5 Line Up against the Wnge Freeze 11 Vietn-m “ir Losses
6 continued 12 Victnam Pledge
The fight -gninst theGovernnent's wige-freeze is beginning to gather serious momentum, ..ccording to a rough count in the Times, 3,436,000 votes are already stacked against this measure at next month's TUC, and only 2,619,000 for. But, as George Woodcock has rightly pointed out, this decision, whichever way it gocs, is not the vital matter, The plain fact is that, vicious though the Government's measures are, and they are vicious, they are also, to coin a phrase, a paper tiger. Some of us may be locked up for inciting or supporting strikes, and all of us will suffer setbacks in our standards of living. But neither of these brave acts of the Wilson regime will produce the economic or political effect intended by their architect. Every failure of the freeze, and there will be many, will bring the Government's strategy into greater contempt, Every success will arouse against it greater hostility. Each move the Governement makes, from now on, will arouse a greater hostility. Nor can the orthodox union lenders act as an effective barrier to this resistance. An example will show why. On the fish-docks in Hull, the unions concluded an agreement for a wage increase just before the freeze. Upon the mnouncement of the freeze, the employers asked the unions concerned to sign 2 joint letter explaining why the agreed amount wes no longer payable. "Of course" , said the doughty spokesman of the NUGMW. "Not on your life", said the T&GWU representative. So the Hull dockers received a lenflet in which one union backec the freeze while the other refused. Is it unreasonable to assume that T&GYWU cards will soon be at a premium, while NUGMW cards will be ten 2 penny This elementary fact of life will impinge on Lord Cooper, as he begins to find difficulty in meeting the bills of his large administration, Even such intemperate reactionaries as the present leaders of the ETU understand this matter, They have told the premier that they are in no position to offer prolonged’ support to the policy. This fact should by no means inhibit such exccllent initiatives as those of the workers at Shardlow's, but on the contrery, encourage them. We can rout this intolerable ict, But, as the process, we must face the fact that Wilson will hit another bankers' crisis. He will then return even stronger to the attack. We must have political answers to offer, if we are not to win a battle, @2¢loset® war, Only 2 sociclist strategy, 2 whole alternative programme of anti-capitalist reforms, base’ on the whole great extension of workers' powers in the spe aia can meet the disaster seisiainabuatas for the iahour Movenent. Militaney alone is not cnough,
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