Students' militancy•

The rise in militancy amongst students during this last few months as shown by the rise of the Radical Students' Alliance and the present conflict at the L.S.E. - seems to basically arise from Government's longterm policy towards higher education. The students have good reason to believe that, in common with Trades Unionists, they will have to pay the bill for revitalising British capitalism, Mr. Crossland's recent speech at the University of Lancaster would seem to underline these fears. He devoted a considerable portion of his speech to giving figures on the growth on public expenditure on the universities. This year this bill stood at £207million - a miserly per capta amount compared with Russia or the U.S.A. Mr. Crossland did not @ee the figure in this light, but considered it as being to large) Specifically he thought that costly features such as the student-support system, the present student-staff ratio and the proportion of residential accommodation should be revised. It is fast becomming arparent that the miserable decision about raising overseas students fees is merely to be the precursor to a whole host of attacks on higher education. Mr. Crossland will, no doubt, be only happy when he has imposed the teachers on all students and when his student-loans scheme has negated the promise of comprehensive education and has depressed the opportunities for working-class students.