The "daily Mirror" and the Seamen's Strike

Since 1945, the Daily Mirror has had pretens ions to being a paper of the left. It supported the Labour Party enthusiastically in 1945, 1950 and 1951, rather less enthusiastically in 1964 and, after sitting on the fence as long as it decently could during the pre-election campaign, in 1966. But for the Mirror, support of, Labour has been .confined.to-the parliamentary field. - Gecil King and his fellow-magnates know that the capitalist system and their gigantic profits will not be seriously threatened, no matter what the size of Labour's majority. in the House of Commons, Whenever it comes to a real fight by the workers for more pay and better working conditions ~ issues which constitute a genuine threat to capitalist profits, the Mirror does not hesitate to declare its position firmly = and invariably it comes down against the workers, Nowhere is this shown more clearly than in their front page article on Monday, May 16, headed "Calling All Seamen..." written in the Mirror's usual chatty style, it has the impudence to call the seamen's demands "blackmail." One has to read between the lines to appreciate that whoever wrote the article is perfectly aware that the seamen have an unanswerable case and that their demands, to say the least, are moderate compared to the recent awards to the doctors. "The seamen," says the Mirror, "are demanding featherbedding for their industry. What they are saying, quite simply, is this: ‘If the shipowners cannot afford to pay us the money and give us the conditions we want - well, the Government must pay up'" What is So preposterous in this demand? If privately-owned industry is not prepared to sacrifice some of its swollen profits in order to give its workers decent wages and decent working conditions, then it is high time to take that industry out of the hands of so-called private enterprise, Let the Labour Government take over Britain's shipping industry, sack all the directors and set up committees of working seamen to run it. The Mirror admits that the sailors have grievances and that they are justified, nevertheless it characterises the seamen's action "as an exercise in sophist= icated sabotage;~-as.sbody blow against a1] the people of Britain in 1966." As usual, the Mirror like the rest of the big businesspress identifies the interests of the "people" with that of the capitalists. This has always been the language of reaction. There is not a single word of criticism of the ship-owners. If the Mirror is really concerned about the "people" why does it not issue a "Call to All Ship-Owners" and urge them to give in to the just demands of the seamen. During the last war, when the seamen were braving the high seas and the deadly peril of German, Italian and Japanese mines, bombs and torpedoes, Ernest Bevin told them that they would never be forgotten, Like so many of the war-time promises this one also failed to materialise, The seamen have been immeasurably patient. This is their first strike since 1911 (when they demanded a minimu weekly wage of 35/=). They deserve the unqualified support of the entire Labour movements