THE LABOUR PARTY'S FOREIGN POLICY
Aspeech delivered at the London School of Economics on 15th February, 1965
by Bertrand Russell
Before his speech, which begins overleaf, Lord Russell made this emergency
statement on the situation in Vietnam:
"The world is on the brink of war as it was at the time of the Cuban crisis.
American attacks on North Vietnam are desperate acts of piratical madness.
The people of South Vietnam want neutrality and independence for their country.
America, in the course of a war of pure domination in the South, attacked a
sovereign state inthe North because the U.S, has beendefeated by the resistance
of the entire population in South Vietnam.
We must demand the recall of the Geneva Conference for immediate negotia-
tions. I urge world protestat every U.S. Embassy. And in Britainthe craven
and odious support for American madness by the Labour Government must be
attacked by meetings, marches, demonstrations and all other forms of protest.
If this aggressive war is not ended now, the world will face total war. The
issue must be resolved without a nuclear war. This is only possible by world
‘outcry now against the United States. The American proposition that an in-
dependent Vietnam free of U.S. control is worse thana nuclear war is madness.
If America is allowed to have its cruel way, the world will be the slave of the
United States.
Once more America summons mankind to the brink of world war.
. Once more America is willing to run the risk of destroying the human race
rather than bow to the general will.
Either America is stopped now or there will be crisis after crisis until, in
utter weariness, the world decides for suicide."
Price 1s.
My purpose in wnat lam about to say is to examine the relations between the foreign policy of the Labour Party before the Generai Election and the policy of the Labour Government in regard to international politics. I should like to recall to you, first, the preamble to that section - almost the lust - in the Labour Manifesto of last September, entitled "New Prospects for Peace”. I take it fron: The Times of September 12th.
It begins with a very brief history of East-West relations since 1945 and says that even in “the grimmest periods .... Lubour always regarded the Cold War strategies as second best... and remained faithful to its long-term belief in the establishment of East-West co-operation as the basis for a sirengthened United Nations developing towards World Government."
It castigates the Tory Government for their old-fashioned policies, especially the Tory failure to relax tensions and to halt the spread of nucicar weapons. "The Labour Government will do all that is possible to rectify these policies. "'
The Manifesto then considers the means to be taken to "relax tensions”. "First and foremost", it Says, "will come our initiative in the field of disarmament. We are convinced that the time is opportune for a new break-through in the disarmament negotiations, releasing scarce resources and manpower desperately needed to raise living standards throughout the world."
“We shall appoint a Minister in the Foreign Office with special responsibility for disarmament to take a new initiative in the Disarmament Committee in association with our friends and allies.‘
"We have," it says, "put forward constructive proposals:
1) To stop the spread of nuclear weapons.
2) To establish nuclear free zones in Africa, Latin
America and Central Europe.
3) To achieve controlled reductions in manpower and arms.
4) To stop the private sale of arms.
5) To establish an International Disarmament Agency to
supervise a disarmament treaty."
The Labour Government has, to be sure, appointed a Minister in the Foreign Office with special responsibility for disarmament and even an arms control and disarmament research unit headed by a reader in international relations at the LS.E. It has, indeed, appointed so many new Ministers and departments for various phases of disarmament and defence and offence that one is hard put to it to know to whom to apply for what.
As to the five proposals. Nothing, so far as the Press has told us, has been done about implementing any of them. Far from taking measures to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, the Labour Government has done quite the opposite. Nor has it taken measures to achieve controlled reductions in manpower and arms - it has turned down any suggestion of reducing the British Army in Germany. Little seems to have come out of the propositions of Mr. Rapacki concerning a nuclear free zone in Central Europe. Chinese proposals - pleas, even - for a nuclear-free zone in Asia and/or the Pacific have been passed over in apparent scorn. I knew of no measures taken ta stop the private sale of arms or to establish an International Disarmament Agency.
A few lines further on in the Manifesto, the following sentence occurs; ‘Labour will Stand by its pledge to end the supply of arms to South Africa." "Britain," it says, "of all nations, cannot stand by as an inactive observer of this tragic situation."' Admirable statements, and backed by previous admirable statements: The Sunday Times of January 26, 1964, reports Mrs. Barbara Custle as saying, in regard to a possible order from South Atrica for Bloodhound bombers, "If an order is placed before the election we shall do all we can to stop it." Mr. Wilson
has, in the past, referred to the arms traffic with South Africa as "this bloody traffic in these weapons of oppression, and called on the people of Britain to ‘Act now to stop" it .... But, on November 25, 1964, Mr. Wilson announced that the Labour Government had determined to honour the contract entered into during the rule of the Tory Government for 16 Buccaneers for South Africa.
