Notes by the Way: Do You Trust Colonel Nasser? (1956)

The Notes by the Way Column from the October 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

Do You Trust Colonel Nasser?

Much of the propaganda about the Suez dispute has been concerned with whether Colonel Nasser is to be be trusted. Sir Anthony Eden says no; and the Colonel says he doesn’t trust the Western Powers. Many of the Labourites who oppose the Government’s policy affect to believe that British Capitalism can rest content with the Colonel’s promise not to interfere with the unfettered passage of the Canal.

Which of them is right? The answer is that they are all wrong. History is littered with binding treaties which turned out to be scraps of paper; with treacheries and forsworn promises even when the signatories, at the time they pledged their word; had every intention of keeping it.

The truth is that where vital economic and military interests are concerned it is so easy for the party to the agreement, who finds it becoming an obstacle, to convince himself that altered circumstances justify him in repudiating his obligations. (There is a lot to be said for the attitude of those Quakers who, on moral grounds, refuse to pledge their future conduct lest this should happen).

It was British governments which occupied Egypt "temporarily" and stayed there for over half a century and British governments which have not paid off the hundreds of millions of pounds they pledged themselves after her World War I to repay to America.

All governments, when they find it highly convenient to do so, and provided they can get away with it, break their promises. They do it, too, in home politics with election pledges and it is the height of simplicity or hypocrisy for Labour opponents of Eden to pretend that we all ought to trust one another. They are indeed “all honourable men.” but does the Labour Party trust Eden when he makes election pledges? or does he trust them?

About that High Dam and American Cotton

It happens that Egyptian plans for a new dam on the Nile provide an example of how promises come to be broken. What sparked off the Suez dispute was the action of Mr. Dulles in suddenly withdrawing the promise he had made to supply millions of American dollars to help Egypt meet the estimated £120 million cost of the new high dam at Aswan. The excuse given by Dulles was that the American Government believed Egypt's own financial resources to be insufficient to meet the rest of the cost, particularly since Egypt had been mortgaging its resources to buy costly arms from Russia. The British Government followed Dulles’ lead in withdrawing an offer of aid.

But an American reader of the Manchester Guardian, writing from San Francisco, gives a different reason. Mr. Dulles’ Republican Party, needs every vote it can in the forthcoming Presidential election, including the votes of American cotton growers, already worried about large unsold stocks of cotton, they do not like the idea of an Egyptian dam which will greatly extend the irrigated area on which Egyptian cotton can be grown and put on the world market in competition with American cotton. The San Francisco reader writes:—

"The reason given by Mr. Dulles for the last-minute refusal was that Egypt was not able to fulfil its part of the contract. Whether Egypt was able or not, I do not know, but the more likely reason is that the State Department heard protests from the cotton growers of Louisiana and Mississippi. This is the year of a Presidential election, and in election years American foreign policy is always uncertain." !

(Manchester Guardian, 29/8/56.) 

The same writer also dismissed any notion that Mr. Dulles has developed scruples about using force in international disputes, and 'that this explains his caution over Suez:—

"When American canal interests were endangered by a recent revolution in Guatemala, America acted not with caution but with decision, and the revolt was quickly put down."

And what about Colonel Nasser’s pretence that it is only the Western Powers whom he cannot trust and that the African Powers are full of mutual love and confidence? Does the Colonel trust his fellow religionists in the Sudan or his fellow Africans in Ethiopia? Not on your life! The Government of the Sudan does not like the Egyptian plan and can advance seemingly weighty technical reasons. They would prefer dams and irrigation schemes higher up the Nile and its tributaries, under a joint operation in which Ethiopia, Uganda, the Belgian Congo, would join with the Sudan and Egypt. But the Colonel does not trust them any more than British Capitalism trusts the Colonel. He fears quite reasonably, that if Egypt puts up a lot of money to build dams not inside Egyptian frontiers, his Sudanese brothers may be tempted to take advantage of it. Mr. C. L. Hartnoll, wrote on the subject in The Arab World, which is the organ of the Anglo-Arab Association and sympathetic to the Egyptian point of view, with the Egyptian Ambassador as one of its patrons. The article, written before the Suez dispute blew up. contains the following:—

“The most probable explanation of Egypt’s insistence on the superior merits of the High Dam is, therefore, most probably a political one. No doubt she feels that if she has to put up the money anyway, she might as well have full control of the whole undertakings on Egyptian territory rather than disperse control by foreign engineers at various points in the Sudan, Ethiopia Uganda and the Belgian Congo. Strategically she has always felt at the mercy of any power controlling the upper waters of the Nile but at least at Aswan she would have the control in her own hands. Also, of course, the prestige value of the High Dam to the Revolution and its leaders is not without its attraction." (The Arab World, July, 1956.)

For while Egyptian Capitalism masks its financial interests under a high falutin imperialist principle called “the natural unity of the Nile Valley,” which includes the ambition of Egyptian control of territories all the way up the River, some of the equally ambitious Sudanese have dreams of achieving this “natural unity” at Egypt’s expense.

The Sudanese do not like the idea of Nile control, vital to themselves, being in Egyptian hands at Aswan. And the Colonel for his part may reasonably fear that if Egypt puts up money for dams higher up the Nile the Sudan or Ethiopia might “do a Nasser on him.” This is what Capitalism does to human relations.

Unearthly Socialism

In Labour Party journals and on their platforms, lots of pens and voices are calling for means to recapture the “lost spirit of the movement.” One lifelong supporter knows an unexpected direction in which to look. Writing in The People (April 8, 19.56), Mr. Hannen Swaffer had this:—

“I am, in religion, a Spiritualist and a Socialist. To me both these words mean the same thing. By this I mean that I have learned from the Spirit world to understand something of the creative force which is behind all creation, and that, knowing it to be my duty to try to carry out. during my earth life, the furthering of that creative principle in this world, I can see only in the adoption of Socialist principles the means."

He went on to affirm his belief that “Spiritualism and Socialism, when joined in the practice of the lives of all of us, will abolish all creedal differences, and all class and caste hatreds, join us all in one great human family. . . ”

We can accept that Mr. Swaffer assiduously plugs Spiritualism and mixes it in with his already muddled notions of Socialism because it is the thing he really relieves it, but the same excuse cannot be made for the Daily Herald's recent addition of horoscopes to its columns. The worried workers, seeking respite from the daily harassments of the Welfare State, can now consult “Your Lucky Stars” as interpreted by Diana. Another recent addition to the horoscope Press is the News Chronicle (“Seeing Stars,” with the help of Leon Petulengro)..

If they change to the Express, the Mail, or the two morning picture papers, their needs are likewise cared for and almost all of the cheaper Sunday papers are in the heavenly swim. But why no horoscopes in the evening papers?

Before the war the Beaverbrook Press, high mindedly and with a loud banging of trumpets, announced that it would ,no longer pander to this “ignorant superstition but after a lapse of time the horoscopes crept back again.

The purpose, of course, is to whip up circulation and the publicity experts are clearly convinced that you can’t get into the big circulation without horoscopes.

The Reverend Donald Soper on Nasser

Among his admirers the Reverend Donald Soper is credited with understanding Socialism and being a Socialist. A speech delivered by him at Caxton Hall on August 14th, 1956, shows how little there is in the claim (speech published in the Arab News Letter Arab Students Union, September, 1956)).

