As is usual with anything written by Michael Barratt Brown, What Really Happened to the Coal Industry * is well researched, and well-written. Barratt Brown has assembled a wealth of material which gives key trends in the mining industry since its nationalisation in 1946.
Particularly important are the figures he has calculated showing the weekly carnings in the coal industry as a percentage of the average of all male manual workers in production industries. These show a decline from a peak of 125 in 1956 to 104 in 1965-a level which was held until 1970, after which it declined to 95 in 1971.
A startling set of figures is the share of coal in the competitive primary fuel marketthis declined from 98 per cent in 1947 to 57 per cent in 1970/71. Barratt Brown analyDear Comrades, The visit of the Queen and Prince Philip to the smail sugar island of Mauritius, in the Indian Ocean, is being used by the government of the 800,000 population of mixed culture, to give a facade of respectability to its dictatonhip. There is an all out effort so make Mauritius appear a peaceful, unified and happy country. In fact the government han postponed all elections, the municipal, dae last December, and the general, due in 11972, till 1976. This naturally has ensive discontent throughout the A state of emergency is now in ce, which has lasted from just before mas when a General Strike of some 70.000 workers which demanded the withdrawal of a draconic law, that made the right to strike impossible in Mauritius, was crushed by the me of highly paid strike breakers, the Led the sacking of hundreds of worka major unions, organising more 000 workers, have since been susleaving the workers with no protec i their employers. Today more political prisoners are being held in IRISH SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN The Irish Solidarity Campaign holds alternate and business meetings every Friday at at the General Picton pub, Caledonian ction Wharfdale Road) nearest tube April 14th: Bob Purdie on the Testo - "Why Irish Solidarity"
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ses the reasons why this shift took place at an even faster rate than consecutive goverments planned; a major contributing factor being the slow-down in the rate of growth of the economy which led the oil companies to desperately hold prices to capture markets, so that their large-scale plants (largely financed by govemment investment grants) did not run too expensively below full capacity.
Even more dramatic is the picture drawn of the decline in the number of pits: 958 in 1947; 616 in 1962; 483 in 1965/6; and 292 in 1970/71. The rate of decline shown by these figures has been an accelerating one: a 26 per cent decline from 1956-62; 22 per cent from 1962-65/6 and no less than 40 per cent from 1965/6-1970/71.
Hence we have the picture of an industry which is being made more and more red"preventive detention", all being members, of, or trade unionists of unions affiliated to the main opposition party, the Movement Militant Mauricien, a Socialist party founded in 1968. Among the prisoners are Paul R. Berenger (26), the leader of the Movement, Dev Virahsawmy (29) the M.P. of the Party. Herve Ma in the intergationally famous painter and Ramduth Jadoo, President of the Party.
In August 1971, a strike by the transport industry was declared illegal by the Government. The president of the union, Paul Berenger, and Dev Virahsawmy, in company with many workers were brutally beaten and arrested by the paramilitary police. Eventually after a hunger strike of six days by the prisoners a tribunal declared that the strike was legal and that the government was completely in the wrong Violence has become an everyday facet of life. Riot police and the quasimilitary spe cial (mobile) force patrol, stop and search cars, people and houses. The history of violence started as long ago as 1963, erupted in communal riots in 1968 and eventually reached a climax in November 1971 with the attempted assassination of Paul Berenger and Dev Virahsawmy in broad daylight in the main street of Curepipe. The attempt failed, but unfortunately a 49-year-old docker was shot dead instead. Those arrested in connection with the incident were all agents of one of the coalition government parties. The government has continued its programme of silencing opposition, by censuring all ANNOUNCEMENT Owing to increased postal charges and rising expenses we have unfortunately had to increase the Red Mole subscription rates to C3 p.a. for Britain and £4 p.a. for foreign subs. (E6 airmail). Current subscriptions will, of counic, not be affected until renewal.
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of the NCB and government in each of these periods. He is especially acute in diagnosing the way the Labour Government went back on its promises to the miners.
His assessment of the last years of the coal industry and the particular form of productivity deal introduced in that period is enlightening. He is probably correct in his explanation of how this laid the basis for rising militancy in the mining industryalthough he throughout makes the mistake of assessing such questions in isolation from general trends in the working class.
On these questions and many others the pamphlet is useful and a good buy for those who want factual material and a general background to the mining industry and its economics. However, in other respects this pamphlet reflects the confused politics of the Institute of Workers Control.
There is no analysis nor factual assessment of the role of the trade union leadership in this period. Surely some argumentation is necessary on the question of why the miners, whose militant history is a legend in the working class, allowed themselves to lose the relatively good wages position they carved out in the first years of nationalisation.
Although the pamphlet mentions workers control no argument is advanced as to what would be its features in the mining industry.
We are told on page 4 that the miners had "long demanded workers control at all levels news papers, refusing to allow one,Le Combar, to be published and by putting under lock and key the press of the Movement's Le Militant. The Queen will be met with freshly painted walls, and homes and shop fronts, as the goverment covers up the myriad slogans directed against its dictatonial regime.