Following the five proposals that I have cited, the Manifesto says: 'Ina further effort to relax tension, a Labour Government will work actively to bring Communist China into its proper place in the United Nations; as well as making an all-out effort to develop East-West trade as the soundest economic basis for peaceful co-existence." Britain has achieved nothing since the advent of the Labour Government towards the admission of China into the U.S. nor has it appreciably increased East-West trade. Traders are usually ahead of politicians, Tory traders no less than Labour traders.
The Manifesto continues with anitem which, in the light of the Government's actions, does not read well: it says, Peaceful co-existence, however, can only be achieved if a sincere readiness to negotiate is combined with a firm determination to resist both threats and pressures. It is difficult to equate this statement with the refusal, curt and out-of-hand, given by the Labour Government to the proposals of the Chinese Government for summit discussions of disarmament and other international matters which our Press told us took place soon after the Labour Government's advent.
That the Labour Government "will continue to insist on guarantees for the freedom of West Berlin" we do not yet know - the matter has not come to the fore during Labour's rule. Nor do we yet know how far the Labour Government will be able to implement its admirable suggestions concerning the U.N, nor how far it will be able to take us towards world government, which the Manifesto says is the final objective - as I believe it should be. So far, Britain under the Labour Government has done nothing to strengthen the U.N., though it has been, according to the Guardian (27 January, 1965) "giving close study to the question of designating specific military units for potential use in United Nations peace-keeping operations." In the light of events during the past two or three months, I cannot, however, feel very hopeful as I read what the Manifesto has to say on these matters, much as I agree with it regarding them.
I propose to take up further on in my discussion of the Labour Government's policy the question of how far the measures which it has so far indulged in tend to relax the tensions of the Cold War, as the Manifesto says the Party wishes todo. But I will continue for 2 moment with the next items mentioned in the Manifesto; the Party's "'Defence Policy Outline” and its “New Approach” to defence.
It excoriates the "run down defences" of the Tory Government whose wastefulness and insistence upon sticking to such affairs as Blue Streak, Skybolt and Polaris, and whose inefficient policy in regard to the aircraft industry has resulted in our defences being obsolescent and meagre. It proposes to institute a revision of the Nassau agreement to buy Polaris know-how and missiles from the United States. But, in face of the storm about TSR2 bombers and of the fact that it is continuing plans for Polaris submarines and is discussing a nuclear umbrella for South East Asia, one wonders how far the Government intends to go with such plans. It seems extraordinary that, having set itself such a programme as the Manifesto suggests, it had not examined the problems of conversion very carefully and come to some sort of plan to avoid or minimise the hardships that would be entailed in the way of unemployment and waste of machinery and money. But no evidence has been given the ordinary newspaper reader that any such basic studies were made.
It is possible that the Government will strengthen conventional regular forces in order to contribute its share to NATO and keep its peace-keeping commitments to the Commonwealth and the U.N. as the Manifesto says it stresses doing. This seems, however, unless it runs concurrently with cutting down in other quarters, to be contrary to the controlled reduction in arms which it also says it will strive for.
The next item is both bewildering and interesting. The Manifesto says: 'We are against the development of national nuclear deterrents and oppose the current American proposal for a new mixed-manned nuclear surface fleet (MLF). We believe in the inter-dependence of the
!
Western alliance and will put constructive proposals for integrating all NATO's nuclear weapons under effective political control so that all the partners in the Alliance have a proper share in their deployment and control." A little further on, when discussing the folly of the Conservatives in entering into the Nassau agreement and in talking about an "independent British deterrent", it says: This nuclear pretence runs the risk of encouraging the spread of nuclear weapons to countries not possessing them, including Germany." And yet, when the Prime Minister announced what one must suppose are the "new constructive proposals" which the Manifesto told us to expect, they turned out to be the Atlantic Nuclear Force (ANF). The ANF is to be not merely, as was the MLF, a mixed-manned force of surface ships, but is to include other nuclear delivery systems, including aircraft and submarines. It therefore encourages the spread of nuclear weapons more enthusiastically than does the MLF - which ] agree was a deplorable suggestion - and certainly encourages the spread of nuclear weapons to Germany. The remedy is, therefore, far worse than the disaster it professes to correct.