On the superficial things such as the hypocrisy of the British Government; the failure of the Labour Party (of which he is a supporter) to see the real issues; the non-existence of the “international law” to which the Government appeals; and the failure of the Church to seek “peace on earth and goodwill among men,” on these he was plausible enough, but when it came to putting a Socialist point of view he was silent. He had absolutely nothing to say about world-wide Capitalism and the forces that drive all the nations into conflict. The nearest he got to reality—and this was seeing symptoms instead of causes—was to see evil in the existence of “nation states.” But his remedy for this is “world government” and United Nations; much as if to say that as banditry is bad let us hope that the bandits can unite into one central bandit and in the meantime let us make rules of conduct for the bandits. So he demanded that while these “nation states” endure “there must not be privileges for some and rejections of these privileges for others.” . In other words “Fair play for ail the bandits.”

He dwelt on the slums and poverty alongside great wealth in Cairo and, quite fairly, marked this up against the former British rulers of Egypt; but is he really so naive as to suppose that the ruling class behind dictator Nasser are taking the Canal for the sake of the Egyptian workers they exploit? Apparently he is that naive or had his tongue in his cheek, for he called on the Church to support Nasser.

“I want to say in the name of Christianity that this Nasser ought to be encouraged and not be repressed, because I believe the root of the matter in him is good, and because it is good, it is our business to evoke it by corresponding good, and not to repress it by threats of violence.”

What evidence can Mr. Soper bring forward for his implication that when a home grown ruling class runs Capitalism itself after ousting foreigners that their aim is any less the perpetuation of exploitation and the resulting poverty of the masses? British Capitalism has been run by home-grown rulers (including years of the Labour Party that Soper supports) and it hasn’t touched the class ownership of accumulated wealth. And Mr. Soper shouldn’t have far to look in his own neighbourhood to find some of the million slum dwellings.

He ended his speech with a call to throw out the Tory Government. His solitary piece of lip service to what he supposes is Socialism, being a plea for the introduction of “a truly Socialist Government.”

Embarrassed by his difficulty in fully endorsing the Labour Party he declared that “by the grace of God, even the Labour Party can become a Socialist Government which surely is hardly flattering to his God. Why must God (whose “will,” incidentally Mr. Soper claimed that he knows!) have to act in this roundabout fashion? Why can’t the “grace of God” turn the Tory Party into a “Socialist Government?” It shouldn’t be any more difficult.

Of course Mr. Soper knows that “divine grace” isn’t going to solve the problem. He also knows that delivering Socialist truths would help. What, then, is his excuse, as a self-styled Socialist, for not delivering them at that meeting?

Automation, 1830

The rich have always been able cheerfully and patiently to bear the hardship of the poor and urge them to be equally patient. We now have the politicians and economists telling the workers who may lose their jobs through “automation” to reflect that in the long run it will all be for the best, and anyway it is inevitable. In 1830 the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge published an Address to the Labourers on the subject of Destroying Machinery. Here is a typical passage: —

“It is undoubtedly true that all machinery which spares human labour, unavoidably, on its first invention and on beginning of its work, throws some persons out of the employment in which they had been engaged, and they must seek their means of support in some other way; this is the necessary consequence of the introduction into use of the most simple instrument, and of all improvements in art. But, on the whole, the public, and every individual in it, are in the end infinitely the gainers.”

A caustic cartoon, also published in 1830, and believed to have been the work of the brother of the better-known Cruikshank, dealt with the unemployment caused by the incoming machinery as one of a series called “Living Made Easy,” The “machines” it portrayed were “Charity tubes to convey the smell from the tables of the rich, for the benefit of poor operatives.”

It showed humble bare-headed workers permitted by a livened flunkey to stand over the open ends of iron tubes which conveyed the smell of food into the courtyard of some palatial mansion. It was “particularly recommended to the philanthropy of those who have made large fortunes by machinery.”

Mr. MacMillan on Paper Pounds

In a speech on inflation in which he warned that if wage increases went on the Government might devalue the pound again as did the Labour Government in 1949. He asked the trade unions

"Do you want more paper money to handle or more goods and services to enjoy? ”

(Daily Mail, August 30, 1956.)

This is indeed a classic example of the devil rebuking sin. It is not the trade unions but Mr. Macmillan and other Chancellors of the Exchequer who determine the amount of the note issue. And what is their record at setting the printing press at work making more and more paper money? In 1938 the amount in issue was £529 million and in 1945 £1,311 million. The Labour Government stepped it up to £1,383 million and the Tories since they came in in 1951 have added another £300 million, making the present total £1,662 million.

Not, of course, that it makes any material difference to the workers position under Capitalism. They were just as poor and just as much exploited in 1938 with pounds fewer and wages lower, as they are now with wages trebled and each pound buying about one third of what it then bought.

They Cant Afford a Holiday

The British Travel and Holidays Association in a survey of the holidays of Britain’s population tell us that “about half the population of Britain took no holiday away from home in 1955. Of those who did travel, only 8 per cent. went abroad: 77 per cent. of the population has never been outside Britain” (Manchester Guardian, August 31, 1956).

“Expense was given as the main reason why people stayed at home during their holidays.”

What Nina did not say

Nina, the Russian athlete, who was alleged to have taken hats worth 32s. 11d., missed a fine opportunity by not appearing in court. Why did she not get up and tell the British workers that under Socialism in Russia you just go along and take what hats you need without this Capitalist nonsense of paying for them?

The answer, in case anyone is in doubt, is of course that there isn’t any Socialism in Russia, the claim that there is being one of the lies of the Communists.

Mr. Nehru Again

In his attitude on the use of military force to crush the Naga independence movement in India Mr. Nehru gets more and more like Sir John Harding in Cyprus.

A Naga M.P. in the India Parliament made a long statement on the suppression of the Nagas.

“As a result of military operations, Mr. Keishang said, 2,000 people were forced to stay in the jungles. Most of the villages of the Mokukchang area had been burnt by the army, between 30 and 50 villages had been burnt in the Megkukchange area, and four-fifths of the villages in other areas had been burnt. He said that 397 Nagas had been killed, and troops had also killed Dr. N. Haralu, a respected doctor of Kohima, who had been “ hunted in the streets of Kohima and shot down.

“More than five hundred Nagas are in prison, including students and children aged between 1 and 13. The Army tries to terrorise the Nagas by carrying a naked corpse, bound hand and foot, through the streets of Kohima, and bodies are burnt in spite of the fact that the Nagas never burn bodies. Is this behaviour of the Government better than that shown by the Nagas ? . .. The spirit of revenge will persist for generations, even if the Nagas are defeated.” (Manchester Guardian, August 24, 1956.)

Mr. Keishang chided Mr. Nehru with failing to show at home the “spirit of peaceful negotiation” he is always recommending to other governments. But Mr. Nehru was not to be moved. He won’t even discuss the matter.

“Mr. Nehru, winding up the debate, admitted that some mistakes had been made, but said that the attitude towards the Nagas had been human and not completely a military one. He repeated that the Government could not talk with the Nagas until they gave up their demand for an independent state.

