| The Socialist Party of Great Britain

Youth in the Modern World

One of the features of English social life in the post-war years has been the ascendancy of the adolescent age groups. Not only have entire new branches of the entertainments industries sprung from the enthusiasms and the spending-power of the young; a popular press exists for them as it has always done for the so-called middle class, and a small popular culture has grown round their emotions and their "rights". At the same time, the spread of juvenile crime and hooliganism has alarmed the police and a good many other people. What has happened to the younger generation?

Borstal Boy

Brendan Behan at the age of sixteen came from Dublin to Liverpool with an I.R.A. "do it yourself Kit" for the purpose of blowing up Cammell Lairds. He was arrested, and after a stay in Walton Detention Prison, Liverpool, was sent for three years to a Borstal Institution in East Anglia. The book (published by Hutchinson) tells of his experiences in these places.

He speaks of the filth and brutality which existed at Walton Prison, and there is no reason to disbelieve it. Life in Borstal, however, was much different. In fact, it smacks of Tom Brown's Schooldays and the Gem and Magnet. Chaps played the game - the Borstal game - apart from the occasional cad, house masters and house captains were sports. There were escapades, larkies and some horseplay. In fact, Behan and Co. at Borstal looks rather like Harry Wharton and Co., at Greyfriars.

The Mystery of Rising Prices

An interesting letter from a reader appeared in the Daily Mail on 26th April of this year: interesting because it put a question that baffles most people and because nobody gave the answer.

Here is the question: —

"In these days of mechanisation it seems strange that most manufactured goods should get dearer. Our wonderful new methods are claimed to give up to ten times the results achieved by older manual methods. Can anyone explain this apparent paradox?"

Communist Commotion

"FREE HARICH, SACK HARRY," painted with true Communist zeal in large white letters on the roadway greeted the faithful as they entered Hammersmith Town Hall over the Easter week-end to receive their annual dose of dogma from the cardinals of King Street, and to indulge in some public confessions of political sins. This slogan was not a rabble-rousing challenge to strike fear into the hearts of Yankee capitalists or warmongering Tories; it was directed not outwards, but inwards, to the heart of the Workers' Mass Party itself. Harich is the young intellectual imprisoned by the East German government, and guess who Harry is? Yes, none other than Cardinal Harry Pollitt. Alas! we confidently predict that this slogan will have as little effect in altering the status quo as others which have appeared on walls from time to time to enliven the working-class scene have had (e.g., "Hands off Guatemala," "End Eden's War," "Chuck The Tories Out," etc.).

TV in Modern Life

Lambasting television is easy. The only difficult thing, indeed, must be for the critics to produce fresh variants on the bitter, derisive comments which seem all that can be found to describe the offerings of man's latest marvel. The same things were said about the films thirty years ago (those same films, by the way, now being hailed by the U-mob as aesthetic masterpieces); and, as with films, one fact brushes aside all the invective. In America families look at television for an average of five and a half hours a day, and in Britain for over half that time. Television, whatever they say about it, has become established as part of modern social life.

Hungary and Suez - Hope Amidst Tragedy

The Governments of Israel, Britain, France and Russia, when they resorted to war in October 195 in pursuit of their own separate objectives, have at the same time struck a decisive blow to achieve something they never sought and are hardly aware of. The tanks and bombers in a few days of destruction have helped to shatter the most hampering illusion of our generation, an illusion that has held back multitudes from taking the first step towards a real understanding of the problems facing the human race.

This illusion was the belief, held with equal fervour by democrats and Communists, and on both sides of the Iron Curtain, that there are "two worlds", essentially different in aims and conduct.

Jamaican Journeyman: Job-Seekers from the Isle of Sun and Poverty

"This island excels the others for the goodness of the Ayr, and bounty of the soyl, it is for the most part a plain and even country, yielding in great abundance whatever is necessary for Man's Life". (A True Description of Jamaica, 1657)

Hot Gospel

This writer enjoyed his visit to the evangelist crusade at Harringay. He listened to Billy Graham, the newest American revival preacher, and went home feeling that sin had a lot to be said for it.

From Lenin to Stalin

Although Stalin is dead there still lingers about him a larger than life aspect, This is hardly surprising when we consider his antithetical role of an angel of light and prince of darkness. While such a black and white study might serve as a popular form of entertainment it reveals nothing about Stalin as a man and politician. For our part we are prepared to remain on ground level and try to evaluate Stalin by examining the social and economic soil from which he grew and - if we may use the word - flourished.

Pomp, Pageantry and Privilege

The coronation on June 2nd of a young woman by the name of Elizabeth Alexandra Mary of Windsor, as Queen of Great Britain and the British Commonwealth of Nations, is an event which, it is safe to say, has received more publicity and been the subject of more propaganda than any other peace-time occurrence of the last fifty years. Since the death of her father, the Queen has been publicised to such an extent that there can hardly be a literate person in the whole world who is not aware of the forthcoming event.