News in Review
Goa
Why all the fuss about Goa?
If it is difficult to be sure why Mr. Nehru chose the moment he did to swallow the Portuguese colonies, it is even harder to understand why so many people were so shocked by it all.
Perhaps they really believed all the big talk about India being the great peacemaker, standing for moral right before force. Anybody who takes in that sort, of stuff is due for plenty of surprises.
It was amusing to see how the Indians dealt, with the inevitable questions about Ghandi’s reactions to the Goa invasion. Mr. Nehru dodged it by saying that the question came from people who had never understood Ghandi when he was alive. Mr. Krishna Menon was blunter. Ghandi? “Well, he isn’t here, is he?”
It is even more amusing when we remember that Ghandi would probably have approved of the whole thing. For sure, he could not have objected on moral grounds: contrary to popular misconception, the man was never a pacifist. He simply used passive resistance as a political weapon.
In any case, if Ghandi were running the affairs of the Indian ruling class today, whatever principles be may once have had would be firmly held in check. just as some Labour Ministers in this country had to forget their one time pacifism and as President Kennedy, when he has to ignores the fact that he is a Catholic.
As capitalism develops in India we shall probably see a lot more military adventures from her. Which means that we shall also have a lot more cynicism and double talk from her rulers.
The Congo
The struggle in the Congo is a year and a half old and seems to be as far away as ever from a settlement.
In this, and in its callousness and intrigues, it is typical of the many disputes which have been conceived by postwar capitalism.
The United Nations seems helpless, although the organisation has its excuses. There is probably a lot of truth in the allegations of Dr. O’Brien and General McKeown, that Great Britain has done its best to frustrate the UNO forces which are fighting the Katangese.
There is a well-breeched lobby in British politics which sticks out for the Tshombe regime. This pressure group—the Katanga lobby—consists of men who have a lot of money sunk in Union Minière or some of its associates. They would not mind in the least if Katanga were an independent state. They have been active behind the scenes and have pleaded their case in the correspondence columns of the top newspapers.
But what, substance is there in UNO’s grumble?
When it was formed. United Nations was hailed as the international peacemaker which, learning from the failure of the League of Nations, would have teeth and would use them. It was obvious even then that if it suited their purpose, capitalist interests would see that UNO became a gummy, feeble white elephant.
The starry eyed refused to recognise this in 1945. But gummy and feeble the United Nations has tinned out to be.
And in the Congo the confusion and bloodshed continues.
Mr Macmillan
Last month saw Mr. Macmillan’s fifth birthday as Prime Minister. There can have been few men in the job with such an apparent contempt for the problems of it.
The post war Labour governments were rocked by their feuding and fussing. But Supermac has never turned one of his elegant hairs at his party’s squabbles. Indeed, the fiercer the quarrels the cooler he becomes, his prime piece of cheek being when he described the resignation of his Chancellor of the Exchequer and two other members of the government as “little local difficulties”.
Yet Macmillan has not been able to brush off all his problems. One which he has had to face is the decline of British capitalism.
If there is one thing for which his premiership may be memorable is could be the recognition of the fact that this country can no longer be more than an annexe of Europe in the great disputes of modern capitalism.
There will probably be no more imperialist adventures for Britain unless Washington approves. There will probably be no more a privileged, exclusive Commonwealth trading area stretching around the world.
Macmillan is smooth and expensive enough to be the Primrose League’s dream of an Englishman.
Hardly the chap, it seems, to preside over the decline of British capitalism. But that is what he has had to do.
Which goes to show what being Prime Ministercan do for you.
ICI and Courtaulds
The ICI bid to take over Courtaulds was really big stuff—£180 millions worth of it. A combine of these two combines would dominate the industrial scene in this country, controlling over ninety per cent of the British production of synthetic fibres like rayon, terylene and nylon.
ICI want to merge so that they can take their share of what they think is an expanding market for man made fibres. To get this, they must fight foreign groups like du Pont and Rhone-Poulenc Rhodiaceta. They expect the competition to get even keener if Britain joins the Common Market, so on good sound capitalist lines they would like to eliminate the overlap between their own production and Courtaulds’, which costs both firms a lot of money which they could save.
Many economists forecast that Britain’s application to join the E.E.C. would accelerate mergers between British companies anxious to protect themselves from the competition which they would find in the Common Market. If this is so, we can expect to see more take over bids and some big combines corning out of them.
This is the way of capitalism. Courtaulds was itself once a small firm—a silk factory started in Essex in 1816. Now it is a giant against which a small firm does not begin to stand a chance.
Yet size will not solve the problems of ICI nor of Courtaulds. The proposed merger is only a patch up for the age old capitalist worry of competition.
“We fight like tigers,” said ICI chairman Paul Chambers. “all over the place.” Not a bad expression. Capitalism is rather like a bloody jungle.
Work to Rule
We were dished out with the usual large helpings of humbug over the postal workers’ work-to-rule campaign in support of their wage claim.
There were the expected efforts to make the postmen look childish and ridiculous. There was the usual protest that the work-to-rule would not affect the employers but would only inconvenience the public.
Of course, the campaign did cause the public some bother—it would be difficult to suggest a method of pushing a wage claim which did not. And if there were such a method it would probably be pretty feeble.
The fact is, though, that the postal go-slow caused little disturbance to the public, who obviously do not especially care if their personal correspondence arrives a day or two late.
It was different for industry and the government. Delays in the mail caused a lot of disruption for them. So the postal workers were hitting roughly on the right spot.
In any case the employers and the government, when it suits them, will cause just as much inconvenience to the public as any strike or work-to-rule.
Closing a factory or a coal mine. because they are unprofitable, causes the public a lot of trouble. Restricting the import of certain commodities to protect home industry makes for a lot of inconvenience all round.
Anybody who moans about this sort of thing is expecting capitalism to work to some deep human morality. For them, the facts of capitalist life must be especially inconvenient.