slapped on a surcharge of a penny in the shilling.

Can you imagine yourself approaching your employer right now for a wage increase, and using the same sort of talk? Try moaning to him about balancing this against that, and see how far you get. He'll probably look at you as if you’ve gone mad, murmur something about the pay freeze, and bring the interview very effectively to a close. No good telling him you’re going to make a surcharge. He just won’t pay it to you. and that’s that. Your position is radically different from that of the launderers or any other capitalists. You have only your labour power to sell, and the government is determined that you are not going to get a pay rise for at least six months, but as far as price control in general is concerned the whole thing is just a very bad joke.

We have dealt with this situation elsewhere, so perhaps just one last thought is all that is necessary here. Were you one of those simple folk who believed what this and other governments have told you about being much better off if only you’d curb your wage demands? By that logic, then, you should be a lot better off by next spring. Perhaps you don’t believe it any more? No, and neither does the government.

Korea—some of the story

General MacArthur was sacked from his command because, among other things, he was pressing for the Korean war to be carried into China and for atom bombs to be used there. There was a sigh of relief from left-wingers when he went, and perhaps a murmur or two of applause for President Truman’s action.

Not long after that, Eisenhower became U.S. President and from his recent television talk (September 18) it seems that pressures to extend the “police action” did not all originate from MacArthur. In fact Eisenhower wielded the atom bomb as a strong diplomatic weapon in his armistice talks with the North Koreans and let them and the Chinese know that America was ready to use it if negotiations were protracted much longer.

It is only now, when the truth begins to trickle out in very small quantities, that people can begin to guess how perilously close to the brink of another big shooting war the capitalist world was drifting in the early .1950s. War is not fought to Queensbury rules; practically anything goes if one side or the other thinks it can get away with it. And nuclear weapons must have been a sore temptation to the U.S. authorities, whatever President Truman may have thought. 

The television interview was in the first of a series of programmes called The Struggle For Peace—surely a gigantic misnomer. Accordingly Eisenhower, the American forces alone sustained 135,000 casualties. Some “police action”; some “peace”.

The naked truth

You can be alternately bored and amused for an hour or two if you go and see one of the rather corny nudist films on in London's West End just now. 1 saw one called World Without Shame, and its plot, if such it can be called, is heavily laden with the delightfully naive message that if only we’d all take our clothes off, spend most of the day sunning ourselves and generally “get back to nature,” the problems of the world would be solved.

The story starts with a young man winning about £26,000 on the pools. He and his wife chuck up their jobs in London and go to live with a few chosen friends on a quiet Mediterranean island. “We’ll get away for good from the rat race. We’ll be completely self-supporting,” enthuses our young man, fingering the pools cheque in his pocket. So off they go. There is even the political hint in another of his reasons when he talks of “some maniac pressing the H Bomb button and blowing us all to hell.” Someone ought to have reminded the producers that the Mediterranean would hardly go unscathed in such an event.

Never mind. They settle on the island in their birthday suits, dividing their time between sleeping, eating, some work and a great deal of sunbathing. The sun always shines—someone seems to have forgotten that the weather can often be cold and wet even in those parts—and presumably we are to believe they all live happily ever after. The scenery is .beautiful, the direction and acting embarrassingly poor (you often find yourself laughing in the wrong places), and the pathetic naivete of the whole proposition glaringly apparent.

We have never thought much of the idea that you can buy yourself out of the rat race, although a few thousand pounds can of course make things a lot easier for you. But the effects of the scramble are all around you, and the notion of an oasis of self-sufficiency in a desert of capitalism is a non-starter. Even the film has to concede this in part when one of the characters, a painter, runs out of canvas, and gets fresh supplies by sailing to the mainland and selling some of his pictures.

Gaspers

“The new strategy demands a great increase in fertilizer production, which can only be achieved if foreign capital can be induced to invest heavily and quickly." (The Times correspondent on Indian food production, 19.9.66).

Dr. Seretse Khama, who was exiled from his homeland by the last Labour government after his marriage to a white woman, was yesterday created a Knight Commander of the British Empire.” (Guardian, 21.9.66).

“This is our socialism: assertion of social responsibility for our economic welfare and for the welfare of the individual family." (Harold Wilson Purpose in Power, quoted in Nova magazine interview, Sept., 1966).

“The Prime Minister, I understand, has no intention of involving himself in doctrinal arguments about the true meaning of socialism which he believes has done enough harm to the party already. (Nora Beloff in The Observer, 2.10.66).

“Sir Isaac Wolfson reports that because of the freeze, dividends which could have been 36½ per cent will be held at 32½ per cent, the same as last year.” (Daily Express, 11.10.66).

