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Railmen a Tta Ck Centralisation AG ED Y T H E K O R E a Mersey

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Railmen a Tta Ck Centralisation AG ED Y T H E K O R E a Mersey I i Urn Im uc: “ The primary aim of modern The Rewards of Labour p*. 2 w a rfare . « lo aP products of the machine without Society and the raising the standard of liviog* Adolescent - p* 2 —GEORGE ORWELL> The Age of Speed - p* 3 (••WAR IS PEACE” in 1984> R C H I S T Vol. 12, No. 28 S ep tem b er 8th, 1951 Threepence 99 THE LABOUR PARTY’S «< DOUBLE-THINK Railmen Attack Centralisation TN an article entitled “The Com­ thus be said to be representative of only PEACE IS WAR a minority viewpoint. The fact is, how­ mune and the Syndicates*’ ever, that workers as a whole (even (Freedom , 21/7/51), I wrote: Welsh workers!) are slow to put pen HE policy statement issued last week of everyone in the community.” upon. But research in the development “Anarchists and Syndicalists are not to paper on matters of administration* Fv./the National Executive of The statement says that, “Investment of lethal weapons continues at a rate ashamed to pronounce their Region­ and that the initiative to do so was taken Labou** Party with the title “Our in coal, electricity, gas, coke ovens, rail­ faster than their production. It is the and, without, as far as I know, the It Duty^Peacc”, is designed to offset ways, roads, and petroleum during 1951 field of research that advances most alism.” machinery of any political organisation gftfluvincc of the Bevanite manifest 6 will be higher than, in 1950. The pro­ rapidly—because the demand is greatest. It is with some interest, therefore, to “help” them, they were able to gather Wav Only”, at the Trade Unipn gramme of new building for the manu­ Germany lost the battle for air that I read of a protest organised by so much support indicates a fairly high es$ and the Labour Party's annual facturing industry will be about the same. supremacy in the last war because its general measure of agreement among fence .at Scarborough next month. There will be bigger investment in . enemies, through starting, later were able footplate workers of the Western their fellow workers. Add to this the (tevan;Wilson statement quarrelled, education. The housing programme will- to produce more advanced machines. So Region of the British Railways. For fact that the workers launching the ini­ {to rearmament but with the scale be maintained.” the accumulation of anmaments will have this protest specifically pronounced tiative clearly feel very strongly about Rrofcrramme. The National Execu- But it does not add that increased to be used up somewhere before they the Regionalism of some 3,200 sig­ it and can thus become an influential pew is that the arms programme expenditure will fail to rise with in- become obsolete. This is the ultimate natories who found the administra­ “ginger group”, and it seems likely that ■bents what all consider the mini- creased^costs and consequently that real implication of “Our First Duty—Peace”, we have not heard the last from the Required to deter aggression and so investment will be less. And it does not just as it is the implication of the tion of the Railway Executive regionalists of S. Wales. pi? a Third World War”. The add that housing and educational “policies'’ of the Labour Party’s political “reckless and inefficient”. For, of course, they were not made "11 part of the document is there- authorities in many parts the coun­ opponets, who would serve up the same The protest took the form of an exactly welcome at the Ministry of BbloledMo a series of platitudes to try are abandoning new projects for lack dish with different trimmings. Transport. This Ministry’s offices are g|tfc toe* hardly original or historically of materials diverted to armaments And this is the policy which after open letter, which six railmen from situated, like the National Coal Board, Tul,-doc trine, “If you wish for industries. suitable back-stage revolts and whip- Swansea, S. Wales—four drivers and in Berkeley Square (where nowadays B : p^pare for war.” The emphasis What will happen when the three-year cracking, the Trades Union Congress even the nightingales cannot be heard Baking the rich pay”, which has so two firemen—brought to London to programme is completed? It will be dis­ and the Labour Party Conference will present to the Minister of Transport. above the rattle of bureaucratic tea­ ■fd the- sinti-Lltbour press has ob- covered that Russia and its satellites have endorse. “We do not accept the view cups) and when the six delegates arrived ■y been inserted in order to steal rearmed to keep pace with America and that was is inevitable,” says the state- The number of