London allowance, a mass meeting was held at the Central Hall, Westminster. The attitude of the NUT Executive provoked opposition from the floor, and three teachers from Wandsworth are now facing victimisation by the Executive. To defend these teachers, it is necessary for Rank & Pile to go on the offensive against the bureaucracy, not just in defence of mem bers' rights, but against the Government-TUC talks which are motivating the trade union bureaucracy's moves against the rank and file at the present time. On 14 June, a London Rank & File meeting called for a full discussion of the case of the Wandsworth Three at the NC meeting. But a mere 30 minutes was ACTOILETE IC LLE BUREAUCRATIC APPROACH could easily be dismissed as a mere aberration, motivated by a false belief that the best way to defend Rank & File is to bury one's head in the sand. But as the NC moved on to discuss policy motions for the next NUT Conference, this bureaucratic approach became the norm. presented to them at the NC. Then, without any previous consultation with the membership, the NC prioritised six of the motions! Yet Rank & File is at present attempting to reject the right of the NUT Executive to-present motions to Conference without prior circulaмод то те шошостапцо!
Other events at the NC fell into the same pattern. For instance, the IMG comrades have for some time been pressing Rank & File to take up the question of Ireland in a serious way. To call a special conference 75 signatures are needed under the newiy adopted constitution. Lambeth Rank & File had collected 75 signatures at the Annual Conference and presented them to the EC some-time ago. The EC argued that at the time there was no constitution, so the 75 signatures must be collected again. However, the real reason for these delaying tactics seems to be an anxiety, which the IS Chairperson expressed, that to take up the issue of Ireland within the union would be detrimental to Rank & File. Rather than put this cowardly position at a conference, she chose to employ administrative means to stop the 15 stifle political criticism in an effort to build their own organisation. Significantly enough, this latest NC,saw the IS drop (without explanation) their previous line of support for the participation of reachers with the capitalist state in running the schools. This Line has been discredited by the criticisms of the IMG, the chief political opponent of the IS in Rank & File, The IS are now advocating staff associations in the schools instead, This is a big step forwund. But the experience does not seem to have whetted the appetite of the IS comrades for more debate and democracy in Rank & File.
Members of Rank & File cannot ignore these developments. In taking up the crucial fight for the Wandsworth Three, a fight which puts to the test the fighting capacity of Rank & File, the members must also call the leadership of Rank & File to order. For, as Rank & File has previously argued, and as Socialist Worker has argued, how can an organisation which doesn't allow full discussion and participation by the membership effectively fight the ruling class? Events in the United States are showing how In a situation of economic crisis capitalists are as fearful of a boom as they are of a slump. Increasing signs that the 6-month old American boom is ending are greeted in the capitalist press with relief This year production in real terms is rising at a rate of over 8 percent. But, with the abandonment of price controls in labe 1972, inflation has leapt up at 10 percent a year for retail prices, is approaching 20 percens for wholesale prices (affected by devaluation and a rash of profiteering), and, worst of all, is running at over 40 peroent for farm prices. Money wages meanwhile hase crept up at only 5 percent. If this continued it would lead rapidly to a further, even bigger, run on the dollar, and a sharp increase in labour militancy to fight failing real wages. Nixon's extreme political weakness resulting from the Watergate affair makes such pros pects more frightening than ever. But at the same time Watergate has robbed Nicon of the congressional strength required to renew a comprehensive programme for the control of inflation. The result is the two sop-gap measures announced in Nixon's speech last week: a 60-day price freese (ex cluding farm prices, but including retail food prices) and a call for powers to ban the export of grains and soybeans Many firms have already raised their prices in expectation of the freeze, and in other ways it will be hard to enforce and almost impossible to prolong beyond the allotted two months. It will be amazing if Watergate has eraporated enough by then for Nicon to introduce successfully the much more rigid price and wage controls (Phase 4) Which he threatened for August.
The potential ban on exports of grains and soybeans could be more significant. These produets enter into the production of basic foodstuffs — grains directly, and soybeans in directly as one of the two major sources of protein animal feedstuffs (the other is fishmeal). The prices of these basie foods have been pushed up at a phenomenal rate in the last year, not only by the general sources of gorid inflation, but also by cer Lain specitic developments: supply has been curtailed both through bad harvests and through the virtual ending of the supply of fishmeal from Peru, the world's largest pro. ducer, because of the disappearance of the anebovy shoals off the Peruvian coast. Al the same time world demand for grains has been raised by exceptional purchases in the world market by the CSSI (10 million tons) and China (2.5 million tons), in response to agricultural difficulties, and by Indin and other countries in response to famine. The United States is one of the major suppliers of both grains and soybeans, so a restriction on exports, by reducing effective demand for American producers, may do something to control food prices in the United Stabes. But it will be at the cost of giving a sharp turn to the intlationary screw elsewhere, especially in Europe and Japan This protectionist move, therefore, makes it more unlikely than ever that any progress can be made at the crucial fortheoming nego. tlations between the U.S., Europe and Jupan on either tariff reductions or the world monetary crisis. It also increases the likelihood that the capitalist nations will react to their menseing conomic problems more and more through probectionist and competitive measures, which will lead towards world slump.
There are those who say that this situation will solve itself, since it results from a series of unfortunate accidents. Of course neither bad weather in the American mid. west and in the Russian steppes, nor the sunspots which changed the south Pacific curreat and dispersed the anchovies, bor even Watergate, are the inevitable outcome of the laws of motion of the capitalist mode of production. But it is a well-established rule in economics, as in medicine, that the healthy survive accidents, while to sick bodies even wall accidents are mortal. Michael Price