If you would like a glimpse of the chicanery indulged in, I advise you to read the reports of the Parliamentary debate on defence in the week beginning 14th December, and the report in The Times of 18 December entitled "Britain to waive control of Polaris weapons", "Our Bombers over Asia" in the Daily Worker of the same date, and "Britain to retain part of V-bomber force" in the Guardian of the previous day. Amongst other information to be gained from these various sources are the facts that Britain proposes to give a certain number of its ships and V-bombers by devious routes to NATO, but will keep others to be used by Britain oulside the NATO area. The Government thereby persuades the populace that it is keeping its promise to do away with its independent deterrent and at the same time can, independently, form "a nuclear umbrella" over South East Asia. By means of the ANF we soothe German feelings, since the Germans will participate equally with us in the control and benefits of this nuclear force and will, therefore, be distracted from pushing for an independent nuclear deterrent of their own. This scheme of the ANF has been put to the public through the Press in such a way that the layman is entirely baffled and cannot understand either what the ANF consists in or how very contrary it is to professed beliefs of the Labour Party as given in the Manifesto or as understoud by the lay members of the Party. It is a bare-faced turn-about carried off, in so far as the Government has succeeded in carrying it off, by being wrapped up ina welter of wards and the happy slogans that the Prime Minister did not knuckle under to the U.S. in the matter of the MLF and that Britain is once more taking the initiative in constructive pacific proposals.
The Manifesto concludes with eight paragraphs in which it first gives itself a reason for not carrying out its promises at once by saying that it does not yet know what damage inflicted upon the country by the Tories it will have to repair. It seems a little odd, perhaps, that the members of the Labour Party who aspired to office were so taken by surprise by the financial state of the country - a situation that was fairly apparent to many laymen - and had not prepared any adequate plans to cope with it. But I do not intend to ga into economics and finances here. The Manifesto goes on to say that a Labour Government will first of all have to make itself more efficient than the Government which it supersedes. Presumably the rash of new offices and holders of office in the present Government is its answer to the need of efficiency. Secondly, it says that the Government will seek to establish a true partnership between the people and their Parliament; and thirdly it must foster, throughout the nation, a new and more critical spirit. ‘'The Government can give a lead," it says, "by subjecting to continuing and probing review of its own Departments of State, the administration of justice and the social services."’ And here I should like to recount an experience of mine that appears to run counter to the promise contained in the statement from the Manifesto I have just cited. Three eminent Russians were appointed by the Russian Government to discuss various topics of international interest with me. In November these three Russians applied for visas to enter Britain. The Home Office at first refused visas for all three, but after protest, allowed visas for two of them. In regard to the most eminent of the three, the Chief Archivist of the Supreme Soviet, the Home Office remained adamant. I wrote to the Home Office - and 1am, of course, speaking of the Labour Home Office - begging them to rescind their ban upon a visa for the Chief Archivist. After many weeks during which I was unable to learn anything of the fate of my letter, I received a reply from the Home Secretary saying that he did not feel able to grant my request. I wrote again and wrote also to the Prime Minister. After some time, I received from the Home Secretary the same reply as before, and from the Prime Minister a notification that he agreed with the Home Secretary and would not ask him to reconsider. On no occasion
from beginning to end, has any reason been given to me or to the Russians for the ban. If this experience is typical, it hardly bears out the claim of the Manifesto that the Government would, or does, welcome criticism or open discussion with its electors and members of its Party.
The Manifesto ends with a stirring pronouncement that the Labour Government “must put an end to the dreary commercialism and personal selfishness which have dominated the years of Conservative government” and says that "the Labour Party is offering Britain a new way of life that will stir our hearts."'
There is a lot of ironic fun to be got cut of that Manifesto now that we have seen its fruits.
So much for the Manifesto upon which the present Government was elected and for how far it has carried out its promises in certain respects. I propose now to return to one of its most important promised intentions: its determination to relax the tensions of the Cold War. And I beg of you to ask yourselves, as I recount what has been happening in certain areas of international activity, whether you consider that this activity to which the present Government has contributed and proposes to continue to contribute is calculated to relax any tensions whatever.