Thus the question remains, will the government have papered over the gaping cracks in Mauritius (its failure to solve unemployment, running now at 15% and rising unchecked year by year, corruption, wastage, 30 million rupees squandered, according to F.A.O., in the Ministry of Agriculture in one year, and a loss of support by the mass of the people) sufficiently to ensure an enjoyable stay in this "paradise" for the Queen and Prince Philip? Or will the rising tension the anger and frustration of thousands burst the restraining bonds creating a violent and dangerous situation on their arrival?
Yours faithfully, P.C.
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unofficial strike and the 1972 official strike.
The pamphlet treats the coal industry-and the various governments' policies towards itin isolation from politics as a whole. This is economism with a vengeance. What is worse is the pervading non-class approach. I can illustrate this no better than by quoting a chunk: "The nation does need coal and will have to pay a decent wage to the miners who get it. Coal remains a precious national asset that will have to be most stringently conserved, not as fuel, but as a non-renewable source of chemicals, fertilisers, synthetic materials, paints and much else besides......" An approach like this underpins the politics of trade union leaders who try to get their members to support class collaboration policies "in the interests of the nation". Fortunately, when the miners went into action they threw aside the arguments about the national interest and were not at all impressed when told that their actions threatened "a precious national asset". If they hadn't, the strike would have been lost. Despite his intentions, Michael Barratt Brown advances an approach which undermines the class consciousness the miners showed in the strike.
-Pat Jordan *What Really Happend to the Coal Industry, Workers Control, price 12p.
Dear Red Mole, As you have been publishing various articles on immigrant education in Bradford I thought you might be interested to know about a boy who goes to our school (Bradford Grammar School). I was arguing about Communism with this boy and found out that he was a fanatical Enoch Powell supporter. Later on, I found out that his father was an immigrant teacher. His ideas, which were obviously a rellection of his father's about immigrants were shown in one sentence in which he said: "The (wicked black) Kenyans forced the (merciful, helpful) whites from their country, we should do the same to the blacks". Thus, Mr. Carter could show that your attack on him was sheer victimization!!
Yours fraternally, Peter Mason North London Red Circle meets every Tuesday at 8.30 p.m. to discuss revolutionary politics. All welcome.
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Capitalism survives by the gun The recent shootings at El Ferrol once more demonstrate the desperation of the Franco segime, its inability to find ways of silencing the Spanish working class for even a short space of time, by anything other than violent repression.
The occasion was a demonstration of naval shipyard workers to the gates of the El Ferrol factories to urge the workers there to take solidarity action with their strike. Two to three thousand demonstrators were stop ped by 60 armed police. Three times they charged them. The police began by firing rubber bullets-a familiar enough story. Then, perhaps in panic, they shot bullets into the crowd, killing two men and seriously wounding 20. The comrades of the dead men, unarmed but not intimidated, took over the road and forced the police to retreat to their barracks. The next day the whole town was on outcome of the struggle is by no means all negative. Since the beginning of the year there have been upsurges of the student movement and the workers" movement throughout Spain. In the universities and schools there has heen massive resistance to police repression. In the rank and file in the factories there has been a series of struggles against the regime's altempt to renew collective bargaining agreements with the yellow unions. New sectors, such as the teachers, have been drawn into struggic. These forces, the rank and file in the factories and the students in particular, are ready to respond with solidarity action against the Spanish state when it uses its guns against any section of them. What El Ferrol again teaches, like the death of the building worker in Madrid last autumn, is that the most urgent task is to arm the workers" movement so that it can take the struggle forward. The willingness of the regime to kill has been proved The regime is, of course, still desperately trying to crush the revolutionary left before this can be accomplished. The renewed struggles of the mass of workers make this the more difficult. France is leaning heavily on the rest of capitalist Europe for help in particular on France, the obvious political centre for exiled militants. The main barrier to the French government's desire to help by extraditing militants, is the solidarity movement which has existed ever since Burgus. Since the beginning of March it has centred around support for the hunger strike of four of the ETA militants unJer threat of deportation: this has already achieved the commutation of the order to exile to the northem French provinces, which the ETA comrades regard as condemnation 10 a 'slow death'. Alter two weeks of the hunger strike, the next move of French "justice' was to take them into hospital under close police guard for observation which their own doctor judged quite unnecessary. But the fight will go on: the Ligue Communiste has issued a call for an intransigent campaign against any extradition, and forsolidarity in the struggle against the French and Spanish states. Capitalism in crisis is often bound to be short-sighted: and the desperate repression of the Spanish regime will strike sparks in the rest of Europe too. The arming of the Spanish working class is on the agenda. It is the most urgent task facing the revolutionary movement in Spain at this moment: solidarity with that movement will be essential in the development of the revolutionary left throughout Europe.
J. Frazer IR
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Further repression in Mauritius
Racist education in Bradford