“There is no question of prestige. India is far too big for her prestige to suffer in such dealings. We are not prepared to talk independence, and we demand that the Nagas must give up violence."

Mr. Nehru is another of the reformists to demonstrate that there aren’t any different ways of running Capitalism.

Edgar Hardcastle

Blogger's Note:

I believe that the 1830 cartoon that Hardcastle is referring to in his column is the one posted below. The only sticking point is that he mentions it was by Isaac Robert Cruikshank but the internet is telling me that it was by Thomas Mclean .

Party News Briefs (1956)

Party News from the October 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Autumn Delegate Meeting will be held on Saturday and Sunday, October 6th and 7th, at Head Office (52, Clapham High Street). The Saturday session commences at 2 p.m, and on Sunday at 11 o’clock.

Meeting on Suez. At short notice, owing to the topicality of the subject, another successful Sunday evening meeting was held at Denison House, Victoria, on September 16th. The audience numbered over 200 and many non-Party members were present. Comrade Wilmott was the speaker and Comrade Fahy was in the chair.

Swansea Branch have had some good meetings this summer. Comrade Young went down from London and addressed two meetings. The members are very pleased with the result and no doubt will continue their good work of getting letters in the local Press regarding the Party and Socialism.

Sunday Evenings at Head Office, October 14th is the starting date for lectures at Head Office, illustrated with films. For full details see elsewhere in this issue.

The Literature Circulating Committee are planning an October Sales Drive of the Socialist Standard, and details are given in this issue of meeting places for canvassing. If Comrades rally to these sales drives and increase the Standard sales, they are propagating Socialism and reducing the loss we now sustain on literature.

Phyllis Howard

50 Years Ago: Hungary and Suez – Hope Amidst Tragedy (2006)

The 50 Years Ago column from the December 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

The governments of Israel, Britain, France and Russia, when they resorted to war in October 1956 in pursuit of their own separate objectives, have at the same time struck a decisive blow to achieve something they never sought and are hardly aware of. Their tanks and bombers in a few days of destruction have helped to shatter the most hampering illusion of our generation, an illusion that has held back multitudes from taking the first stop towards a real understanding of the problems facing the human race.

This illusion was the belief, held with equal fervour by democrats and Communists, and on both sides of the Iron Curtain, that there are “two worlds,” essentially different in arms and conduct.

On the one side the democrats and Labourites of the Western world believed that they and their rulers are guided by a superior moral code, are inherently against brutality, are committed to “law not war,” and to United Nations, are incapable of naked aggression to further their interests.

On the other side were the Communists and their followers, who believed with equal sincerity that Russia, by virtue of being a “Socialist” country, is free from and superior to the sordid imperialism and colonialism of the West, and utterly incapable of opposing the aspirations of ordinary workers.

Now the foundations of both beliefs have been smashed into fragments. Sincere men and women in both camps are horrified and heartbroken to discover in one revealing flash that the men they revered and the men they reviled behave in exactly the same criminal way; that the Edens and the Kruschevs are blood brothers after all, worshippers of the same capitalist god of violence and war. The sickening dismay of those who trusted Eden, “the friend of United Nations,” is only equalled by that of Communists who see Russian tanks smashing down Hungarian workers. For both groups the one thing that could not happen has happened.

(From front page article by ‘H.’, Socialist Standard, December 1956)

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

Suez Intrigue (1971)

Book Review from the November 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Suez Affair, by Hugh Thomas. Pelican. 30p.

Early in the morning of November 6, 1956, a combined Anglo-French expeditionary force landed at Port Said. It was preceded the previous day by the capture of various strategic points by British and French paratroops. The Suez war had begun.

The immediate background was about six months of intrigue and collusion between Britain, France and Israel, with the most elaborate attempts at deception which would have done justice to a comic opera, were it not so serious. The aftermath has been fifteen years long, so far, with the Israelis firmly ensconced in the Sinai Peninsula and talks dragging on endlessly about cease fire, future boundaries, etc.

Hugh Thomas in this book recently republished as a paper-back, deals in some detail with the British, French and Israeli invasion of Egypt, but it really doesn’t add much more to our knowledge of the incident than was supplied by the Bromberger Brothers in their Secrets of Suez (Pan Books 1957)—incidentally a much more readable work. It is just that Thomas has the advantage of a great deal more hindsight than was available to the Brombergers. Nobody now denies that there was collusion between the Israeli and allied Governments; in fact Moshe Dayan has openly admitted it.

Nevertheless, Thomas has managed to unearth some interesting information on the rifts and dissensions among the various members of Anthony Eden’s cabinet, not to mention the double-talk and double-crossing between America and others. There is the rather surprising revelation however, that the American government were caught unawares by the allied action.

The story of the “police action”—as it was euphemistically styled at the time —is distressingly familiar. When the Egyptian rulers seized the Suez Canal, this was seen as a direct threat to British and French capitalist interests in the area. Indeed, so seriously did they view it, that they were prepared to go to war. As Eden said at the time: “Suez is a question of life or death for us”.

Additionally, the French were pre-occupied with their problems of rebellion in Algeria and suspected Nasser of sending help to the rebels. Those who recall the period, will remember the 24-nation conference and proposals for the international control of the canal, but all to no avail.

The Egyptian ruling class saw the canal as a rich and easy source of revenue and were not prepared to relinquish their hold. Perhaps their action in seizing the area was precipitated by the refusal of all the great powers at the time to help with the Aswan Dam project. The greater probability is that they would have nationalised the canal sooner or later anyway. This is a method of grabbing foreign capitalist assets, common enough among the newly formed states in recent years.

Incidentally, in the period that followed, it was Harold Wilson’s habit to refer contemptuously to the Tories as “Men of Suez”; this book is a timely reminder of the Labour Party stand over the whole Suez action. The parliamentary party, at least, was just as nationalistic as the Conservatives, and was certainly not opposed to the use of force in principle. As the author points out, what they wanted was “legalised” force. —prior United Nations sanction for any military action.

Hugh Thomas tells us of speeches in favour of this by Gaitskell, Bevan and other Labour leaders of the time. It was a pathetic and ineffective gesture and did nothing to halt the affair. In the event also, it seems they underrated the amount of popular support for the government’s action when it came to the crunch.

The establishment of Israel over twenty years ago was supposed to be an answer to the chronic problems of Middle East conflict, but the problems are there today as harrowing as ever, as the various capitalist powers jostle for elbow-room in the area. Ernest Bevin staked his political reputation on the post-war attempts at settlement. Perhaps it is a pity he is not with us today to read this book, and to see the bitter mockery capitalism has made of his efforts.

Eddie Critchfield

Greasy Pole: Sexing it up (2003)

The Greasy Pole column from the October 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sexing it up

If it should turn out that Andrew Gilligan gets the sack from the BBC as a result of the Hutton Inquiry he need not be unduly worried about spending the rest of his life on the dole being harassed by Job Centre clerks into taking jobs like packing airline meals or cleaning offices at about five pounds an hour without any relief from a generous expense account. For he is given credit as the originator of the phrase “sexing up” and that alone should ensure he had no problem in finding a job with an advertising agency. “Sexing up” has gone down into history now, to take its place in the dictionaries of the future. Gruesome, punchy – and a bit thrilling – it exactly expressed the embellishment of the propaganda material being used by the Blair government to justify attacking Iraq. As a phrase it is a lot more effective and expressive than “over-egging” – the other one used at the Hutton enquiry. So well done Andrew; let us hope you will never have to use such an extravagant talent writing similar slogans to help sell cornflakes or washing powder or whatever.