There is nothing in Mr. Wilson’s present policy which a Tory Prime Minister, faced by a comparable crisis, would necessarily reject. (Peregrine Worsthorne—Conservatism Today).

Eddie Critchfield

The Passing Show: The Same Everywhere (1966)

The Passing Show Column from the October 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Same Everywhere

The Balance of Payments. Four words which have meant a headache for every British government for umpteen years. “Our” gold and dollar reserves are too low. “Our” imports are too high. “We” are paying ourselves more than “we” are earning. “We” are heavily in debt. And so the moans go on and on. So much so that you could be forgiven for thinking that it is a peculiarly British situation, almost as if the rest of the world was flowing with milk and honey for the average inhabitant. Well, let’s take a look at it.

First of all, if you’re thinking that high exports and a favourable balance of trade mean that we could all sit back and relax, a little bit of history reading will do much to dispel that notion. Indeed, at a time when Britain was just about the most powerful nation in the world, ruling the waves militarily and commercially, working people lived under the most shocking conditions. But come a little more up-to-date if you like, and remember that only a few years ago West Germany had a gigantic balance of trade surplus (“embarrassingly large” one commentator once called it), yet her workers had to struggle just as hard for improvements in wages and conditions, and there have been some really bitter strikes there in recent times.

And today? The German capitalists have been getting jittery about the state of their economy. According to Chancellor Erhard, wages have been rising too fast (it’s always too fast—never too slow), since 1963 by 8½ per cent, while productivity has gone up by only four per cent. He has not been slow to threaten Wilson-like measures: —

. . .  we still have things under control. However, if we let them drift, then the same will have to happen to us, that is, a wages freeze, a prices freeze, a considerable rise in the cost of living, indeed even partial balance of payments control. (Guardian, 6/8/66)

It has been favourite with some people to recommend that British workers take a leaf out of their German brothers' book and work as hard. Doesn’t seem to have made much difference, does it? The cry for them, as for us, is still “work harder and pull your belts in!”

Just to show you that capitalism’s problems are similar, wherever you go, let us take another example, this time from one of the “poorer” countries—a rising power since the end of the war. India. There the government has published its fourth five-year plan, envisaging some £10,000 millions investment; yet even if it comes to fruition, the planners admit it will mean:—

. . . every Indian will have a bare two metres more of cloth each year, and three ounces more of food each day.

Not much to write home about? Ah, but even this miserable achievement has a backhanded slap to accompany it.

A massive export drive, if necessary by curbing consumption at home, and Additional taxation . . . are considered essential. (Guardian, 30/8/66)

This, by the way, is one of the countries figuring prominently in the Oxfam appeals, and there is no doubt about the poverty, squalor and starvation of many millions of its inhabitants. But developing Indian capitalism is interested in this only incidentally. Its prime concern is the sale of its goods on the world market. And if this means that the Indian workers have to make do with even less than they get now, the government and employers will not shed many tears—except a few crocodile ones.

Want to be a Postman?

There is a delightfully colourful set of brochures which you can get from any post office, listing the delights of a career with the G.P.O. Read it, and discover that when you work as a postman you “enjoy” such perks as “ a safe job” and “a steady wage”, to say nothing of “an easy mind” and “a friendly atmosphere”. Just think, at 23 and over, you can earn the princely sum of £15 11 s. a week, basic, if you work within four miles radius of Charing Cross, and the opportunity to work overtime.

Perhaps like me, you have your doubts about the adequacy of such a wage, especially if you have a wife and children to think about. But, of course, you can’t expect the Post Office to introduce such a discordant note into their literature, which reads like a song of self-praise from beginning to end. In fact, if everything in the postman’s garden is so lovely, why you may ask, does the G.P.O. have to try so hard to entice you into it with such garish and elaborately printed leaflets?

The answer lies not so much in what has been said as in what has been left out. Shift work in all weathers, for example. And the fact that even the present miserable rate of £15 11s. a week has been won only after a determined strike two or three years ago—the first in the Post Office for more than, half a century. The G.P.O. leaflet is typical of much of the stuff you will find in the Situations Vacant column of any newspaper. No employer, particularly in times of labour shortage, is going to lead off with a list of snags. They will become obvious only when you start working for him. Then, in the manner of Orwell “interesting” becomes “boring” and you find that those “gd. wages and conds” are not really enough after all.

But that’s the outcome of a wages system. No matter what honeyed words your employer uses, your wages are always a problem to him, and to you, too.

Thoughts on Crime

But not very deep ones. I’m afraid, from the Evening Standard leader writer of August 24. He was no doubt prompted by the recent outbreaks of violent crime, and gently chided Lord Butler and the present Home Secretary, Mr. Jenkins, for their “bafflement over the causes of crime in an affluent society”. Yet for all the contribution to our knowledge in this particular editorial, the writer might just as well have left his pen in his pocket.

