WILSON FACES: THE BANKERS -~ AND THE WORKERS |
-s "less than four months after.he. steered the Labour party:; to; Oe. smashing electoral victory March 31, increasing its majority. in Commons from 4 to 97, Prime Minister Harold Wilson's government has "been plunged- into a severe: financial crisis.
To. prop. ‘up the. “weakening pound, “the | prime: “minister - was) forced july 20 to saddie the. British economy with a-burden of..deflationary. restrictions. These included :the raising of: a variety. of taxes,. some by ten percent or more; restraints on installment buying and on personal foreign. travel: expenditures by: British. CAGLZENS 5 “and ...the curtailment of construction. : wrt ; . poh ere ptt
The Long-impending crisis. has ‘been. made still. sharper by - ‘Ewo. collateral: factors. Throughout his: twenty-one: months in Downing. creet, Wilson. has: been blithely assuring his.coyntry and. the. Teen. of the "world. that. the pound was in’ a healthy-condition under. his. ministrations. Only two weeks before these emergency moves he had, . lashed out at the "moaning minnies" and "wet editorials," both to the right: and to the left of him, that had criticiged his inertie and‘ called: for a program. of more drastic action..He:>now.appears to: have been taken by surprise: and to be, not a shrewd. and strong... ... leader, but a short-sighted, vacillating victim of economic events.
“ Phis: judgment is being openly expressed by some of his supporters: “Among them is the New. Statesman which has been campaigning for. more-.stringent controls to.cope with the situation. On July 15 its editors accused Wilson of compronising and maneuvering, of fail-~ ing tofvifill his promise made. a year ago of being a "government with guts," and of "being slowly obliged to adopt the Tory measures it originally rejected (no doubt concluding, in time with devaluation) because it lacks the will to apply the real. alternatives.
The following week, after the. announcement of Wilson's emergency package, they charged the Labour government with a lack of "competence and judgment". which has: seriously. ‘damaged its _ image as a confident, trustworthy. government team. :
No less ominous for Wilson has been ‘the reaction -- or. rather, the absence of enthusiastic response -- from international financial circles... The British .and foreign money interests have been looking to.the Wilson government to perform the same nasty chore ia 1966 as Ramsay MacDonald had carried out during the crisis of 1931 . under quite different circumstances and in a different manner. That is :to take ‘the immense costs of restoring stability and profitability to British capitalism ‘out of the hides of the working masses by reducing their wages and living standards. This method of sal-.. vaging a capitalist economy faced with bankruptcy has been:a traditional role assigned to Social Democratic regimes in Western Europe.
Wilson's new measures are oriented in this direction. But
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the refusal of the bankers -.at- home:and abroad.to rally to the battered pound Signifies that they are far from satisfied with these concessions. They want a full pound of flesh. Their wait-and-see attitude leaves the future. of sterling in doubt and even places it in Jeopardy. . ae ae
As the July 24 New fork Mmes: “points: out, "the pound iB “plainly not out of trouble, and the next week or two will be critical. Even if the immediate pressure is relieved, the deflationary package raises its own: questions about the long-run hopes for growth and. greater productivity in the British economy."
The international financial sharks are now concerned to see how much further Wilson is prepared to proceed on their behalf and against the welfare of the workers in order to uphold the pound and the profit system. On the other side, the seamen's strike showed the determination of the workers to resist the imposing of the wage celings which the government has been trying to enforce by a series of measures- ranging from exhortation to a mandatory cooling-off period.
The pressure from below has been dramatized by the resigna-tion from the ‘Cabinet of Frank Cousins, leader of the huge transport workers union, and the declaration that his union will not accept any official straitjacket on wage claims or struggles.
‘Wilson is therefore caught in the cleft of the two major class forces: the skeptical bankers and avaricious speculators, dissatisfied with his half-measures and pressing for more deflation at the expense of the workers, and the organized workers who put him into office with a big majority and who are increasingly opposed to the antilabor edge of his economic policies.
Britain's present sterling crisis is the fourth to hit the country in the last twenty-one months of the Labour government and by far the most serious since the pound was devalued in 1949.
It is highly doubtful whether the deflationary steps already taken, including the tightening of credit and raising the bank rate to seven percent, will suffice to stave off another devaluation.
It is even more unlikely that Wilson will reverse his course and apply a socialist economic policy that would give priority to the needs of his working-class constituency over the demands of the plutocrats.
These two factors presage that the current financial crisis may well be the prelude to a political crisis of these labor caretakers of the capitalist regime who were so jubilant over their prospective five-year tenure in office only a few months ago.
CASE OF THE FORT HOOD. THRER
By Dick Roberts
For the past two weeks, attention in “the “world press, has “been drawn away from the U.S. bombings and slaughter in Vietnam onto the question of what would happen if Hanoi decided to. try U.S. Pilots who have been captured in that country. “pony
The Johnson administration has attempted to usé’ this question to stir up prowar support among the American people while making threats of a major. "retaliatory". escalation of the war. if the trial takes place. The.so-called doves in the U.S. government have found: in the question a means of diverting attention from their own. ‘failure to slow the war down in. any way whatsoever. “eth
Most importantly, the worldwide publicity given to the eee sible Hanoi trials, has obscured a trial that is actually taking place in the United States, and is the most significant new, development in the antiwar movement in this. country. This is the.. trial. of three GI's:who have refused to gO. to Vietnam. .
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