Tory "Freedom" and Scotland Already the vicious class nature of Tory "freedom" has revealed itself in Scotland. It is clear that the Tories, like their social-democratic predecessors, are prepared to use unemployment as a weapon of economic policy in a desperate attempt to minimise the effects of the now continuous crisis situation of present-day British capitalism. Scotland, like other "depressed" areas, is the first to feel the economic strain and the last to return to what the bourgeoisie regard as "normal". The country also suffers as a result of the high proportion of U.S.-owned industry —thus Scotland becomes the victim of the fluctuations of both the U.S. and the U.K. economies. Stagnation in both these economies simultaneously has the present disastrous results.
The August unemployment figures of 96,784 in the country was, as for most other parts of the U.K., the higher ever recorded in post-war years. This blanket figure masks the very high rate of be found concentrated in certain areas: Greenock and Port Glasgow, 7.8%; in Glasgow itself, 5.3%; in North Lanarkshire, 5.8%. Not included in these statistics, however, is the whole new spate of lay-offs recently announced, again mostly affecting the West of Scotland. The Scottish TUC have forecast 110,000 unemployed by the end of the year. Unemployment in Scotland Unemployment in Scotland has, of course, always been proportionately higher than many other parts of the U.K. and, combined with low investment and growth, has led to the country being designated as a "development area". But even the high unemployment rates only tell half of the story since they have been kept at an artificially low level by the massive emigration from the country. The high natural growth of the population has been more than cancelled out by this exodus to Canada, America and South Africa. In the period 1960-68 the increase of 303,000 in the population was offset by loss due to emigration of 306,000 of the young and skilled-such an outflow tends to be selective both in terms of age and the skills and knowledge which the emigrants take with them. As even a bourgeois economist recognises, "Seen restial fraction of the labour tyrepresentua residual fraction of the labour supply. the labour force in Scotland (one indicator of economic health in the same eight-year period grew by only 0.3% as against 4.2% for the U.K. as a whole.
Changing Patterns of Employment Recent years have also seen a great change in the employment pattern. The four major industries on which the economy was based, shipbuilding, textiles, mining and agriculture, have changed dramatically in the 1960s-almost 33% of the people employed in these industries in 1960 were no longer so in 1968. Industries like electrical and engineering goods, on the other hand, have shown the fastest growth rate in the last few years. U.S. industry has been especially active in this field and it was in this influx of corporate capital that the salvation of the country was seen. 105 American firms have established themselves, employing 10% of all the industrial workforce. In electronics-IBM, Burroughs, Honeywell and NCR all have branches in Scotland-one-third of the workers are employed by U.S. firms. In terms of capital the U.S. involvement is also considerable. the last survey showing an investment of £231.6m. at the beginning of 1969, a rise of 118% in four years. However, as is now being seen, these "growth" industries are no more immune from economic crisis than the older business concerns.
Burroughs (business machines) plan to lay off nearly a quarter of their labour force, about 400 in all; Singers (sewing machines) will pay off an estimated 800; UCS of Clydebank announced recently that a total of 1,100 men will go within the next two months with a further 100 boilermakers expected to follow later. By such desperate manoeuvres UCS hope to save £5m. a year and stay in business; since 1969 3,000 men have been laid off at their yards. Daily come reports of new redundancies affecting hundreds of workers-the latest is the announcement that Vickers are to close their Glasgow factory with the loss of 300 jobs. No one doubts, least of all the Scottish TUC, that there will be more layoffs.
The Unfree Press The reaction of the establishment has been predictable. The unfree press made the usual sounds-the Express said there was nothing much to worry about anyway, The Scotsman piously called for "more ingenuity and determination to remove regional inequalities, whil the Daily Record proclaimed "The Tories too on the job-let's see them go to work." The Scottish Council (Development and Industry) expressed similar dismay at the possibility (a certainty!) that the government would cut expenditure on industrial development, and pointed out the "crippling effect this would have on the establishment of new enterprises in Scotland. The lackeys of the Scots bourgeois, the social democratic trade unionists and Labour M.P.s, have responded as the workers have come to expect-they express "concern", they call for "immediate action , they demand a meeting with the Secretary of State for Scotland-but they do nothing. After all the years of going along with the capitalist game they find themselves at a loss when confronted with such problems, to which their only answer is to go cap-in-hand to Gordon Campbell and beg for a factorv here or an investment crant there. he reveal themselves as the bankrupt inheritors of a bankrupt and discredited tradition.
James Jack, General Secretary of the Scottish TUC, was quoted as saying, "Our priorities are literally being determined hour by hour. " It is clear that these priorities are not defined by the needs and demands of those that he and his cronies purport to represent, but are fixed by the needs of capitalism-a capitalism that will put 110,000 Scots on the "burroo" this winte D.A.P. (Edinburgh Mole