But why did we have to wait so long for some creative genius to come up with the phrase? Sexing up is a long established, long discredited technique in the places where there is a need to excite us at the same time as we are deceived. And there are many, many examples of it being used. Take the case of the Bountiful Age of Nuclear Power. At the time when the world was still getting its breath back after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki there was encouragement to divert from the inevitable doubts and fear for the future by concentrating instead on the promised benefits of nuclear power. The motive was to replace the images of devastated cities and radiated people with those of modern, sanitary, fertile power stations. There was a need for some sexing up, to encourage the consolation that Britain had not been bled out of the top ranks of world capitalism by the war but was a vibrant, progressive power in the world.

Calder Hall

The first subject of this was the atomic power station at Calder Hall in Cumbria, which opened in 1956. It cost thirty five million pounds – at 1950s’ prices – to build and there had to be some justification for such a staggering amount of money. The first effort at sexing up came with the assurance that far from being a backwater Britain was entering the “new atomic age”. Then there was the claim that Calder Hall would produce electricity “too cheap to meter”. That was the time when the domestic appliance market was beginning to stir into life and manufacturers like Hoover would have found comfort in the prospect of workers being beguiled by the notion that if they bought a vacuum cleaner or a washing machine they could run it for next to nothing. But behind the sexing up there was a less entrancing reality for Calder Hall used most of the electricity it produced itself, with only about a quarter of it going out to the national grid. And far from the electricity being almost free, the new atomic station turned out to be the most expensive way of producing it. The real reason for building Calder Hall was to produce plutonium for weapons – for the Hiroshimas of the future. A fact which was rather more difficult to sex up.

But none of this was allowed to intrude on the hysteria about the supposed benefits of nuclear energy. By contemporary standards Calder Hall was primitive; newer developments were the Advanced Gas Cooled Reactor (a British design) and the Pressurised Water Reactor (an American design). By the time of the election of the 1964 Labour government under Harold Wilson there was no more talk about nuclear energy being cheaper than what was produced in conventional power stations. But Wilson had won an election on a promise that his government would swamp everyone with plenty in a new technological age – “moving forward in partnership and unity to a just society, to a dynamic, expanding, confident and above all, purposive Britain”. The government could hardly refuse to choose the British technology – the AGR. The Minister of Power Fred Lee was euphoric. By building the AGRs, he assured us, we had “really hit the jackpot”; it was “the greatest breakthrough of all time” and he would back his judgment by ordering a 60 percent increase in them. But after the sexing up came reality. The first AGR station, set down on the bleak cobbles of Dungeness, cost twice as much to build as the original promise and it was 20 years before it generated any power for the national grid.

Suez

At about the same time as Calder Hall began to grind into action a new Prime Minister was beginning to enjoy the sensation of having led his party into a historic election victory. Anthony Eden was an ideal English aristocrat – handsome, elegant, Old Etonian – not at all the type to be expected to get into anything as dishonourable as sexing up. Unhappily for him, however, Eden nurtured a few resentments about the decline of British capitalism as a world power, particularly in the Middle East. Eden was not your strong, silent type of English gentleman; an operation on him to remove gall stones had gone wrong, leaving him living on drugs and consequently inclined to be irascibly, blindly stubborn.

There was a new government too in Egypt, headed by ex-army officer Abdel Nasser who was sexed up by his supporters as “. . . a strong man . . . a practising Moslem and a proud nationalist”. This was not good news for British interests in the region, especially those centered on the Suez Canal, which carried 25 percent of all their exports and half the oil produced in the Middle East. In July 1956 the Egyptian government nationalised the Canal, declaring that the revenue from this would go towards financing the building of the Aswan Dam. After a certain amount of diplomatic skirmishing, which included a secret agreement to collude in an Israeli attack on Egypt so as to give them the excuse to intervene, the British and French governments sent their forces into Egypt.

Nasser

This was not an enterprise which commanded unanimous support, which meant that the case for it needed to be pushed with the customary disregard for the truth. First, there was Nasser himself, who had to be sexed up as a kind of Saddam Hussain of his day. Eden set his thoughts out to President Eisenhower:

“I have never thought of Nasser as a Hitler but the parallel with Mussolini is close. Neither of us can forget the lives and treasure he cost us before he was finally dealt with. Our people are grimly determined that Nasser shall not get away with it this time, because they are convinced that if he does their existence will be at his mercy.”

And a few days later he was on television, trying to scare the viewers by sexing up the style of the regime in Egypt:

“The pattern is familiar to many of us, my friends. We all know this is how fascist governments behave, as we all remember, only too well, what the cost can be in giving in to fascism.”

It did not take long for the whole tawdry episode to be brought to an end, for Washington to force the British and French to withdraw, for the agreement between Britain, France and Israel to be exposed, for Eden to collapse under the strain so that he abruptly resigned and took himself off to the West Indies to recover. Sexing it up had not worked.

That was all a long time ago and the conspirators, the big players and the people who sexed it up to frighten or cajole or deceive us are an embarrassing memory. After them, the social system lives on, relentlessly adding to its history of human disasters, of which Iraq is only the latest. And still there are the feeble, transparent attempts through conspiracy, spin or sexing up, to conceal reality.

Ivan

What is Behind the Fight for Suez (1956)

From the September 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

Because they do not understand the workings of the social system that dominates the world we live in most people see the struggles between political parties and governments in terms of good and evil; good men and good doctrine against evil men and evil doctrine. They see their own "honest, self-sacrificing and reasonable leaders" being prevented from applying just and beneficial policies by the greedy and unprincipled leaders of the other party or nation, and in the atmosphere of fear and anger that conflict arouses they are only too anxious to believe that all the fine sounding principles of law, morality, religion and humanity are on their side; they feel no need to probe deeper for explanations.

The men at the top see more clearly the economic issues and interests involved but as they need to rouse the emotions and win the support of the mass of the people they dress up most of their declarations in the rabble-rousing language likely to move their listeners and readers. So over Suez we have had from the Western politicians a spate of talk about law and illegality, international rights, and wrongs. Fascist acts of plunder, etc., while from the Middle East Nasser and his defenders have worked up themselves and their audiences with passionate speeches about imperialism, oppression, insults to dignity, sovereignty and nationhood.

Not all the utterances are like these. From the “take a strong line" Sunday Express (12 August, 1956) came the following:—

“Forget all about the legalistic quibbles, about the rights and wrongs of the Suez dispute. Forget the mumblings of the self-styled moralists about the sort of example Britain should show the world. They do not matter. Only one thing counts. Say it again and again to yourself. If the Suez Canal falls into the control of Nasser, or any other enemy, then Britain is finished. And so are all our hopes for ourselves and our children."

and the like-minded Daily Mail (14 August), chiding the News Chronicle’s opposition to forcible methods and its appeal to “the moral conscience of the world,” replied:—

"In international affairs there is, in the ultimate, no moral conscience. . . . It may be sad, but it is true, that self-interest is still the first law of nations. Nasser understands this, even if some people here do not. So do Nehru, Kruschev and Mao Tse-tung. The nation that neglects it goes to the wall."

