British workers on
May 1 protest strike

By JOHN WILLIAMSON

Reflecting the rising political
character of the feeling in the
labor movement against the de-
. cision of the right-wing Labor
Government to proceed with its
anti-trade union legislation are
the calls for a 24-hour strike on

Danger from
defoliants

A University of British Colum-
bia scientist says the world’s
food and oxygen supply could be
seriously impaired if a single
cargo ship hauling chemical de-
foliant to Vietnam was to break
up at sea.

Dr. Ian McTaggart-Cowan, an
ecologist, drew an analogy be-
tween what could happen at sea
to a ship carrying chemicals to
defoliate Vietnam jungles and
what did happen to the oil tank-
er Torrey Canyon, which broke
up off the coast of Britain two

years ago.

He said that if a ship loaded
with defoliant chemicals was to
sink in a similar manner, the
consequences of such an acci-
dent would be unimaginable.

He said the chemicals would
kill minute organic sea life—the

. starting point of the food chain
that leads to fishes and eventual-
ly to man.

These organisms, Dr. McTag-
gart-Cowan said in an interview,
are particularly vulnerable to
such an accident because they
inhabit the surface of the sea.
In addition to constituting the
basic link in the world’s food
supply, the organisms produce
three-quarters of the world’s
oxygen supply, the ecologist said.

Dr. McTaggart-Cowan said the
primary concern of ecologists
is how widespread the effects of
such an accident would be. Ocean
currents could spread the che-
micals over much of the globe
and take months or even years
to disappear.

“It might set off a series of
consequences we cannot imag-
ine,” said Dr. McTaggart-Cowan.
He added that man often releases
chemicals with unknown conse-
quences “with ignorance amoun-

ting to arrogance.”

May 1 and the convening of a
special session of the Trade
Union Congress on June 5.

Further pressure according to
the Morning Star will result in
agreement for a one-day stop-
page, to which May Day will
greatly contribute.

The call for a 24-hour strike
on May Day is spreading in the
factories, with supporting action
by shop stewards committees.
At Sheffield’s Shardlow Engi-
neering Works it was supported
by a popular vote of 856 to 81.

While the TUC is trying to
discourage such action, the idea
has received support from the
big Liverpool Trade Council
where 50,000 struck on Feb. 27,
and it is expected the response

will be greater now.

The London dockers — both
TGWU and Lightermen’s unions
—have gone on record for the
May Day strike. Three of the
biggest districts of the AEF —
Manchester, Birmingham and
Sheffield — are on record, as are
the shop stewards in Vauxhalls
GM) asd Rolls Royce.

The London printers union —
the largest branch in the coun-
try—expects to stop work, as
do draftsmen, scientists and
others up and down the country.

The Scottish TUC, by a vote
of 1,133 to 613, rejected the pro-
posed anti-union legislation, and
scorned those who try to use
“long overdue rights” for unions
as bargaining points for “other
measures, which means relin-
quishing the fundamental rights
of trade unionists.”

Olive Jenkins, president of the
Scientific and Staffs Association
warned, “We are unwilling to
be foot soldiers in Major Barba-
ra’s conscript army,” while Bri-
tish TUC president John Newton
(Tailor and Garment Union), in
his fraternal speech challenged
the integrity of Harold Wilson in
his dealings with union leaders,
and said that “the Labor Govern-
ment is carrying out policies
which the Tories’ started.”

President McGarney of the
Boilermakers Union and mem-
ber of the Labor Party Execu-
tive accused the Labor Cabinet
of “totalitarian” tactics to rush
through emergency legislation in
the face of overwhelming oppo-
sition of the unions and Labor
Party Executive.

The conference called by the

rank and file Trade Union Liai-
son Committee had 400 delegates
from 14 district committees, 40
shop stewards committees, 17
Trade Councils and 80 branches.
It was a rousing affair and adopt-
ed a declaration which empha-
sized that the proposed legisla-
tion “can be defeated but only
by mounting an ever stronger
action.” It supported the May
Day strike proposal and the con-
vening of a special TUC.

