The passing show
Peace and Quiet
“London Stinks,” rapped out the young girl to her friend, sitting near me in the bus, one evening. Figuratively or literally, I couldn’t help thinking of the undoubted truth of her words.
Working for my wage packet in the outskirts not far from London Airport, the high summer season has brought the noise of passing aircraft — over 60 of them every hour—to a hideous and almost unbearable pitch. At times the scream of one jet has not had time to die away before its place is taken by another coming in to land or taking off. And so it goes on throughout the working day and far into the night. Of course, you can cut down the noise a little by closing the windows—too bad then if it’s a hot and stuffy day.
Just down the road the rush-hour traffic problem has reached immense proportions, and the noise, fumes and stink are a veritable assault on the senses. Even out of the rush hour conditions are not easy, and you very often take your life in your hands just to venture across the road. Pity, too, those who have the misfortune to live by the new M.4 flyover which has sliced its way across the Great West Road and jumps over factories and houses alike. For these unfortunates it has happened with bewildering speed, this steel and concrete monster, the backcloth to their drab houses huddled together on a pre-war council estate.
Doctors agree that the modern noise problem has bad effects on health, and the Government, with tongue in cheek, tut-tuts in agreement. There was even the passing of a Noise Abatement Act—a private Member’s Bill—about five years ago, much to the joy of The Noise Abatement Society. But its provisions were concerned with acts of nuisance between individuals, and the really big culprits of road and air noise were left unscathed. In fact, the Society’s secretary confessed his sadness at the remarks of the (then) Aviation Minister, Peter Thorneycroft that:—
“he agreed with Lord Douglas that money is more important than the sufferings of people, and would add that so also was the progress of aviation.” (Q.P.—Society’s Journal, January, 1961).
Not the sort of answer to surprise Socialists, although the secretary seems to have been caught off balance by it. However, this did not stop the editorial page from claiming:—
“the undemocratic Civil Aviation Act of 1947 forbids action against owners of noisy aircraft, but public clamour is such that its repeal cannot long be delayed.”
That was more than four years ago and the clamour seems to have been drowned in the much greater and ever increasing din. Is it not surprising then to see a letter to The Guardian of Augiust 19th by the Society’s chairman in similar vein and with even bolder (and wilder) prophecy thus:—
“We aim to get this undemocratic Act repealed, but meanwhile the volume of protest is growing to such proportions that both politicians and civil servants are looking to their defences, and we would not be at all surprised to learn that . . . work is to commence on the new London Airport designed by the Society’s architect friends to cause no noise nuisance.”
Hope, it seems, springs eternal in the reformer’s breast, despite the unpleasant facts of capitalist life. So let me spell out one or two simple home truths for the benefit of this and other organisa¬tions. First of all, the noise nuisance bears most heavily on the working class—we have no alternative to putting up with the racket, not being able to pop off to a secluded country mansion when we feel like it. And if recent signs are anything to go by, there’s a whole lot more to come.
The truth is contained in Thorneycroft’s brazenly outspoken words. That is why any Government will only try to tackle the problem if there is the prospect of a cheap solution or if the trouble has reached such proportions that it is adversely affecting the interests of the capitalist class as a whole, or a sufficiently important section of them. Until then, they couldn’t care less.
By Way of Post Script
The Guardian of August 17th reports that work on the construction of a new deep water berth at Aberdeen Harbour was stopped so that the Queen could sleep undisturbed. Said one workman: “There was a whine from a derrick and it might have been noisy if they were not used to it.” No comment .
Wages?
I was tickled pink by this title to an advert in the national press a short while ago. Maybe you saw it, too. There’s this photograph of a comely young man, obviously a newcomer to the firm, looking expectantly at an older man (obviously not a newcomer), and when we get our look in, the question has already been popped.
“Wages?” repeats the older man, rolling the word round his mouth while he thinks of an answer to head the other off. Then at last, “We pay ours by credit transfer.” And that is that. There follows a blurb about the advantages of wages and salaries being paid through the bank, including the very attractive one of huge savings in clerical time, which in turn means cost reductions for the employer.
A clever enough advert really, starting off with the word to make any worker look twice, then switching quickly to the punch line (pity they didn’t show a close-up then of the young man’s face) with particular appeal to your boss but not forgetting to remind you that “it means less likelihood of loss.” You can, of course, lose the money after you’ve drawn it from the bank, but we’ll not quibble over such a small detail as that.
Now I have an interest in the wages question for the simple reason that I am cursed with the fate of having to work for them to get a living. I’m also aware that more employers are turning to paying wages by cheque or by direct credit transfer for the reasons already mentioned and to avoid the risk of pay snatches, which our advert modestly calls “the hazard of moving large sums of cash.” My firm introduced the system over six years ago amidst a flurry of mixed consternation and excitement among the office workers.
But it’s all settled down now. We get paid monthly instead of weekly, and pe¬haps the only change is that some of us are broke for four days at the end of the month instead of for one day at the end of each week. Maybe some found it a bit precarious at first when they had no spare money to tide them over to the first monthly pay day, but these troubles have long been forgotten, and the pay slip is awaited as eagerly as the old pay packet used to be.
There were some who hinted darkly that the whole thing was a swindle, but of course there was no evidence for this. When the dust of argument finally settled, even the dimmest could see that we were no better or worse off than before. There was a swindle there somewhere, of course, but as usual they didn’t spot it. It lies not in the particular arrangement of wage payment but in the very wages system itself. And the swindle is perpetrated every second of our working day. For no matter what the size of our wage packet (oops, sorry, Pay Slip) it represents a value smaller than the goods we produce and the services we render. There lies the secret of our employer’s riches and of our poverty.
So don’t waste time quibbling over the details of the swindle’s administration, but work to end it by establishing a moneyless, wageless world of common ownership. But don’t bother your boss with this argument especially in working time—he’s not likely to appreciate the point.
Gaspers
“Equality in health is a practical impossibility. The Duke or Member of Parliament will always insist on better attention than the dustman.” (Conservative Party Monday Club Research Group. 2.9.65.)
“Coal is money, and if men don’t turn up and don’t produce it, then there is no money.” (NCB Chairman Lord Robens. 2.9.65.)
“If the voluntary system fails, we might have to provide for statutory reference of every claim above the norm to go to an expanded and strengthened Prices and Incomes Board . . .” (The Prime Minister, (2.8.65.)
“Companies exist to produce goods and make profits . . .” (Daily Express Editorial, 23.8.65.)
E.T.C.