The News Chronicle stands on this issue with those who pride themselves on not being either narrow nationalists or believers in using force in the first place to settle disputes; they believe that an appeal to reason through United Nations will produce solutions good for all parties and harmful to none. Only with United Nation’s endorsement should force be used.

The Socialist does not belong to any of these groups, holding that capitalism cannot help engendering conflict and wars and that the only solution is not in the vain hope of running capitalism a different way but of ending capitalism and replacing it by a new and different system of society.

To the Socialist the world is not capable of being divided into the good and the bad statesman and the good and bad nations; they are all Capitalist and all are impelled by the nature of the social system to struggle for markets for their products, for sources of cheap raw materials, and for control of trade routes like Suez and strategic points like Cyprus. These are the things for which they fight, no matter what the fine phrases and slogans in which their aims and motives are garbed.

The crux of the Suez dispute is firstly the oil that exists in abundance in the countries of the Middle East, and secondly the Canal through which much of it, as well as other cargoes, is transported. Oil is now an indispensable fuel for the motors and tractors, aeroplanes and warships, merchant vessels and factories of the countries of the world. With cool production and hydro-electric power failing to keep up with rapidly growing demand for fuel and with atomic power only a development of the not very near future, all countries need oil and many of them, including Britain, have practically none within their own frontiers.

But though the Middle East is reputed to have the biggest oil reserves in the world and extraction is expanding fast, it has a long way to go to catch up with the older oil producing areas.

The world’s greatest oil production is still in U.S.A. and Venezuela, which, between them, produce well over half the world’s oil. The output of U.S.A. alone in 1955, 2,748 million barrels, is almost equal to that of South America, Europe and the Middle East, and Russia and her satellites, added together (see report of Shell Co. l955, from which the following figures on oil production are also taken). The total production of the Middle East now exceeds 1,000 million barrels, mostly in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Persia; Egypt has only the trifling output of 13 million. Russia and her satellites produce under 600 million barrels, less than a quarter of the output of U.S.A. Among the late comers, but growing fast, is Canada, with 131 million barrels last year. The great attraction of Middle Eastern oil is that it is much cheaper to extract than oil in the Americas, and the source or Europe’s supplies has been switched from West to East. “Before the war most of Europe's oil came from the Western hemisphere; even in 1947 nearly two-thirds of the imports came from the Caribbean or the United States. But in 1955 four-fifths of the imports came from the Middle East” (Times, 14 August). At the same time America’s internal demand for oil has grown so enormously that some oil is now taken from the Middle East to U.SA, in preference to using high cost American wells.

The oil industry in the Middle East is mostly controlled by American, British, Dutch and French companies, to whose shareholders large profits flow after paying royalties to the Arab Governments in whose territories they operate and maintain pipe lines.

The magnitude of profits made in the oil business is shown by results for one group, Royal Dutch-Shell, about an eighth of whose output comes from the Middle East. In 1955 the group made a net profit, after paying taxes, of £160,000,000, of which £33 million was paid out six dividends.

In the Middle East, then, is a great prize for the Power or Powers that can gain control. Each of the Arab countries looks hopefully to being able to squeeze out the oil companies. Egypt’s position is different With practically no oil of its own it has the, at present, irreplaceable Canal through which much of the oil must be shipped. Immediately British troops left the Suez base the way was open for Egyptian capitalism to strike its first blow, which, if it succeeds, will enlarge hopes of achieving the ambition phrased by Col. Nasser as “creating a great Arab Power, stretching from the Atlantic to the Persian Guff.” (Observer, 12 August, 1956); an ambition about which the other Arab States may have their own ideas.

Faced with this situation the Western countries, now dependent on the Canal, are being forced to consider the much more expensive voyage round South Africa (some new oil tankers are already too big for the Canal), and building more pipe-lines like the American-owned £80 million “Tapline” that stretches over 1,000 miles from Arabia to the Mediterranean—but these too are tempting objects for “nationalisation" by the Governments through whose territory they have to pass.

The Lebanon has already threatened to nationalise pipe-lines, and the Financial Times (15 August) expresses the opinion that though existing pipe-lines may be extended it is unlikely that any company will put vast sums into new pipe-lines in view of the risk of nationalisation.

Seemingly the Arab countries are being encouraged to attack the oil companies by the Russian Government, which may hope to get much needed oil in the Middle East or even some form of control of oil resources if Western companies are pushed out. It will be remembered that in 1946, with its armies in occupation, Russia forced Persia to agree to put North Persia oil under Russian control for 50 years; but when the troops withdrew Persia blandly declined to ratify the concession.

It has been a matter for comment that the American Government held back from the more belligerent Anglo-French threats of using force against Egypt. Apart from pre-occupation with winning the forthcoming presidential election and the fact that Suez is not a major American interest, the American Government and even the American companies with big holdings in Middle Eastern oil, are not greatly concerned with the Anglo-French fear that if Egypt nationalises the Canal this will encourage the Middle East Governments to nationalise the oil wells. The American Government has in the past encouraged Middle East oil production partly in order to conserve her home oil resources but the growing importance of Canadian oil may reduce this need. Also the Observer's Washington correspondent reports a divergent view among American oil companies themselves:—

“Another group opposed to any military action over the Suez Canal is the American oil industry. Several oil companies are reported to have expressed the view that they can protect their interests best for quite a long time by making monetary concessions to the Arab States if necessary. This, the companies think, is possible because the cost of extracting oil is much lower in the Middle East than it is in North America, or even Latin America." (Observer, 12th August, 1956.)

The South African and Canadian Governments were also lukewarm in their attitude to the issuer and why not? South Africa would welcome more shipping going round the Cape, and Canadian capitalism has its hands full building up its own oil industry.

At the time of writing the discussions between the Powers have not produced a settlement though the evident lack of war-fever among British workers and the disinclination of other Governments to back up Britain and France in forcible action against Egypt have had some effect in restraining the Eden Government and its supporters.

On the other hand Arab workers, misled by the belief that nationalisation of the Canal Co. (and eventual nationalisation of the oil industry) is in their interest, have been reported as giving vigorous backing to their Governments.

This is the real tragedy of the Suez dispute, that there is no unity among the workers of the different countries in opposing the war-talk of their Governments. In the main the trade unions in each country give such large measure of support to the claims of their own Capitalists and Governments that the basis does not exist on which they could act in unity with the workers of other countries when a clash of Capitalist interest is involved. Not realising the possibility and necessity of building a social system in which production solely for use will replace production for sale in competitive markets, because private property is the means of production and distribution will have given place to common property, the workers of the world do not realise that their common interest should unite them impartially against Eden, Nasser, Kruschev, Eisenhower, and all their kind. The trouble, as we said at the beginning, is that most people do not yet understand the workings of the social system, Capitalism.