He makes some sweeping and quite unsupported assertions in his attempts to cover this pressing problem in about 10 column inches, and ends up just as much without a real answer as when he started. “Man is a basically aggressive and pugnacious animal,” he writes, but gives no evidence for this, or for his quite startling suggestion that the object of wars, military training, etc., is to provide a safety valve for the pent-up feelings of bored youngsters.

This editorial caught my eye for its complete refusal to ask one simple question—why? If young people are bored, what is the reason, especially in a rapidly changing world? Isn’t the prospect of a lifetime of wage work enough to make anyone bored? And what do people fight about anyway? This is the question the writer should have begun by asking, but never did. We agree with him that poverty is not the cause of crime, though it may aggravate the situation at times. People fight and knock each other about for very material reasons, when you get down to the bottom of things. Over private property, in fact.

The outbreak of violence is just one aspect of the general competitive struggle which affects each one of us throughout his life. We are all jockeying for economic elbow room, and on the international field, this throws whole nations against each other in massive armed conflict. That, by The Evening Standard’s criteria, should be classified as the biggest and most violent crime of all, involving wholesale murder and robbery, yet the editorial never touched it. A crime, apparently, is a crime when it does not have the blessing of your own ruling class. Rob and murder on their behalf, and you might even get a medal for it. Under any other circumstances, a nice long stretch behind bars.

Gaspers

"The Treasury has received several hundred pounds in cash contributions from members of the public since the Prime Minister announced his measures to deal with the economic crisis.”

(Guardian, 12/8/66)

"I won't retire—I wouldn’t know what to do all day.” (Mr. H. Jennings, winner of over £92,000 in Vernons Pools. Daily Mail Advert, 18/8/66)

‘The pressure of events is remorselessly leading towards a major war, while efforts to reverse that trend are lagging disastrously behind.” (U Thant’s statement to the United Nations, 1/9/66)

“The government spent £3,600,000 in assisting the Potato Marketing Board to take potatoes off the market and push up prices for the remainder last year . . .

(Daily Telegraph, 26/8/66)

Eddie Critchfield

The Passing Show: Holiday Reckoning (1964)

The Passing Show Column from the July 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Holiday Reckoning 1.

The residents of Clacton had hardly gathered their wits after the Easter punch-ups, when Whitsun brought fresh outbreaks of teenage violence, but this time at Margate, Brighton and that paradise of retired army officers—Bournemouth. Margate was the worst afflicted, as hoards of “Mods” and “Rockers” descended on Dreamland and other parts and laid into each other without pity, egged on by their girl friends.

One aspect of these outbreaks which has alarmed the authorities is the contempt in which the warring youngsters held the police. “Here come the coppers; let's do ’em! ” was heard at one point and seems to sum up the prevailing attitude. It’s little wonder, then, that the coppers got just as tough and waded in with truncheons swinging. Neither is it surprising that heavy penalties were imposed by the courts on practically all those who were caught.

Just about as sickening was the spate of comments, excuses, call them what you will, in the press and elsewhere. Some people had blamed the poor weather and the lack of teenage amusement facilities at Clacton for the trouble there, but the same excuse could not be used for those which occurred at Whitsun. Nobody seemed to have any real grasp of why the violence had broken out and everybody was shocked and angered by it, forgetting that this was not the first trouble of its kind—neither is it likely to be the last.

When it came to suggesting ways of preventing it, we were treated to a rich variety of uselessness. The Evening Standard featured brief impromptu interviews with people in the street One young woman thought that confiscating their scooters and motorbikes would “immobilise the little horrors and soon put a stop to them,” as if there were no such things as buses and trains. (Anyway, what is to stop them from fighting at home if they want to?) Stiffer penalties, prison, birch and the inevitable “put ’em in the army for a spell’’—all were trotted out, and all equally futile. The army, after all, exists to do just this sort of thing, only on a bigger and more highly organised scale. There is another difference, of course. The army has the sanction of the government in particular, and society in general. When it knocks other people about, it is done in “the interests of peace” or “to establish the rule of law” or “to protect the territorial integrity ” of some puppet state or other. Yobbos do not enjoy such privilege.

We hold no brief for the Whitsun wild ones, but at the risk of being told to turn the record over and play the other side, we say again that they are the ugly product of an equally ugly society. In the main, they are members of the working class—that much is obvious, despite some of the inane suggestions about their supposed riches. Their homes are usually in the drabber and meaner parts of the big towns, and their everyday lives are generally in character with their surroundings. Like most of us, they have to face a monotonous, unfulfilling and insecure existence of going to work for a wage packet.

