a eee eS Joining the Common Market will mean a further fall. in employment in the coal industry, according to your Scottish Miner correspondent last week, This may well be so. I have not at hand comparative figures of costs and selling prices of ‘coal in Britain and the European uconomic Community to be able to argue otherwise. The bare fact is that if Britain remains — outside the E.E,C. employment is liable to continue falling in the mining industry anyhow. And in one obvious respect this is a damn good thing too. My intention is not argue in favour of entry to the E.E.C. but rather to suggest that the argument put forward by our Scottish comrade is only an incidental argument. The Luddite attitude, which the capitalist press so love to hang round the necks of workers, is essentially a defensive attitude arising from a ‘backs against the wall' situation. It is surely the task of socialists to pose aggressive and progressive arguments, even when the political situation may.appear to be a hostile one. 'Progressive' and ‘aggressive’ mean simply counterposing capitalist manoeuvres with socialist alternatives.
Surely, in the type of situation found in the coal industry, our demands should be formulated on the following principles. Firstly that industrial retraining schemes should take preference over rearmanent schemes - which should be abolished - and that such schemes should be run by trade unions and workers' councils, Workers undergoing retraining should be paid some kind of ‘national wage'? or: similar full payment. Secondly that the national manpower requirements ought to be fully planned - not 'surveyed' by workers' ‘councils»which themselves should control industry. This must be the socialist basis for opposition to the E.E.C., both while negotiating entry and when we are actually in,