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FEXPERT DISCUSSES SUEZ OPERATION

2 Pople to

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: LONDON
an em Teturned to London
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atielg Vee booked» as far

mingham to bring
lobby in support of

Re British P
Ww e - ’
“No Wap a Committee’s

Backed by. Labor

Big (°° Of local Labor par-
“Anion ite councils and trade
“the Tanches affiliated to
Fredo ent of Colonial
Bmnitr the Suez Emergency
“Ny fe has decided on a
Ps Be With Suez Week.”
llameng ed a lobby of par-
Week — Wednesday this
Station it 2ally and demon“
ithis M~Trafalgar Square
a pate Sunday.
et parliament

meets
Who loves

peace

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en that the British
f ovey Sue , Not support. war
4; declared the Suez

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itish people can pr
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folly of war.’ P

British TUC convention

warns ‘No war over Suez’

BRIGHTON

With a mighty “Aye,” the thousand voices of the representatives of Britain’s trade union movement last

week gave a

ment to discuss the issue. De
emergency resolution on the Suez dispute, w

used until the question has been referred to the United

amendments demanding im-
mediate recall ‘of parliament.

(Fhe Eden government, bow-
ing to popular pressure, later
announced that parliament
would be recalled on Wednes-
day this week to discuss the
Suez crisis.)

Not since the end of the
war have government ‘wage
policies come under such bit-
ter attack from all sides in a
TUC convention.

In the discussion which pre-
ceded unanimous rejection of
Chancellor of the Exchequer
Harold Macmillan’s appeal for
a wage freeze, Frank Cousins,

general secretary of the
powerful Transport and Gen-
eral Workers Union, noted that
Macmillan had suggested he
would like to address dele-

gates. hel

“What does he think this
is? .A film festival ?” Cousins:
demanded.

The Transport and General
Union, he said, would not rest
content with adoption of the
resolution rejecting Mac-
millan’s appeal. It would fight
rising prices and help smaller
unions to fight them as well.

The convention overwhel-
mingly endorsed a far-reach-

legates to the Trades Union Con

ing plan to control introduc-
tion of automation and to en-
sure that new -. techniques
would improve living stan-
dards for all.

The resolution said that the
TUC was not opposed to auto-

mation but it was determined
to protect the interests of
unionists “against any ruth-
less application of automation
by employers.”

It called for joint manage-
ment-labor consultation,
avoidance of redundancy,
maintenance of earnings, re-
ductions in the price of com-
modities and adequate main-

(Th ;
liy © writer of this article
Years in Port Said,

from
19
ties 35 to 1949, working on

q the PS that passed through

|

]

© Sue
at y. canal. Previous to
<eah asl

| dio org: Tved at sea as a
Years) < for nearly 20

The
(wit Suez Canal pilotage

hee Tespect to my friends
Pilots) Waintances among the
ing F 5 One of the easiest
I Miles qh, For its: 100-oad
~ Wart e Canal runs straight,

ends ®M one or two easy
it ig th Nd about 30 miles of

Ugh natural lakes.

Channel

a
r

es is marked
oe its entire length by
at iy ine of buoys which,

lon » are easi] nee
ot 8 Way ahead Y visible a

Nounteg CWerful searchlight

The
throug

A

4,

; ‘ Pilot me OCCasj

I i ats
by eidition yee, Ship's bows.

0:
oys eden are lighted

te
Shi

: bs :

vthe canst © Signalled through

¥ hing ye ons located

Pain) b Ules or so on the
gerous. €re are no

Te beacons.

ang

a the weather is
Ss traffic is negli-

tides
U or
A Dep feet val currents

Sible =e:
Qn

Onally dg

giy Y does the

the Sbeeq {nsorder to check

ct When .° Course of the ship
1S necessary to tie

asides to let another

{the aig
Bp, TCulty of the pilotage

in the beam.-

Sypt can run

can in no way be compared
with the Panama with its
locks ‘and basins or with the
Calcutta and Shanghai rivers
with their swift currents and
dense traffic.

Admittedly, with very large
ships. or with strong cross
winds and sandstorms the Suez
pilot may have some anxious
hours but,-generally speaking,
the pilotage is a comparatively
simple one for which any
young officer with a master’s
ticket can and does qualify
after a few months’ training.

In my view, the new Egyp-
tian canal authority should
have little trouble in over-
coming difficulties caused by
a temporary shortage of pilots.

As ,to the maintenance of
the canal, this is chiefly a mat-
ter of dredging, maintaining
embankments, clearing ob-
structions quickly and keep-
ing up the archaic signalling
system. There are no locks or
large engineering works, with
the exception of the swing
bridge at El Firdan,

The only wear on the canal
itself is the dragging 1n of the
banks caused by the moving
ships, and dredging and bank-
ing is a non-stop process:

It does, however, present
no great engineering problems
and has been coped with suc-
cessfully for years by the
Egyptian and Greek technic-
ians and workmen. Compared
with Panama or even the
Manchester Ship Canal, Suez

is devoid of maintenance dif-

ficulties.
The old Suez Canal Company,

under*. French management,
was no paragon of progress,
Ships, in these days of radar
control, are still signalled
through the canal by bunting
and morse lamp and the hoist-
ing of- tin cans, footballs and
chequer-boards on flagpoles,
and, in these days of super-
sonic .echo - sounding, canal
depths are still largely taken
py a hand-line from a row
boat.

If the Suez Canal Company
had not been so busy raking
in the profits for its share-
holders it would, years ago,
have duplicated the artificial
reaches of the canal, thus mak-
ing possible a simultaneous,
uninterrupted flow of north

-and south-bound traffic with-

out the need of tying up or
convoying.
. My own suspicions is that
not only was the company
averse to: diverting profits to
such a development but that
it would have made the pas-
sage of the canal such a sim-
ple matter that the levying of
costly pilot dues could hardly
justified.
ae running of the canal,
apart from the pilotage (a
privileged Anglo-French fra-
ternity in the main), is done by
Egyptians and Greeks working
in the dockyards and work-
shops, at the signal stations
and on board the floating
plant-dredgers, hoppers, ten-
ders, tugs, etc. :
Provided the Egyptian canal
authority can solve the pilot-
age problem and as I have in-
dicated, this is by no means

Re

insuperable, there seems to be
no reason to fear that the Suez
Canal will not continue to be
‘as well run and maintained as
in the past. ~

It might well be that Egypt,

“No war over Suez’’ warning to the Eden government and demanded immediate recall of parlia-
gress convention here endorsd the general ‘council's
hich declared, ‘‘Should the talks break down, force should not be
Nations and with its consent.”’

They also approved

tenance for labor displaced by
automation.

A resolution for closer re-
lations between British and
Soviet trade union movements
was defeated, principally be-
cause of opposition from the
general council. But the res-

olution won the support of:

delegates representing more
than 3,400,000 workers and in
a sense was a moral victory.
Supporters of the resolution
possessed all: the arguments;
but they lacked enough votes.
When a card vote was called
the resolution was defeated,
4,638,000 to 3,412,000.

canal efficiently

with the eyes of the world on
her, might run it better and
undertake the developments
and modernisation which the
old privately owned company
failed to introduce.

The El Firban bridge across the Suez Canal.

SEPTEMBER 14, 1956 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 3

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