Edgar Hardcastle

Notes by the Way: Mr. Bevan being Statesmanlike (1956)

The Notes by the Way Column from the September 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Bevan being Statesmanlike

When he is not calling other supporters of capitalism vermin the Rt. Hon. Aneurin Bevan sometimes writes sober, statesmanlike articles for the Capitalist Press as in the Sunday Express (5 August, 1956). His subject was "Why I want Ike to Lose.” Although Bevan is not a Socialist he likes to parade himself as one on the strength of his continuing support for State Capitalism (nationalisation), and one would have expected the article to be a trumpet blast for setting up an English-model “Welfare State" in U.SA and a repudiation of Eisenhower because he and his party are not likely to do it. But not at all. The article said nothing about America's need for Bevan’s State Capitalist schemes (and naturally nothing about Socialism). It said hardly anything about any policy, beyond a tepid preference for Adlai Stevenson on the ground that be would change the American attitude towards Chiang-Kai-Shek, and might finally end McCarthyism. All he could say about Stevenson was that “his views are not particularly advanced, judged by Europe's standards, and there are even some Conservatives who might not think him sufficiently progressive."

No, Mr. Bevan’s main and almost his only theme was that Eisenhower is sick and consequently liable to reactionary pressure—as if the course of American capitalism is going to be determined by Eisenhower, well or ill. But Mr. Bevan evidently thinks it is:—

“I find the project depressing in the extreme. The President is obviously a sick man and by all the evidence he is likely to become more and not less sick. We shall therefore have less than half a man failing to do what is by general consent a job more than enough for a man in full possession of robust health. The most important political office in the world will be in feeble, fumbling and wavering hands, and it is little consolation that it may be done by the democratic choice of the American people themselves."

So Mr. Bevan can pass by without comment the fact that the American people by democratic choice are about to rivet themselves to capitalism again; this be does not think worth notice; but he is very depressed because American capitalism may be in the hands of a semi-invalid. As if by comparison with the real issue it had any importance at all, except for Mr. Eisenhower.

•  •  •

Bevan Looking in the Mirror

This attitude towards politics does explain why Mr. Bevan got so angry with Attlee and now dislikes Attlee's successor, Gaitskell. When Bevan looks in the mirror be sees a whole man, in robust health; obviously better fitted to lead the Labour Party and become Prime Minister than these fumbling half men.

But how does Bevan work out, in wider spheres, his policy of supporting the robust and opposing the weak? In the same issue of the Sunday Express “Cross Bencher" reported that Mr. R. A. Butler is a robust man, too: “His cheeks glow. His step is light. And he is only 53.“

And what about Colonel Nasser, who is described as  “a tall, strongly built man, with great physical stamina? "

•  •  •

Nationalisation and the Arab Workers

The Arab workers' trade unions in Egypt and other Middle-Eastern countries, have given delighted support to the act of nationalising the Suez Canal and the threatened nationalisation of oil plants and oil pipe-lines. They think their troubles will be over when “their country owns their oil and their canal." They have a rude awakening in store when they find that the beneficiaries will be their exploiters, the local Capitalist class. But what a pity they could not learn from the experience of workers in Britain, Russia and other countries about the illusory benefits of State Capitalism. The people who ought to have told them are the British and other trade union leaders who have international contacts, but they, of course, still cherish the same illusions themselves.

Colonel Nasser has used against the Western Powers the argument that as Egyptian workers built the Canal “Egypt" should own it. But the same can be said of all the accumulated wealth of Egypt and all other countries; the workers produced it but somebody else owns it. The Colonel very well knows that nationalisation is not going to take the wealth of Egypt out of the hands of the rich who own it. If he had any such dangerous thoughts and suggested applying them he would soon be got rid of.

•  •  •

U.N.-The Dream Fades

Except as a face-saver and rubber stamp organisation for the big Powers, nobody seriously considered United Nations as a body to provide a solution for the Suez Canal dispute. A correspondent of the Manchester Guardian at Geneva comments on the parallel disillusioning with one of U.N..'s subsidiaries the United Nations Economic and Social Council. He comments on the failure of this council in the fields of world trade and economic development and goes on:—

“What is considered even more serious, however, is the growing impression among the delegates that, just as in the field of effective world security, the United Nations is becoming almost impotent in the economic and social fields as well. It seems as if there were an unspoken agreement among the industrial as well as the less developed countries that the United Nations has been reduced to a forum where lip-service has to be paid to ideals which no longer apply to the level of sophistication which has now been universally reached. Articles of the United Nations Charter seem to serve as no more than good debating points."—(Manchester Guardian, 9th August, 1956.)

•  •  • 

The Results of Keir Hardie

On the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Keir Hardie he has been acclaimed by both wings of the Labour Party and by the Communist Daily Worker. He is not acclaimed by the S.P.G.B. any more than he was when he was alive; though we must in fairness admit that when we contemplate the low level of the present Labour Party notabilities it does add a certain relative lustre to Keir Hardie. And this, of course, pin-points our "attitude towards his reformist activities and his masterpiece the formation of the Labour Party. His admirers tell us what fine and enduring work he did but they are vague about what it was and why it should be admired. Surely the test to be applied to a man who believed that the way to get Socialism was to build up a trade union-political, refformist Labour Party, is to examine his success in achieving what, he said, it would achieve.

 

Mr. Bevan, in an article “The man who still points the Way ” (Reynolds News, 12 August, 1956), has this to say:—

“We are not yet even within sight of the 'just society' that Keir Hardie dreamed about The society we belong to is not only still unjust it is also unstable. We lurch unsteadily from one crisis to another with the sole satisfaction that our feet are better shod than they were in Hardie's day."

Mr. Bevan puts it very well, but what becomes of the claim of Hardie and the other reformists about the superior wisdom of reformism? And incidentally what were Mr. Bevan and the other members of the Labour Governments doing to leave society in such a mess?

One of Keir Hardie's mistaken beliefs was that the problem of war could be dealt with under capitalism. Now, half a century later, Mr. Bevan tells us in effect, that if we disappear in an H.-Bomb war it will be nice to know that our feet are dry.

•  •  •

Zilliacus Egypt and Israel

Mr. Zilliacus, Labour M.P., for Gorton, is one of the Labour Party M.P.'s who do not approve of Eden's policy towards Egypt, or of his own leader’s policy. He wrote to the Manchester Guardian (6 August, 1956), to put his point of view. He attacked Mr. Gaitskell's statement that the Suez episode “Must be recognised as part of the struggle for the mastery of the Middle East" and declared that “to contemplate going to war is madness," this because Nasser has behind him the whole of the Arab world as well as support from outside.

But point four of his four point explanation of his position included “as an immediate emergency measure, the arming of Israel . . ."

One wonders therefore just what Mr. Zilliacus does think. Against whom is Israel to be armed if not against Egypt and the Arab countries? And since this involves the possibility of war what happens to the view that contemplating going to war is madness, especially as he also wants “the guaranteeing of peace between Israel and the Arab States?"  “Guaranteeing" frontiers means being prepared to go to war.

•  •  •

They’re Fascists !

Trying to interpret events in the international dogfight in terms of how much you like the politicians and how friendly you think they are becomes confusing because the actors keep on changing places and changing colours.

Sir Anthony Eden likens Nasser to Hitler (to which the Colonel with more politeness seems to have made no retort in kind), but similarity to the late Nazi leader and his crimes is just what the Greeks have been seeing in Eden because of Cyprus.