You doubtless know a good deal about the war in South Vietnam, but I will give a very brief outline of its progress and character. South Vietnam was part of French Cochin-China, but after a long process of civil war, the French were excluded from the whole region. A conference was summoned to meet at Geneva in 1954. The conclusions reached were sensible, and, if they had been carried out, no trouble would have arisen. Vietnam was to be independent and neutral, and was to have a parliamentary government established by a General Election. The Americans did not like this. They professed to suspect that Vietnam would become part of the Communist bloc if left to itself and that North Vietnam was already, and has continued to be, part of the Communist bloc, in spite of reiterated statements by the Government of North Vietnam that they are and wish to be neutral.
The Americans sent observers who decided that South Vietnam was too disturbed for a general election. There were in South Vietnam three parties; the peasants, who constituted the large majority; the Buddhists; anda tiny minority of Christians, who had been supporters of the French. The Americans decided to support this small faction. They did so at first by sending technical aid and materia] and "Advisers". It was soon seen, however, that the "Advisers" were taking far more than a passive part in the war that ensued between the American-supported minority and the Buddhists and peasants. The war has continued now for many years and the American-supported Government - or, more outspokenly, the Americans - have steadily lost ground. It has been warfare of an incredibly brutal kind, brutal to a degree seldom equalled by any civilised Power.
Eight million people have been put in barbed wire concentration camps involving forced labour. The country - civilians, animals and crops, as well as warriors and jungle - has been sprayed with jelly gasoline and poison chemicals. Fifty thousand villages were burnt in 1962 alone. The following account was published in the Dallas Morning News on January 1, 1963: "Supposedly the purpose of the fortified villages is to keep the Vietcong out. But barbed wire denies entrance and exit. Vietnamese farmers are forced at gunpoint into these virtual concentration camps, Their homes, possessions and crops are burned. In the province of Kien-Tuong, seven villagers were led into the town square. Their stomachs were slashed, their livers extracted and put on display. These victims were women and children. In another village, expectant mothers were invited to the square by Government forces to be honoured. Their stomachs were ripped open and their unborn babies removed."' And the anti-Communist Democratic Party of Vietnam told the International Control Commission that: ‘'Decapitation, eviscerations and the public display of murdered women and children are common." It is, as the Nation of January 19, 1963, called it, ‘'a dirty, cruel war," and one can only agree with the leader of the Vietnamese Democratic Party when he said in an interview on C. B.S. (reported in the Vietnamese Democratic Bulletin for September, 1963): "It is certainly an ironic way to protect the peasant masses from Communism.”
It is generally admitted that there is no hope that the Americans can win this war.
Obviously failing in South Vietnam, they are now considering extending the war to North Vietnam in spite of the fact that China has declared its support of Vietnam if that should happen, and Russia may follow suit. The Labour Party had, hitherto, been opposed to this policy which involves risk of world war. As late as June 4, 1964, the Daily Worker said that Mr. Wilson, at the end of talks in Moscow, was opposed to carrying the war into North Vietnam as well as to North Vietnamese infiltration into the South. But, since the formation of his Government, the Labour Party has agreed with America to support that country in its war of conquest. The Guardian reports on December 10, 1964, that Mr. Wilson told President Johnson that Britain wholly supported the legitimate role the United States is playing in South Vietnam. The Labour Government is doing this in spite of the fact that the vast majority of the inhabitants of South Vietnam are opposed to this American war and want to achieve peace and neutrality - as the North Vietnamese have repeatedly asserted that they also wish - and in spite of the extreme unparalleled brutality of the war, and in spite of the fact - and this is to be noted - that the Americans have no shred of right in South Vietnam and are conducting a war of a type to which the Labour Party has always been passionately opposed. Moreover, if the Americans extend the war to North Vietnam, as they threaten to do, we and they will be involved ina war with China of which the consequences are bound to be horrible - possibly all-out nuclear war. For all these consequences, the Labour Government will share the responsibility.
A similar situation is developing in the Congo. Katanga is incredibly rich in valuable minerals, especially cobalt. Cobalt would be necessary for the Doomsday Bomb. When the Congo became independent, the Western Powers, especially America and Belgium, made a determined effort to preserve for the West the products of Katanga. Lumumba, who was the Congo's choice as Prime Minister, was murdered, and Tshombe, under Western pressure, was made Prime Minister of the whole country. The country rose against this decision, and the Americans and Belgians sent a military expedition to enforce their will. This expedition, the British, under the leadership of the Labour Government, supported, and they allowed it to use Ascension Island as a convenient spot from which to conduct the invasion. There is, in consequence, a war of devastation in progress throughout the Congo. The likelihood is that this will degenerate into guerilla warfare which will continue without securing victory for the West. Perhaps an excerpt from the writing of one of those who was a mercenary fighting for the West in the Congo would bring home the sort of war we are supporting there. I quote this from News of the World for 22 November, 1964:
"On the way to Stanleyville one of our vehicles broke down. We took
our gear off it and retreated into the bush. Late in the afternoon we went back
to the vehicle, but found it completely wrecked ....