This faces them with all the associate problems, boredom not least of all. Not just the boredom of “nowhere to go in the evening” but the greater boredom which is part and parcel of the uninspiring life of a wage slave and which does, in fact, colour his every waking minute. If we are honest with ourselves, we will all admit this.

The remarks of some of the “ Mods’ birds” to Daily Mirror reporter Paula James the day after the fights, are illuminating.

Listen—it gives you a kick, a thrill. It makes you feel all funny inside. You get butterflies in your stomach and you want the boys to go on and on . . . You’ve got to get your kicks somehow. You’ve got to make up for all that boring time you're going to spend at work next week.

This, then, sums up their attitude. This, they think, will solve their problems— and the “kicks” have got to be extra hard to give them any pleasure at all. No use telling them that their problems will still be with them long after they are too old for kicks any more. Reefers, Purple Hearts, violence and noise are the empty pleasures they seek. No use telling them either of the broken health which lies only a short way ahead for many of them. The Mods’ birds have a reply to that, too:

We like life the way it is now. We want it to go on and on like this. . . . We want to live today. For here, for now, not next week.

They have yet to realise that they are really at the receiving end of the biggest kick of all, one that lands fairly and squarely on them, so long as they are members of the working class. All the bust-ups in the world won’t alter that. That is the real lesson they have to learn and until then Capitalism has the laugh which really matters.

Holiday Reckoning 2.

Whitsun was warm and sunny, the roads hot and smelly—and dangerous. It was estimated that about six million cars were on the move over the four days, mostly rushing to and from the holiday spots. A record number of cars and road deaths. At least eighty-four people lost their lives. In France the number was one less. Sweden, with seventeen, had its highest total for years.

There were the usual warnings and appeals from motoring organisations and Ministry of Transport Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chesham. Strange though it may sound, these might have had some effect. Apparently overall driving was better, but the relentlessly increasing volume of traffic has a counteracting effect. As The Guardian pointed out: “ The ultimate effect is that we are marching slowly backwards.”

This trite little statement seemed to illustrate neatly the mockery behind the whole problem of road traffic. In this and other countries, a great deal of motorway building has been going on, but the fastest road building does not seem to keep pace with the mounting number of vehicles. It is typical that only capitalism could produce such machines as the motor car, inefficient and unwieldy when viewed from the viewpoint of human interests and then plonk it onto a road system completely unable to cope with it. In addition, only Capitalism would have us all on a ball and chain, and then release us all at once for “a much needed break,” half of which is spent rushing “to get away from it all ” only to find that we have not really escaped, because everyone else has had the same idea.

Majorcan Holiday

Situated in the Mediterranean about five miles off the Spanish mainland, Majorca has become tremendously popular in recent years as a holiday centre. With its warm climate and beautiful rugged mountain scenery, it attracts tourists from many parts of the world. It is noted, amongst other things, for its cultivated pearls, its cathedral at Palma, and the Valldemosa monastery where Chopin stayed for just a few unhappy months.

Many workers manage a fortnight there by travelling tourist class on a “package holiday,” some spending most of the daylight hours lying on the beach frying themselves in the sizzling sunshine, concerned less with the benefits of sunlight than with getting a tan to take back home and show their friends. They may get heatstroke for their trouble, but the prestige of a golden brown skin is obviously considered worthy of the risk.

Despite the warmth and the comparatively relaxing atmosphere, it is interesting to note the number of people who, even there, never let down their guard for a moment. Here is the woman with pointed sunglasses and a loud affected voice, trailing an enormous dog behind her. Over there is the man who boasts constantly about his “good job” and high income and, most laughable of all, some of them even get patriotic about the English weather.

Their hotel is quite well appointed and perhaps this is what has gone to their heads a little. They seem to miss the point that it is by no means as exclusive as they like to think. For exclusiveness you go to another part of the island, such as Formentor, where the cheapest hotel room will cost you about six guineas a day, where the beaches are superb and serene in their peacefulness. It is the playground of royal families and other rich types.

Some of the better-off have settled in Majorca and live the usual life of ease associated with their wealth. But for most Majorcans it is the usual story of working for a wage packet as a means of living. This is the lesson which stands out just as much among the beauty of the Balearics as it does amongst the dirt and bustle of London.

Eddie Critchfield

Blogger's Note:

A short Panorama video about Mods and Rockers from 1964 gives you a flavour of the period. Failing that, you can always check out Sting as a Bell Boy.

The Passing Show: Free blood (1965)

The Passing Show Column from the May 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Free blood

You walk in and sit down. You are called to a table, where a man in a white coat pricks your finger for a test. Then you lie on a bench and hand the bottle you've been given to a nurse. About twenty minutes later they have a pint of your blood in the bottle and you are drinking a cup of tea. Not long after that you're back at work (that's the worst part of it—the rest is not at all a bother).