The Communists have had the same trouble. Some readers of the Daily Worker have objected to the Communist Party’s support for dictator Nasser’s policy on the ground that Nasser is anti-Israel, while Communists in Stepney “are pro-Israel." To which another Daily Worker reader retorts that the manner in which the rulers of Israel treat the Arab minority is “fascist-like." (Daily Worker, 8 August).

But a well-known “expert" on world affairs, Mr. Stephen King-Hall thinks that the British Government should use their trump card, the existence of Israel which he describes as “the only, democratic State in the Middle East." (Manchester Guardian, 8 August).

The odd thing is that they all now use “Fascist” and "Nazi” as terms expressing abhorrence, forgetting how all of them have been willing to do a deal with Mussolini, Hitler or anyone else when in need of allies.

Which prompts a further note on the use of language. Why has not “you're like Stalin,” come into common use as term of abuse? What did Adolf have that Josef hadn't got?

•  •  •

Profits from “Welfare” work

“Industrial Relations News” of New York announce publication of a book called “The Dollars and Sense of Human Relations in Industry.” It sets out to answer the question “Do Human relations programmes pay their own way?”

The publicity leaflet notes that “companies to-day are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on human relations courses for supervisors, house organs for employees, recreation facilities, attitude surveys, and many other types of human relations programmes”

It’s their money and they want to know what they get for it in addition to a nice warm feeling.

So the editors “investigate the many areas in which good human relations can result in definite dollars-and-cents contributions to company success.”

This sort of thing must be a bit of a problem to honest christians who have been brought up to believe that they have to choose between wealth and goodness and can't have both. Under this enlightened, modern capitalism christian Capitalists have to have both whether they like it or not. They seek goodness by providing welfare for their wage-slaves and the only result is to give them more dollars and cents than ever.

Another line on “human relations” concerns protective clothing worn in factories and warehouses, dealt with in an article “How Clothing Can Help Production" (“Furniture Record,” 13 July, 1956). The writer, Mr. F. S. Winfield, Managing Director of Raynor, Webber and Stiles Ltd., claims that much study is given to the advantages of such clothing apart from its function as protective against accidents and against damage to ordinary dress.

Putting women workers into smart uniform, working garments prevents envy from interfering with concentration oft work:—

“The modish new spring skirt of a young unmarried operative cannot, for instance, be the object of rueful contrast during working hours with, say, the sad-looking frock that middle-aged widow has had to make do for with a couple of years."

It has been found, the writer says, that “identification of rank by colour differentiation has a marked effect on discipline and bearing . . . ” 

And when one firm decided to put all its men into clean overalls, washed each week by the firm, the result, within a week, was “an appreciable improvement in the tidiness and appearance of the machine shop.”

The article ends:—

"As more and more firms undertake to issue their workers with protective clothing, it becomes increasingly clear that the American conception of the provision of these facilities as an investment certain to show profitable returns in extra smartness and extra enthusiasm is a correct one."

The personnel experts call their study of how to get profitable reactions from the workers “human relations.” It is about as human as the preparation of thousands of pay sheets by an electronic computer.

Edgar Hardcastle

50 Years ago: What is Behind the Fight for Suez (2006)

The 50 Years Ago column from the September 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

The men at the top see more clearly the economic issues and interests involved but as they need to rouse the emotions and win the support of the mass of the people they dress up most of the declarations in the rabble-rousing language likely to move their listeners and readers. So over Suez we have had from the Western politicians a spate of talk about law and illegality, international rights, and wrongs, Fascist acts of plunder, etc., while from the Middle East Nasser and his defenders have worked up themselves and their audiences with passionate speeches about imperialism, oppression, insults to dignity, sovereignty and nationhood ( . . .).

To the Socialist the world is not capable of being divided into the good and the bad statesman and the good and bad nations; they are all Capitalist and all are impelled by the nature of the social system to struggle for markets for their products, for sources of cheap raw materials, and for control of trade routes like Suez and strategic points like Cyprus. These are the things for which they fight, no matter what the fine phrases and slogans in which their aims and motives are garbed.

The crux of the Suez dispute is firstly the oil that exists in abundance in the countries of the Middle East, and secondly the Canal through which much of it, as well as other cargoes, is transported. Oil is now an indispensable fuel for the motors and tractors, aeroplanes and warships, merchant vessels and factories of the countries of the world. With coal production and hydro-electric power failing to keep up with rapidly growing demand for fuel and with atomic power only a development of the not very near future, all, countries need oil and many of them, including Britain, have practically none within their own frontiers ( . . .)

At the time of writing the discussions between the Powers have not produced a settlement though the evident lack of war-fever among British workers and the disinclination of other Governments to back up Britain and France in forcible action against Egypt have had some effect in restraining the Eden Government and its supporters.

On the other hand Arab workers, misled by the belief that nationalisation of the Canal Co. (and eventual nationalisation of the oil industry) is in their interest, have been vigorously backing their governments.

This is the real tragedy of the Suez dispute, that there is no unity among the workers of the different countries in opposing the war-talk of their Governments.

(From front page article, Socialist Standard, September 1956)

Right honourable gentlemen (1978)

From the September 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Anyone who spends an afternoon observing Members of Parliament, after prolonged and copious lunches, reeling about their business in the House of Commons, may be surprised to learn that those same Members are expected to conform to what are called Standards of Behaviour. It was a failure to keep to these standards which finished off John Profumo and John Stonehouse and which will, if he is convicted of conspiring to have Norman Scott murdered, also end the political career of Jeremy Thorpe.

It is necessary to exercise a great deal of caution in this matter because (although this will be no comfort to Thorpe) not all politicians who plan to kill people are automatically drummed out of that experience known as Public Life. In fact there are many — some of them hold down jobs in one or other branch of the Ministry of Defence — who are paid fairly high wages to do exactly that. But there are guidelines, outside of which it is not permissible for a politician to stray; within them he can lie and cheat and organise mass killings and, if he keeps it up long enough, expect to end his days in the House of Lords with a few directorships to buoy up his income. Outside them he may end up in the dock.

These are customary demands of a political career and some of the people subject to them adapt more easily than do others. Most governments include one or two ministers whose single-minded devotion to an odious duty, whose readiness to carry out any dirty work which their dogged loyalty to capitalism persuades them is necessary, marks them out as being of abnormal ambition. They usually accumulate a few honours at the end of their days and richly deserve every one of them.

One such was Selwyn Lloyd, who died recently. Lloyd, who looked everyone’s vision of a stiff-necked bank clerk, was so drab it was almost exciting — he had, in fact, been a barrister and we can only hope he was able to present a more optimistic image to his clients. Moshe Dayan, when he was the Israeli Commander-in-Chief, wrote of him that he

. . . may well have been a friendly man, pleasant, charming, amiable. If so, he showed near genius in concealing these virtues.