"The young English lieutenant was furious. 'We will give the bastards
a real lesson.' He ordered us to move at once on the nearest village and take
it apart.
"It was a familiar enough command. It seemed to me we had been
taking villages apart, innocent villages of peaceful farming folk who did not
want any part of this war, all the way along the track from far down in the
south.
"We would turn up unexpectedly, open fire without warning, race
through the place, burning every pathetic shanty and shack to the ground
regardless of who might be inside. The idea was to spread the image of our
determination and ruthlessness; to terrorize the whole area; to give the rebels
an example of what they were infor....
"It seemed almost certain that the villagers knew nothing about the
activities of the rebels. I doubted they even knew the lorry had been destroyed.
"It was just before dusk when we came. Unsuspecting women were
hustling around, carrying water and doing about the last of their day's chores.
Children were playing in the dust, laughing and shouting to one another.
“We paused for a few minutes, and then came the order to fire.
efeat crackle of snots from machine guns and our deadly new
Try Women screamed and fell. Little children just stood there,
or cartwheeled hideously as bullets slammed into them.
“Then, aS usual, we raced into the place, still firing as we went.
Some of us pitched cans of petrol on to the homes before putting a match to
them. Others threw phosphorous hand grenades, which turned human beings
into blazing inextinguishable torches of fire.
“For a while, as we raced along, there was bedlam. Shrieks, moans,
shrill cries for mercy. And, above all, the throaty, half-crazed bellowing of
those commandoes among us whe quite obviously utlerly loved this sort of
thing.
"Then, as we moved away beyond the village, the comparative silence,
the distant, hardly distinguishable cries of the wounded, the acrid smell of
burning flesh."
The account continues, but I do not think that I need pursue it to illustrate my point. The cardinal point in the training of these mercenaries - and again] quote - is "that never, in any circumstances, should prisoners be taken. ‘Even if men, women and children come running to you', I was told, ‘even if they fall on their knees before you, begging for mercy, don't hesitate. Just shoot. To kill. '”
I need hardly say that this young man was sickened of being a hired assassin and ceased to be ane. But, in England, under the aegis of the Labour Government, we are confinuing to support this slaughter. On November 20, 1964, The Times announced that Mr. George Thomson, our Minister of State at the Foreign Office, was informed during the previous week by the Belgian Government that they were engaged in contingency planning with the U.S. Government. Britain then gave her permission to use Ascension Island. The Times also announced that Belgian troops were flown to Ascension Island with British permission. The Daily Express of 30 November, 1964, reports: "'At one stage the Cabinet considered sending British troops. Britain was the first to suggest armed intervention to Belgium. But officials in Whitehall now say that the terrain in rebel-held areas prevents large-scale troop landings." And, on December 15, 1964, Mr. George Thomson stated: 'We give outright support to Tshombe."' Yet, two days later our Minister of Defence (one of them, anyway) "referred to ‘primitive barbarism' in the Congo and said that we had ta see that other parts of Africa and Asia were not plunged into 'a similar state of chaos." Does this mean that we are to uphold similar bloody and unjustified slaughter otherwhere in Africa, carried on with the permission and help of the Labour Government? The record is one of which [as an Englishman cannot be proud. As a member of the Party responsbile, I am sickened.
But to move on: Similar troubles are being stirred up by British initiative in the war between Malaysia and Indonesia, a war likely to be as bloody and atrocious as the two of which Lhave been speaking and to last as long, with no victory possible. On page 65 of the report of the 62nd Annual Conference of the Labour Party, July. 1963, you willfind that Labour supported the Malaysia Bill for the relinquishment of British sovereignty over North Borneo, Sarawak and Singapore. Labour felt - and I quote - "that the federation of Malaysia would play an important stabilising role inS.E, Asia."’ On December 10 of this last year, the Guardian reports that Mr. Wilson told President Johnson that Britain has 8,000 troopsin Borneo, 20,000 in Malaysia as a whole: and the New Statesman of January 15, 1965, says that “the bulk of Britain's fleet, some 700 ships including a Commando 'bushfire' ship and aircraft carriers" are now in the waters near Malaysia and Indonesia. "The Commonwealth Brigade is in Malaya facing Sumatra."