This is the typical routine at a blood donor session, and such is the demand for blood, that your pint may be used within a matter of hours. This is one of the sobering facts surrounding the National Blood Transfusion Service in England, and probably one which prompts many workers to give their life fluid every few months.

In this country there is no money in it for you. merely a small certificate or badge in recognition of your services. Equally there are no strings attached or compulsion, yet thousands of people donate at regular intervals and give it no more thought than going to bed or any other day-to-day function. No doubt the prospect of an hour off from the monotony of their work and the chance to see other faces are factors, but I think there is something more to it than that.

Here is perhaps just a faint glimpse of human beings doing something for each other without the prospect of "gain" in the sense that it is meant today, but equally without fear of injury to themselves in the process. Under such conditions is it too much to feel that perhaps many of them get a real sense of satisfaction such as they rarely encounter in their workaday lives? The eagerness with which they give their blood suggests maybe a sense of relief at being able to act for a brief spell without the normal restrictions which capitalism imposes, although they are not conscious of its reason.

Peace time war training

It is about as near to a "harmony of interests" that capitalism will ever let you go, because apart from odd moments like these, you are in constant competition with your fellow man. And even in this sphere, capitalism has a degrading effect, for as fast as blood is collected in one place, it is shed even faster on the roads at home and in places farther afield like the trouble spots of Malaysia. Cyprus and Aden.

This is the background against which to view the efforts of the devoted doctors and nurses of the blood bank. It seems you just can't win while capitalism is with us.

Capitalism causes wars, big and small. That is a simple statement of fact, but it has many implications. You should not, for instance, run away with the idea that war is something which bursts like a thunderclap over a largely unprepared and unsuspecting world, for such are the conditions of modern capitalism that there is plenty of suspicion between the powers, even while they are professing undying friendship, and they are never entirely unprepared.

They are constantly training their forces and developing their weapons of death and destruction, and where they get the chance, they will give them a tryout under operating conditions. Thus they gain valuable data for future modifications in time for the bigger showdowns to come. .Such was the case during the Spanish Civil War for example, when some of the major powers sent arms and "volunteers" to one side or the other and noted their effects. Then there was the Korean episode, when the British Centurion tank was in action and later underwent alterations as a result.

Now this is not to say that Spain and Korea were just glorified weapon testing grounds. Obviously there were very real capitalist interests at stake which caused the flareups and put the men and weapons there in the first place. But they are also regarded as useful training grounds, although this is not something that statesmen and politicians will normally care to admit. However, sometimes we may get a glimpse of cynical candour as one or another of them shoots his mouth off, like Lord Mountbatten, thus:

This is war, but is a very small form of war . . . We are being shot at but really it is the most marvellous training that our forces ever had . . . (speaking on the Malaysian situation in New Zealand March 4th.)

Out of the horse’s mouth indeed. Obviously Lord Mountbatten does not think that the “marvellous training" will be wasted. No doubt it will come in handy to protect British capitalism’s interests elsewhere when this little crisis blows over, and for that very reason then as now, workers will get killed or horribly maimed. It’s a man’s life in the Army.

Infernal combustion engines

A friend of mine runs a small shop on the outskirts of Watford. Apart front his shop and a few others, the road is lined with houses on both sides almost for its entire length. Most of the houses and shops have been there for many years, so there has keen little change in the size or appearance of the road in all that time. But there has been one big change in another respect which terrifies the wits out of me every time I walk along that road.

Time was when the shop door could be left open on a warm day in Summer. But that was some years ago, before the road became a feeder to the M.1. Now, the stink and deafening noise of huge lorries and countless cars have made a nightmare of the place, especially in the rush hour. So, Winter and Summer alike, the shop door stays closed and if you walk along the narrow pavement (laid long before the car became the monster it is today), you need eyes in the back of your head to get you home in one piece. Probably all that has saved the road from complete destruction is the construction of M.1 extension into London a few miles away, due for opening in the near future.

The problem of the roads was growing before the second world war, but it is in the post war years that it has threatened to get out of hand and has been such a headache for the capitalist class of Britain and other countries. One gets the impression that some of them would like to see some sort of restrictions imposed, but the car industry has now assumed such importance in modern capitalist economy, that they will not attempt anything to hamper its growth to any great extent. What this holds in store for us in terms of ripping up the countryside and the deterioration of already ugly places remains to be seen.

It is of course very convenient in many ways to have a car nowadays, but more than that—for many workers it is a positive necessity by the very nature of their employment. It is indicative of the demand to move ever faster in the world of capitalist competition, where time is money and every second counts.

