There was a curious little incident on the T.V. last Wednesday night, the day the five dockers were released from jail. The scene was an interview with the Prime Minister. But it was very difficult to focus on what Mr. Heath was saying, because something kept bobbing and twitching up and down onto the screen. It was the Rt. Hon. Gentleman's right hand. He had lost control of it. The previous six days of strugle had begun to tell and the leader of the British capitalist class was unable to conceal the fact that his nerves were going to pieces. The freeing of the five throuch industrialaction was an almost unparalleled humilation for the British bourgeoisie. How did it happen? Through the power of mass strike action by the working class. That is the simple answer, but in order to work out what to do next we must analyse-the events of last week and the background more precisely.
In the first place the issue at stake was one which its whole history has made the labour movement thoroughly understand: the imperative need to defend the right of trade unionists to carry on traditional trade union activities like picketing, regardless of what the law" may say or do. It is a dangerous business for the capitalist class to launch an attack on such ground. It is likely to lead to a head-on clash with Heath's original conception of how to between the classes.
We must recognise that the government made every effort to avoid such a clash on such an Before the jailing, Mr. Mac millan the employment minister contacted Midland Cold Storage, the company trying to get the NIRC to attack the dockers, and tried to persuade its boss to at least postpone the action. In addition the government was backing the JonesAldington Committee in the hope that some agreed compromise could be reached over the containerisation issue.
Secondly, after the jailings the Government initially kept its mouth shut-'this is a matter for the Courts not the Government' -no doubt hoping that the movement might either fizzle out or be sabotaged by Mr. Feather and the General Council. Accordingly a meeting was arranged between Heath and Feather on Monday, but no deal could be worked out. From then on the Government was set upon a tactical retreat-getting the dockers out quick before the mass strike swept the whole working class into the struggle.
So on Tuesday morning the Official Solicitor was again set in motion. At first he was going to try to appeal in the NIRC that same day. But he changed tack so that the Law Lords could produce their new interpretation of the Industrial Relations Act before the NIRC decided to release the five. The Law Lords' decision allowed the dockers to be freed on the best possible basis from the Government's point of view: the strengthening of the meaning of the Act in line tackle trade unionists. But in examining government tactics what we must notice is the fact that this synchronisation of the Official Solicitor with the Law Lords was an afterthought, albeit a very handy one. The Government's first and dominant thought was to get the five men out. Why? Because the other options for Heath were too dangerous. The alternatives were basically two: 1). Holding out even through a general strike to force a capitulation on the part of the working class on the terrain of the jailings. 2). Keeping the dockers inside while calling a general election on the law and order issue.. The class relation of forces made both these options extremely dangerous: to go into a general strike situation when the army is not fully available and ready is simply impermissible for the ruling class. The question is not whether military violence would have to be used, but the fact that the presence of the army is indispensable for the purpose of the necessary shows of force and to boost the morale of the forces aligned to the bourgeoisie, leaving aside the necessary technical functions of the army.
Secondly, we should not forget that in 1926 the government spent nine months building up auxiliary volunteer forces in order to defeat a general strike technically and politically and even then the service was totally inadequate for its tasks. Today the trade union movement is immeasurably more strongly and more extensively organised in this country, and while such auxiliary networks have been built up in recent years by the French and Italian bourgeoisies nothing of this kind as yet exists here. Thirdly the bourgeoisie itself is by no means convinced of the necessity and advisability of a head on confrontation with the trade union movement on such an issue- quite the reverse. This was made absolutely clear by such organs as the Times before the strike movement and by Lord Devlin on Monday. Finally and most important of all, the working class would have been entering such a struggle a thousand times stronger than in 1926-more will be said about this below.
The option of calling a general election while the five were inside would also have been potentially disastrous for two very simple reasons: first it would not necessarily have halted the strike movement, creating an extremely dangerous situation for an election. Secondly, whatever the government's wishes, the issue in the election would, for the great mass of people, have been do you want a government that wants to jail trade unionists, and the government would probably have lost. Thirdly the bourgeoisie would have been frightened of the consequences of a Labour victory in such a contest, since the tuture Labour government would have been very weak, having been trade nons try delete to dee industrial Relations Act, while there would have been a considerable upsurge within the labour moveIn short the leadership of the British ruling class in the government, assisted by the courts adopted correct tactics once the five had been jailed and avoided making the same mistakes as those of the Gaullist leadership in France which turned a difficult sectoral crisis into a pre-revolutionary situation.
THE SITUATION FOLLOWING THE FREEING OF THE FIVE The freeing of the five was an almost unparalleled humiliation for the ruling class and a tremen-