Beneath his pin stripes, Lloyd nurtured a steely fidelity to British capitalism, in whose cause he was always ready to conspire and to deceive and to organise enterprises likely to result in the death of a lot of other people. One of the historical episodes in his career, for which he will always be notorious, was the 1956 British and French invasion of the Suez Canal Zone. That invasion provoked a storm of opposition, some of which was fuelled by evidence that the British, French and Israeli governments had hatched a plot to provide justification for the attack. The plot, in the words of Anthony Nutting, who was Minister of State at the Foreign Office at the time,

. . . was that Israel should be invited to attack Egypt across the Sinai Peninsular and that France and Britain, having given the Israeli forces enough time to seize all or most of Sinai, should then order ‘both sides’ to withdraw their forces from the Suez Canal, in order to permit an Anglo-French force to intervene and occupy the Canal on the pretext of saving it from damage by fighting. Thus the two powers would be able to claim to be ‘separating the combatants 'and ‘extinguishing a danger- out fire’, while actually seizing control of the entire waterway and of its terminal ports, Port Said and Suez. (No End of a Lesson.)

At the time Selwyn Lloyd, and the British government, steadfastly denied the existence of any such arrangement. On October 30 1956, the day the Israeli forces started their attack, the then Prime Minister Anthony Eden told the House of Commons that it had come as a complete surprise to Whitehall. The next day Lloyd backed up this denial with the slippery answer to a question in the House of Commons about collusion:

It is quite wrong to state that Israel was incited to this action by Her Majesty’s Government. There was no prior agreement between us about it.

On November 2 1956 General Keightley, who was in command of the British forces in the Suez landings, told journalists that “There has never been any contact between Israel and the Allies". (Secrets of Suez — Merry and Serge Bromberger).

Well that was a long time ago and now that the dust of Suez has settled there is an abundance of admitted evidence that Eden, Lloyd, Keightley and the rest were simply lying when they denied any pre-knowledge of the Israeli attack. In fact Selwyn Lloyd himself later gave an account of the affair which, describing a secret meeting at Chequers when the French general Challe and the acting French Foreign Minister Gazier outlined a plan to invite Israel to invade the Sinai peninsular, exposed himself as a liar. According to Anthony Nutting, who was also at Chequers that day, Eden was at once in favour of the suggestion and Lloyd later backed him up in this. That meeting took place on October 14 1956 — over a fortnight before Eden, Lloyd and Keightley were denying, as honourable men should, any collusive encouragement of an Israeli military action against Egypt. A week after the Chequers meeting Selwyn Lloyd was sent incognito to France to discuss the plot with, among others, the Israeli Prime Minister Ben Gurion and General Dayan.

The subsequent invasion of the Suez Canal Zone broke no less than three agreements which the British government was signatory to. There was the United Nations Charter, of which so much nonsense was talked; there was the Tripartite Declaration of 1950 (in which Britain, France and the USA made themselves responsible for preventing either side starting another round in the Arab/Israeli conflict); and there was the 1954 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty which bound Britain to send troops to the Suez Canal only if asked to do so by the Egyptian government. When these kinds of agreements are signed they are presented to us as great peace-keeping measures; Suez showed again just how little such assurances are worth.

In spite of the evidence that the Suez invasion was a typically disreputable episode, Selwyn Lloyd stubbornly defended it all as necessary and honourable. He cheated, he lied and he conspired in something which he knew would end in the killing of a lot of members of the working class. That, of course, was his job as Foreign Secretary. His reward, after the collapse of the Eden government and the appointment of Harold MacMillan as Prime Minister, was first to keep his place as Foreign Secretary (when he might well have been expected to lose it, as one so closely associated with Suez) and later to get the equally important job of Chancellor of the Exchequer where, it may have been expected, his dreary cynicism was likely to have a depressing effect on workers’ wage demands. MacMillan seemed at first to admire him greatly:

Selwyn Lloyd . . . had both the experience and the intelligence, also, I believed, the political agility to undertake a new task. (Pointing the Way — Harold Macmillan.)

This admiration persisted through several crises (“. . . the Chancellor of the Exchequer in capital form . . “. . . Selwyn Lloyd has been splendid all through. He has been calm and confident.”).

But as the storm clouds over British capitalism refused to be dispersed by Lloyd’s stolidly uninspiring policies, MacMillan became abruptly disenchanted with his dog-like Chancellor. (“ He seemed in some distress about wage claims . . ‘‘Selwyn . . . seems to me to have lost his grip . . . Lately, he seems hardly to function in some vital matters — eg this Incomes Policy affair.”) (At the End of the Day — Harold Macmillan.).

The government’s difficulties with the economic crisis were aggravated by a series of bad by-election results and, in a panic to give the cabinet a facelift, Macmillan decided to sacrifice several ministers, including Selwyn Lloyd. Even at so crushing a moment, when he might have shown some anger, Lloyd remained as stiff-necked as ever; he refused a peerage because, he said, he wanted to stay in the Commons to defend his financial policies and he wrote to Macmillan:

Dear Prime Minister, You have told me that you would like me to resign and this I willingly do.

Lloyd’s dismissal caused some wrath in the Conservative Party, where it was obviously thought that anyone who could be so utterly relied upon to do any dirty work deserved better. His old boss, Anthony Eden (who was by then savouring his reward for the Suez bungle in the House of Lords) made a rare return to political matters to say that Selwyn Lloyd had been ‘harshly treated’.

Lloyd seemed to be the only one not to be complaining. He came back briefly, as Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House, until the Tories were beaten in 1964. In 1970 he was elected Speaker, which to some extent took him out of the political battle and gave him a job in which he clearly upheld all the traditions of the House (which, when an MP says it, is taken as the highest compliment although it may not be clear which tradition he is referring to) until 1976 when he was made a Life Peer. At one time or another Selwyn Lloyd was a director of, among other companies, Sun Alliance and the Rank Organisation.

His was an iniquitous story, although unexceptional. The leaders of capitalism pose as people who are concerned about human interests and who, because they wield considerable power, are anxious to conform to the highest standards of honesty. On this image they ride in and out of power; each time a worker votes for them it is a demonstration of confidence in them to keep to their promises and to live up to their image.

Reality is a lot more sordid. Capitalism can only work against the interests of a majority of its people. At the same time it is a chaos of conflicting interests — of one firm against another, or one combine or international alliance against the rest. Harmony, cooperation, plenty — these are concepts utterly foreign to the priorities of this social system.

By the same token capitalism cannot work on freedom or honesty. Secrecy, deception, double-dealing are essential to its operation. Very few firms can be open about their production and marketing plans and it is common for them to keep secret important matters which it is in their customers’ interests to be aware of — for example the standard of testing of thalidomide. Then imagine a Prime Minister who openly admitted the truth — that his policies were designed to protect the interests of the ruling class minority against those of the majority, and that he intended to hood wink that majority into voting for their own robbery and humiliation.

The more customary, because less disruptive, way is that of Selwyn Lloyd, to maintain an image of bland respectability behind which to behave like a Sicilian bandit. At times the ruling class may lift the veil on the deception, to allow the workers to see a little of how they have been misled — but this only shows with what contempt the ruling class regard the people off whose backs they live.

It is not that capitalism would be better if its leaders were consistently honourable. The point is that we live under a social system in which cheating, lying and murder are a natural currency. Capitalism could not survive on any other terms. It is a measure of its boundless cynicism, that its Right Honourable Gentlemen are anything but that.

Ivan