So the politician who takes over the administration of modern capitalism will have to make big allowances for the automobile in his electoral calculations, whatever his personal feelings. Greater London Council Member Mrs. Peggy Jay (wife of Douglas) may shout about proposed “box” of motorways for London, and tell of the destruction of living space, and about ten thousand trees, which it may well entail, but she will not get much support from the electorate at large. For the system which she supports has produced the motorised worker of the sixties, dominated by his machine and hating anyone who denies him the right to drive it where he likes, even in some places onto the sea shore to the very edge of the waves.

Crackpot? indeed yes, but just another of those problems that only a private property system can produce.

Gaspers

”. . . The Conservative Party should not be afraid of inequality.” (Mr. Du Cann, Tory Party Chairman, 27.3.65.)

“ This is not an attack on profits.” (Mr. Brown, defending Labour Government's budget 7.4.65.)

“ My first job is to maintain political stability and if 1 have to detain ten or twenty thousand, I will do it.” (Dr. Banda at a Blantyre rally on 4.4.65.)

“The days of nuclear war are gone." (Mao Tse Tung to Arab Leaders in Peking, reported 6.4.65.)

"Businessmen have more hope of making progress and money under a Labour Government than they had before.” (Mr. Brown in an interview with the editor of Director, Institute of Directors Journal, April 1965.)

"We do not care what colour a person's skin is. It is just that we do not want any more coloured people in Marshall Street.” (Mrs. Groves of Smethwick after a deputation meeting with the Housing Minister 8.4.65.)

Eddie Critchfield

The Passing Show: Now He Tells Us. (1965)

The Passing Show Column from the November 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Now He Tells Us.

In November 1956, a British and French force invaded Suez. At the same time, Russia was busily suppressing the Hungarian rising and there was a rich field for hypocrisy, with each side condemning the other for military aggression. America, smug in her official non-alignment, tut-tutted loudly and it was mainly as a result of her pressure through the U.N. and behind the scenes, that the Suez adventure collapsed. The Israelis had already attacked and it was claimed that the Anglo-French operation was really a “police action” to separate the contestants and demilitarize the Canal zone. The Daily Mirror made mincemeat of the little piece of double talk, and a lot of people didn’t believe it anyway (a lot did believe it as well).

The real reason for the action was the threat which Britain and France saw to their interests in the area from Nasser’s seizure of the Suez Canal—only on August 8th of that year, Sir Anthony Eden had said “Suez is a question of life and death for us.” Moreover, the active support and encouragement given by Cairo to the Algerian rebels had long angered the French ruling class and here was an opportunity to put a stop to it once and for all. There was a sort of tenuous three-sided collusion between Britain, France and Israel—tenuous because Britain was not the willing ally of Ben-Gurion and, if we are to believe the Bromberger Brothers, as late as mid-October had been prepared to bomb Israel in the event of a conflict with Jordan. Tenuous because, again according to the Brombergers, the French wanted much swifter and more decisive action than the ailing and hesitant Sir Anthony was prepared to take.

Less than a year later, Merry and Serge Bromberger published their book Secrets of Suez which well and truly blew the gaff about the double-dealing and behind-the-scenes manoeuvres between the participants in this ugly affair. “We were warned” they said in a foreword, “that there might be denials for political reasons.” An under statement indeed—there were plenty of denials, including a denial of collusion With Israel, despite the mounting evidence to support it.

Well that was a few years ago and memories may have got a bit hazy, so it’s interesting to have the Israeli General Moshe Dayan’s confirmation in his book Diary of the Sinai Campaign reviewed in The Observer for September 26. General Dayan says that consultations with London and Paris had been going on for at least two months before the outbreak of hostilities, and when the Israeli attack came it was well organised and executed.! It had naval support, and air cover by some sixty Mysore IV fighters and fighter bombers—all provided by France.

We should be used by now to the lying denials of capitalist politicians, particularly concerning matters of war; none of them would dare to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It’s in the bitter irony of capitalism’s scheme of things that only long after the event does the truth trickle out; often from the pens of those who were doing the dirty work at the time. The Brombergers were not opposed to the Suez action; they were concerned mainly to criticise the way it had been handled, particularly by the British. The collusion, apparently, was not efficient enough for them.

By the way, the Socialist Party did not have to wait years before we took a stand in opposition. We published a leaflet in unqualified condemnation within a day or two of the start of the fight, and sent copies of it all over the world. Remember that on this ninth anniversary of the Suez crisis, then read again the Brombergers’ book and appreciate the soundness of our stand.

But not a drop to drink.

Water has been in the world a long time, but just look at the state of some people’s necks! Just the sort of funny to make a Hyde Park audience titter you might think, but if the drought conditions experienced in New York this summer become more commonplace elsewhere, the dirtynecks among us may be claiming some moral justification for their existence. New York’s water supply all but dried up, and you would consider yourself lucky if you got a muddy brown dribble at the turn of your kitchen tap. “Save Water” begged the slogan tied to a blimp floating over the city.

