Labour's Coal Scuttle

“One hundred and fifty pits are to close, and that is the only way we can get this House to agree to the capital reconstruction of the industry." Mr.Tom Swain's angry speech in Thursday's debate onght to stir the conscience of every Labour Party worker, "When I puled the string and raised the flag on January lst 1947," he said, "I was the proudest man alive. I never dreamed I would see a Minister of Power on a socialist front bench introduce a Bill of this character . . « it is the requiem mass of the minh: industry.” Th ferocity of the Government!s !rationalisation! of the mining industry cannot, unfortunately, be seen as an occasional aberration. Rail fares better. Whenever 'modernisation' is needed, it is remorselessly pushed through, at the expense of the very people the Labour Party was formed to protect. Tom Swain left the coal face for the back benches at Westminster, He knows his men, His heart-cry rings true for the whole mining community. But the Government flatly steamrollers its way over all protests, from the NUM, the NUR, or its own supporters, Perhaps we could accept the need for some of these terrible cuts, if we saw similar controls being made into the power of the elite, But if some of our mines~ are out of date, how much more out of date is the City of London, and Britain's imperial play- .. acting East of Suez ? Yet brave as he is with the unions, Mr,Wilson is timid as a tenderfoot boy scout in the City. It is time for us to listen to Tom . Swain, and for all of us, the people who put all their hopes in this Government, to recall it to order.