signatories represents there, threading their way among the Bunder of “One Way Only”. The its satellites, and that consequently the fent. It might as well have added: “But a fifth of the sixteen thousand locomo­ sleek limousines, they were refused Spent declares that: “High rates of “security minimum” will have to be in­ we’ll do our bit to make it so.” tive engineers and firemen working on audience with the Minister himself, Mr. gps tax and surtax have already creased, another programme embarked C.W. the Western Region, and the letter may Alfred Barnes, and had to present their B ed ah enormous redistribution of message to an underling, and leave. B e in Britain. In 1938, after taxes Been paid, only £39 out of -every They were indeed optimistic if they g)f personal incomes went to wage thought they could see the great man and £24 to salary earners. In FOREIGN COMMENTARY himself. If London dockers are not ^ B th e share of wages had gone up allowed to see their own union boss, Mr. B |? out of each £100. The share of Deakin, when they call at Transport Kb?- earners was about the same at THE KOREA AG ED Y House, what chance have these provin­ ■ The increase in the share of the cials of seeing a Minister of the Crown? R nal income going to wage earners is ■ELSEWHERE we reproduce an editorial Koreans, Chinese and other troops en­ Democracy, it is natural that' he is con­ After all, democracy has its limits. (I’ll if almost entirely to a reduction in the comment from the Chicago weekly gaged in this senseless struggle. cerned that a military victory in say it has!) Jpe taken by those who Jive on un­ Industrial Worker (organ of the I.W.W.) ★ S. Korea should not be meaningless, The open letter read: feed income.” which deals with the Korea Truce talks which it will be “unless it is accompanied HTHE New York Herald Tribune “We, the undersigned locomotive" Spits means, presumably, that after six in a very similar vein to the one in by a rehabilitation programme sufficient enginemen and firemen of the Western B rs of “Britain’s wartime revolution”, which it was dealt in this column last (N.Y. edition) in a pointed editorial in scope to convince the S. Korean Region, make a sincere appeal for the B d seven years of “the silent revolution week. And the New York anarchist “Koreans are People” discusses the tre­ people that the costly war of resistance termination of the reckless and inefficient p out midst”,4 the workers’ share has weekly VAdunata dei Refrattari in its mendous problems created for the against Communism was worth while”. Koreans by this war: “Americans are administration of the Railway Executive ^Breased by 8 per cent., and that 28 per issue for September 1st, refers to the We think it is asking too much of the over the Western Region. (but- of personal incomes still goes to Kaesong armistice talks as a “tragic appalled—and rightly—at the terrible cost Korean people to ever hope to convince Jlople who do not earn it. And this farce” in which “the two sides are in in young American lives of the fighting them that this war was worthwhile—is uln the interests of the safety of the |$ despite Jhe increase in the working agreement on only one point: of not in Korea. Yet large though the American there any war that has been worthwhile railway passengers and ourselves we de­ jppulation and increased productivity. concluding an armistice which might end casualty list seems, more than twenty when everything is taken into account, mand a complete control over the ■fit should not be imagined, however, the military operations and the shedding times that number of Korean civilians including the new problems created by Western Region by our own regional Brom the talk of “sharing the burden” of blood on both sides.” Quoting from are dead, wounded or missing, if official such wars? officers, who were former Great Western Korean estimates are to be believed. ★ f Railway experts, to resussitate the Great ■that it is these people who are going to the official figures of American casualties Like Americans, these Koreans are peo­ Tpay for the arms race, for, “to pay for published in Time, our contemporary ATEVERTHELESS, the N.Y. Herald Western Railway’s highly efficient pfearmament some sacrifice must inevit- shows how during the two months use­ ple. Like^the rest of us, they are human mechanical, technical, and welfare ad­ beings, with the same sensitivity to pain Tribune realises that a military vic­ ministration over the Western Region. ■ably be made by everyone.” The worker lessly spent by the peace delegates in and the same desire to live. More than tory for the “democracies” does not Jhnd his wife will discover the meaning wrangling over procedure, 500 American 2.000.
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