Droughts have been with us on and off for many years—I remember the “use less water” posters on the sides of buses when I was a boy—and are not a feature entirely of present day society. Their effects have however been accentuated by rapidly increasing demand, mainly industrial, particularly since the end of the second world war. In fact, even without droughts, the rising level of water consumption threatens to cause serious shortages in parts of the world within a few years.

If you are a simple minded type who looks at problem purely from a technical point of view, the answer to the problem would also be quite simple. Build more reservoirs; transfer water from one place to another by a grid system (the rainfall in Britain overall, for example, is still enough to meet overall needs); perhaps desalt water from the sea? Regrettably, though, the answer is not entirely a technical one, or the problem would never have reached its present proportions.

Why do I say this? Because the experts have been looking not just for a solution, but for a cheap one, and the first two alternatives I have mentioned would call for a lot of money. So also would the third, a few years ago. Methods of desalting such as conventional distillation, ion-exchange etc. have been available for some time (in fact the firm of G. and J. Weir patented their first desalination plant in 1884) but they were not a cheap proposition. The matter has been raised again now, only because atomic energy looks like bringing the cost down with a bump.

“Can water from the sea be processed at a cost which rivals that of rainwater collection?” asked Guardian science correspondent Anthony Tucker on October 5th. The first international conference on desalination in Washington early in October, seemed to think that this was feasible. The flash- distillation process would use the heat from an atomic reactor (already producing cheap electricity) to produce desalted water costing about three shillings a thousand gallons. Anyway the British and American governments are sufficiently confident to invest quite a few millions in its development and in the not too distant future, we shall no doubt be witnessing the familiar competition between rivals trying to capture the new market for this type of plant. It has been estimated that single contracts in this field could be worth £50 millions or more.

The lesson to learn from this is not that capitalism is incapable of solving some problems technically, but that its profit motive often hampers and delays their solution for years. As Tucker points out, man has had it within his power for some time to make the desert bloom again. However:—

The future of Australia and of many large semi-arid areas . . . will be largely determined by whether or not it is economic to secure the supplies of water necessary for development.

So there it is in a nutshell. We shall never be able to see the technical wood for the financial trees so long as capitalism lasts.

Gaspers.

“According to the new system, workers would be paid more for producing more, improving quality and raising the profits of their enterprise”.

(Soviet Premier Kosygin, speaking on new bonus system, on September 27th.)

“Action to mitigate noise is limited by economics. Our own national airlines have narrow profit margins, and if foreign airlines found restrictions too great they might avoid Britain and leave us in an aviation backwater”.

(Aviation Minister Roy Jenkins, to the airport consultative committee at County Hall, September 15th.)

“The worst drought conditions in parts of Southern and Eastern Africa for thirty years have brought hundreds of thousands of people to the edge of starvation.

(Guardian report September 23rd.)

“President Nkrumah said that Ghana would restrict production rather than put up with the present low prices for her cocoa”.

(Guardian report September 23rd.)

“I am not here to help the industry but with the intention of helping our company and our shareholders”.

(Egg Producer John Eastwood, speaking to shareholders on September 22nd.)

“I am not a rich woman”.

(The Dowager Marchioness of Queensberry, after having been robbed of £15,000 worth of jewellery.)

Eddie Critchfield

Philosopher off the rails (1963)

Book Review from the June 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

Perhaps it was inevitable that Bertrand Russell would be asked to write in the current Penguin Special series. After all, it would be churlish to deny that he is a remarkably vigorous old man with a mind more alert and youthful than many men half his age. Anyway, he is certainly an able writer.

But there our compliments must end. We are not really concerned with the attractiveness of Russell’s personality but with whether he has any grasp of the capitalist situation in relation to the hideous problem of war. For that is something on which he has spoken loud and often in the past few years. When judged from this standpoint, he scores very low marks.

Readers will, of course, be aware of his prominence in the C.N.D. and later the Committee of One Hundred, of some of the foolish things he has said and done in the name of Nuclear Disarmament. But if you want a concise handbook of pathetic political ignorance, then Unarmed Victory (Penguin Special 2s. 6d.) is a must. This tells of the author’s frantic appeals to the various statesmen involved in the Cuban and Sino-Indian crises toward the end of last year. The short note on the back cover even suggests that perhaps it was Bertrand Russell’s efforts which really saved the world then from nuclear disaster.