Even the new Labor Party na-
tional secretary, Harry Nicolas,
has been forced to speak of the
unions, Labor Party and Labor
Government as “probably facing
the most critical period in their
history,” while TUC acting sec-
retary, Vic Feather, has publicly
taken issue with Wilson.

The rising temperature has
followed the announcement in
Parliament by Mrs. Barbara
Castle of the Government's de-
termination to push through the
28-day cooling-off period for all
strikes, accompanied with court
penalties. The “big” concession
was that the penalties would be
fines, but not jail sentences, but
no answer is given as to what
happens in case of refusal to pay
fines. .

The new “shackles for unions
—shekels for rich” budget of La-
bor Chancellor Jenkins, as the
Morning Star calls it, took an-
other 340 million pounds in tax-
ation, of which at least 200 mil-
lion pounds will come out of
wages, added fuel to the fire. On
top of that there will be an ad-
ditional 250 million pounds in in-
creased social insurance contri-
butions, mostly from the work-
ers. In fact the Budget message
was used as a new declaration
of war against the workers.

No wonder The Times said
that Tory leaders see themsel-
ves “as having won a major vic-
tory,” and that a future Tory
Government would “build on
Mrs. Castle’s foundations.

Agony of Kelead

By MEL DOIG

The April 28 resignation of
the prime minister of Northern
. Ireland (Ulster), Captain Ter-
ence O’Neil, followed by less
than a week the narrow vote, 28
to 22, in his Unionist Party ‘‘to
adopt the principle of universal
‘adult franchise at the next local
election.” That vote in Ulster’s
ruling party represented a ma-
jor victory for the Civil Rights
‘movement,

But within a day of the Union-
ist Party’s reluctant concession
to democracy in Ulster’s “so-
ciety of landlords,” as Berna-
dette Devlin, the 22-year-old
member of the British House of

Commons and fighter for the
rights of her people in Northern
Ireland calls it, the Labor gov- —

- ernment of Britain dispatched
a additfonat ‘troops ere: .

The situation, already explo-
sive with mounting tensions, be-
came so critical as the reaction-
aries in his own party strove to
maintain the old, repressive or-
der with the assistance of Brit-
ish troops, that Prime Minister
O’Neill decided to throw in the
towel.

The “agony of Ireland” had
been perpetuated in the 10
counties that comprise Ulster.
The Irish revolt against the
British Empire, the long, brave
and bitter struggle of its people,

by 1920 had freed 26 of Ireland’s
36 counties, But in Ulster, the
British ruling class and the
landlords of Northern Ireland

medieval bigotry, striving al-
ways through religious and Tory
groups to ate worker from
-: worker. | ,

There are 260,000 citizens of
Northern Ireland who are denied
the right to vote in local elec-
tions. It’s not a “one man, one
vote” system. The local fran-
chise is based on property-own-
ing qualifications. Most Cathol-
ics suffer outright discrimina-
tion through policies of vicious
segregation in housing. The
present laws grant owners one
vote for every $26 of assessed
property they have. It is not un-
common for one landlord, or
business owner, to have as many
as 20 votes!

This system, already rotten in
its feudal mockery of democra-
tic representation,

people alike through widespread
poverty and unemployment.
Today, many times led by a
new generation which refuses to
accept the wretched conditions

Perhaps the most interest-
ing feature about this case,
as it appeared in the back
pages of the daily press a cou-
ple of weeks ago, is not that
it happened but that it could

?

Two factors become im-
mediately apparent. First that
“crime” so-called has attain-
ed a new dimension; and sec-
ondly, with tens of thousands
of students in scores of uni-
versities in revolt against an
archaic and long-outmoded
educational system, shot
through with a class-encrust-
ed rotten bureaucracy, stu-
dents may now find them-
selves wondering whether
the “prof” putting them
through their academic paces
is the “real McCoy” as pre-
scribed by university “law,”
or an 18-carat phoney who
attained an eminence on the
old and sterling principle that
“it’s not what you know, but
who you know” that counts.
Worse still, students could
now begin to ponder whether
the latter has “more on the
ball” than the alleged genu-
ine article.