But these are not the only places where the Labour Government is supporting Western imperialism, In both British Guiana and Aden and the South Arabian Protectorates it is following the policies of the Tory Government although it has sent its Colonial Secretary travelling to the trouble spots to study the situations once again.
All these are shameful attempts to support the tottering supremacy of Britain and America against the wishes of the populations concerned, and against the vast movement for
~_7-
independence which is agitating formerly Subject peoples. It is a terrible fact that the Labour Government is supporting these hopeless and cruel attempts at subjugation. It is an almost worse fact that it is running the risk for us of these wars escalating to large nuclear wars. Its reception of China’s overtures towards peace and disarmament is a dreary pointer to its attitude. Soon after the Labour Government took office, Premier Chou En-lai wrote to our Prime Minister proposing that the governments of the world should undertake not to use nuclear weapons, and suggesting a summit conference. Mr. Wilson replied: "I do not believe the procedure you have suggested is the best way to make progress in present circumstances." "He criticised China on two grounds: for carrying out a nuclear test in the atmosphere and for her approach being ‘not realistic’."' This attitude on the part of the Prime Minister hardly seems a means of relaxing tensions or of resolving differences between East and West or of halting the spread of nuclear weapons - all of which the electoral Manitesto said the Labour Government would try todo. Again it is following the dangerous policies of the past. In the past few years the West has rebuffed several overtures made by China towards nuclear disarmament and denuclearised zones. If China is not included in disarmament discussions there is little hope for peace in the world. The Labour Government might have taken - might still take - a new and more realistic attitude, taking the promises of the East, as well as the West, at face value, at least as a basis for discussion, until they have been proved to be hollow. But our new Minister for Disarmament seems to be interested chiefly in how to keep up our armed forces more cheaply than hitherto. (See his speech at Salisbury, 2 February, 1965, and the extracts from it which the Labour Party appears to think important).
In none of the actions of the Labour Government has there been evidence of the promised effort to relax the tensions of the Cold War.
What the Labour Government has accomplished in the way of carrying out the promises made in its electoral Manifesto is to appoint a Minister for Disarmament in the Foreign Office. Possibly, also, it has made the Government more efficient by the vast proliferation of new offices, ministries and committees which it has instituted.
It has done nothing apparent to implement Labour's promises in the very important fields of disarmament negotiations, the establishment of nuclear-free zones, the reduction of man-power and arms, the private sale of arms, a drastic re-examination and modification of our defence policy, a re-negotiation of the Nassau agreement, the admission of China into the U.N., or the revivification of the morale and the increase of the powers of the U.N. Nor does it show any signs of the self-criticism or of the welcome to criticism by their fellow Labour Party members which it advocated.
Moreover, it has directly contravened its definite statements in regard to arms for South Africa and to opposition to the spread of nuclear arms. And, perhaps worst of all, it has increased by many times and in many ways the Cold War tensions between East and West.
What are we to think of this betrayal? Is it the result of a kind of blackmail owing to the parlous state of the economy and finances of the country? But, surely, those who were about to take office must have examined the economic and financial condition of the country and the extent of its dependence upon the United States, and made plans to carry out their promises with the results of their examination in mind. Had they not the courage to attack their problems boldly - or, indeed, with the probably end-results of their actions in mind, realistically?
What hope is there for Parliamentary democracy when the leaders of a Party, upon achieving office, act in direct contradiction to their electoral promises? Those Labour Party members who do not like treachery have hitherto kept quiet in the interests of unity. But what is the use of unity in evil? The cardinal virtues in gangs of criminals are unity and loyalty. Before we are committed irrevocably - and we are rapidly being so committed - to policies leading to disaster for ourselves and for all the inhabitants of the world, we should make known in unmistakable terms our abhorrence of present policies. To wait much longer will be to wait too long. If the Labour Party is to regain any part of its former championship of vitally necessary reforms, those who voted for it on the basis of its electoral Manifesto will have to insist that the leading members of this present Government must lose hope of ever holding office again. Whatever they may have done or not done in regard to their pre-election promises, they have got us into, and propose to keep us in, at least two of the most cruel and useless wars that there have ever been - wars of extermination. Against this policy we must protest in every possible way.