There is no evidence to support this at all. The Soviets certainly took a gigantic risk (maybe a calculated one) when they started supplying missiles to Cuba. They must have realised early on that the U.S. would bridle sooner or later, but having gone so far, it is ludicrous to suppose that the cries of Lord Russell made much difference. They were, after all, quite well aware of the man in the street’s horror of war—how often have they used this very point in their propaganda—and apart from anything else, war is a costly business, not to be embarked on lightly.

It was suggested at the time by such journals as The Economist that perhaps the Soviet Union had never really intended to go to war over Cuba, that Krushchev’s advisers probably warned him that Russia was just not ready to take a showdown that far. But who knows, maybe next time they may think differently. There will certainly be other crises to make our hearts jump with fright as we face again the prospect of obliteration.

If we are to get behind this problem, we must recognise first of all that the gathering of the war clouds is not just a nasty accident. We have, in fact, to acknowledge that the Cubas and the Berlins are manifestations of a bitter struggle which is waged incessantly between the various capitalist powers. It is useless to appeal to the statesmen, because such people are caught up in the tragedy and, as spokesmen for their respective ruling groups, are not there for humanitarian reasons. They are prepared to go to war if their interests so demand.

Lord Russell certainly has not grasped this. True, he recognises the existence of American capitalist interests in Cuba and the readiness of the U.S. Government to bolster up Batista in support of them. But he does not seem to understand a new group of rulers now has the island in its grip, having risen to power on the tide of seething discontent generated by the hated Batista regime. It has happened elsewhere in the world and is a familiar story. Dr. Castro promised to “take immediate steps to resolve” the problems of housing, unemployment, education, health, etc., but instead took immediate steps to turn Cuba into an armed camp. And for the Cuban workers there was a distinction without much difference—they could now die for Castro instead of Batista.

Throughout this book are dotted examples of the confused and contradictory thinking which seems to afflict those who are tarred with the CND brush. In a footnote on page 34, the author chides the Labour Party Executive for advocating mediation through the United Nations. “. . . Whereas we may consider the UNO to be the cat’s whiskers,” he says, “most inhabitants of the U.S. consider it merely a cat’s paw.” Nevertheless, it was Lord Russell who telegraphed Krushchev only two days before, urging “condemnation (of U.S. actions) to be sought through the United Nations.”

Again, it is not disputed that “nuclear weapons are instruments of total annihilation,” but it is foolish to say in the same breath that they “ are themselves an imminent threat to the peace of nations and a hostile act ” (page 25). For such a statement begs the entire question—why nuclear bombs? In fact, why armaments of any kind? Such horrors do not exist in a vacuum. They are produced by society, but a society deeply divided into owners and non-owners in the means of life. It is here that we must commence our search for the way to free mankind from the terrifying prospect which faces it. Socialists discovered long ago that armed conflict is the ultimate method used by one group of owners to advance its interests against those of another. How ludicrous then to try and deal with atom bombs in isolation.

Nowhere does the author give any real consideration to this vitally important aspect. He has no inkling of what causes war and he is not opposed to it in principle anyway. To him there are some wars which are justifiable and others not (see page 11). Well, at least he is honest about it, but is it any wonder that he gets into such a mess when writing about present trends towards another bloodbath, and only a few lines later is blaming the “strength and habit of tradition ” for the strife between governments since the end of the last world war?

Having mistaken notions about the cause of war, it is not surprising that Lord Russell should have faulty notions also about its future prevention. He wants a joint statement by America and Russia:

That nuclear war cannot achieve anything anybody would desire . . . that they have a common interest, namely survival, and that both will sacrifice this common interest if there is a war.

What touchingly childlike faith he has in the statements of capitalist politicians, despite ample evidence of history to show how worthless these are, even granting the sincerity of those who utter them. But there is more to come. Let all states agree, he pleads, to submit their disputes to the arbitration of disinterested parties (whatever that may mean). He feels that arbitrating bodies “would acquire such moral authority that it would be very difficult for any government to flout the decisions of the arbitrators.”

Yet in the very next paragraph, he forgets this idea and advocates instead that prime fallacy of recent years, World Government. This will not rely on moral authority, because Lord Russell says it will have armed forces “. . . capable of defeating any state or combination of states that might attempt to resist its authority.” It will have to have a monopoly of all the major weapons of war and possess the raw materials necessary for weapons of mass destruction— presumably including those of nuclear origin.

Here is the final absurdity in one hundred and twenty pages, that strife can be abolished by indulging in it. For this is what the proposal really means, ignoring for the moment all the other objections which deny World Government even the remotest chance of ever being established. The strength of such an organisation, on Lord Russell’s own admission, would depend very much on its ability to wage war, the very evil we all seek to end.

As we have already said, Bertrand Russell is an able writer, but the whole of this book is a transparent illustration of his pitiful ignorance on how to solve perhaps the most terrible problem of our time.

Eddie Critchfield