When “the law” in all its
majestic equality sentenced
one Ronald Ivan MacDonald
(a blending of the heather
and borscht, illustrating the
international character of
genius) to two years in King-
ston Penitentiary for posing
as a professor of such intri-
cate subjects as psychology,
psychiatry, etc., it may have
inadvertently pried the lid off
a veritable Pandora’s Box of
learned bugs in the higher
educational belfry.

Ronald’s record as given in
court showed he was certain-
ly no porch-climbing amateur
when it came to applying his
talents in the field of higher
education. For over three
years Ronald held the post as
professor of psychology at
the Port Arthur Lakehead
University before the admi-
nistration of that institution
awoke to the realization that
their psychology “prof”
wasn’t a cum laude product
in the strictest Establishment
sense.

Evidence cited in the re-
cord also disclosed that Ron-
ald has held down profes-
sional teaching jobs at famed
old McGill University in Mon-
treal and at the St. Francis
Xavier University in Anti-
gonish, Nova Scotia. At the
latter he guided his classes
through the tortuous and ill-
lighted intricacies of psy-
chiatry.

Other vocations at the
$10,000 per annum level were

mentioned at this unique
court case, but why continue?
They are now, according to

the “wise” ruling of the
Court, going to “help” Ron-
ald get over his habit of “im-
personating” professors and
all such stalwarts while he
sojourns in “K.P.”

What they are most likely
to do for Ronald in K.P. (if
you care to take the word of
an old alumnus of that vener-
able alma mater) will be to
provide him with a brand new
repertoire added to the re-
markable talents he has al-
ready demonstrated he pos-
sesses, and undoubtedly with
wider horizons, K.P. will
provide the enterprising and
talented Ronald with a whole
bagful of “wrinkles” he never
even thought of in his high-
est psychological accomplish-
ments.

Frankly, had I been the
presiding judge in Ronald’s
case, instead of sending him
to K.P. for two years to com-
pound his talents, I would
have recommended instead
that his name be placed on
the forthcoming Queen's
Birthday Honor List, with an
OBE (Order of the British
Empire) at the very least, in
recognition of services render-
ed in the enlightenment of his
fellow mortals.

Meantime, while Ronald’s
“impersonation” career has
been temporarily halted by
his enforced semester in K.P.,
the main question remains
unanswered by the Court
and/or other responsible edu-
cational administrative bodies:
How was it possible that
such a brilliant phoney was
able to elude their academic
scrutiny before placing him
on faculty staff?

When any group of stu-
dents begins to think of self-
education or self-instruction,
the cops are called in with
clubs swinging. Perhaps it
could. have been that Ronald
“knew somebody who knew
somebody who knew some-
body” who helped pull the
trick? At least that’s all we’re
left with to chew on until
Lakehead, McGill and St.
Francis Xavier heads produce
a better answer. Even the
Court, allegedly concerned
with the public weal, should
have demanded no less as it
ordered an extended “semes-
ter” in K.P. for Ronald.

Meantime, we shall follow
Ronald’s progress in K.P.
with more than a passing in-
terest. There it should be
meteoric, since the opportu-
nities are limitless for a man
of his unexcelled abilities!

is crushing ©

Acheed :
continued the old. system of | Protestant and Catholic working

HOW U.S. COMMUNIST LEADER SEES -
CONCENTRATION IN INDUSTRY

A hard-hitting, no punches pulled address delivered —
to U.S. Communists working in industry by Gus Hall is car-
ried in the current No. 5-6 issue of INFORMATION BUL-
_ LETIN of the WORLD MARXIST REVIEW. Highly critical
| of reformist attitudes among Communists who are trode
nionists, the speech has relevance for Canadian Com-

einen