The passing show

The beginning of September and H.M.S. Hampshire, guided missile destroyer, lies at anchor just off Torquay. A day or two later, she is joined by several more warships of the home fleet. If you like, you can have a boat trio around the grey monsters and view—at a distance, of course—their wicked death dealing paraphernalia.

These ships have just finished exercises off the South West Coast. They are a timely reminder of the constant development under capitalism of more and more horrifying weapons; for these are just about the last word in modern fighting craft, although they will probably be out of date in a few years’ time. Capitalist politicians may prattle about efforts for peace, disarmament, test ban treaties and the like, but sincerity has never been their strong point. Anyway, sincerity will not remove the conflicting interests of private property which make armaments necessary. So Lord Hailsham signs a treaty in Moscow, and almost in the same breath, the government announces that another warship is to be built—this time an aircraft carrier costing around £50 millions,

Militant Bank Managers
Whatever next! There were enough disdainfully raised eyebrows and tongue cluckings when the teachers struck for one day last year. But now the bank managers, of all people! The Daily Herald of September 7th tells us of the first of a series of weekend strikes by these men and their staffs, employed by the Manchester and Salford Trustee Savings Bank. Apparently it’s a very gentlemanly affair with courteous picketing outside the branches by none other than the managers themselves.

But strip away the niceties of etiquette and what is the strike over? Why, the same old thing, of course—pay and conditions. The bank staffs are pressing for “proper negotiating machinery” and have reached the end of their tether waiting for a move from their employers. “…. even gentlemen get their backs up occasionally,” commented one bank man, bitterly.

It is certainly interesting, this show of militancy among “professional” workers. And at the risk of being called priggish, it does go to support something we have always said. Arbitration courts and joint councils may be all very well up to a point, but it is the strike (or the positive threat of it) which gingers up the negotiations. In fact, it is the only weapon which workers have in their struggle with the employers, although it cannot be used indiscriminately, of course. This hard truth has begun to dawn on some of the bank employees, and they are a living denial of the claim sometimes heard nowadays that the strike weapon is out of date. It will never be out of date as long as we have capitalism.

Auto-intoxication
Roaring and stinking its way merrily across the length and breadth of the land goes the motor car. It pours from the production lines to swell the enormous tide of tinplate on the already overcrowded roads. In attempts to cope with its insatiable appetite, workers’ backyards are sliced in half as motorways are pushed through with ruthless urgency. And up, up, up, mounts the toll of death and injury in its wake. No wonder Dr. Bergen Evans wrote a long and bitter denunciation of it eight years ago in The Spook of Spooks.

But it is not only Dr. Evans who is concerned at the encroachment of the motor car. Brickbats have been thrown at Transport Minister Marples over his plan for “pedestrian control” experiments in selected areas. “The Marples Matchsticks” it was contemptuously labelled by the Daily Mail, after the illuminated robot who will show you how to walk across the road when the way is clear. Failure to observe the rules may cost you a £20 fine and the Mail is very piqued at the whittling away of pedestrians’ rights which this will involve.

Now the motor car is no longer a luxury. Indeed, it is an essential to many workers in holding down their jobs. More than eight million are on the roads and the number is expected to go on increasing. So the car manufacturers have done nicely out of it, although no one will expect British Railways to be very pleased. Neither will some of the shop owners, who will no doubt echo the Mail’s sentiments, because growing pressure against pedestrians might well discourage sales. This has in fact happened in some of the streets recently restricted to one-way traffic.

There is nothing very straightforward about the traffic problem, because it is surrounded by all sorts of interests tugging all ways, a familiar enough feature under capitalism. It exists, too, against the background of speed and yet more speed. For as any Socialist knows, the time factor is all important in capitalist production and colours all our outlook And when looked at from this angle, Socialism would be worth establishing: only just to let us slow down and take a breather.
E. T. C.