LffiERATED
BEAVER No. 114 January 20th 1972 Newspaper of LSE Students Union
BRITISH LIBRARY OF POLIIICAL & ECOHOMIC SQEHCE

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BEAVER HAS TO BE SOLD!
When Adams cut off funds to the Union, he said that societies, secretaries, etc. who were prepared to work under the now defunct constitution would be financed directly by him. He specifically excluded Beaver from any further association with either the Union or the School.
While we are honoured by his special attention, our print bill is enormous! So, please, please support your local underground, subversive, paper by paying for it. Any money over and above the print bill will be paid into Union funds.
"seavei*, Jan 20th 1972—Page 2
DES has recently announced its intention of postponing action of student unions until September next year. This of course has nothing whatsoever to do with the threatened massive mobilisation of students against their proposals. Just as well perhaps since, at the time of writing, NUS has no intention of calling off its demo on January 23rd.
It is, of course, coincidental that negotiations on the proposals will now take place during the long summer vacation of 1973 when, presumably, many of the present militants will have long since left to join the dole queues. That surviving militants will return to a fait accomph, and all protest will be irrelevant has nothing whatsoever to do with this otherwise iexplicable delay.
No indeed. The purpose of the postponement is understood to be to allow lea's more time to consider the prop osals in detail before they are rammed down their throats. Such is democracy.
DEMO
The plan is for students of the big London colleges to occupy their buildings over the weekend of 21st/23rd January and to use these buildings to service one one of the largest demonstrations Britain ever seen. Shades of October 1968? Perhaps, but it made sense then so why not again?
Union plans to occupy at least until Monday the 24th January in order to give people time to discuss the events of the weekend and to draw conclusions about future action. Only too often demos become isolated from the main struggle through lack of analysis and it is hoped to counteract this tendency this time.
UDI
The unilateral declaration of independence by Union gives us the political independence we seek. By operating under the new constitution we show the governors that we mean business. It remains to be seen whether we will obtain financial independence so easily however. It is expected that the Administration will refuse to recognise our dyly elected officers and will block payments authorised by them.
If this happens and, since they refuse
to recognise our constitution, tlie only recourse we have is direct action aimed at forcing the Governors to accept our existence.
PARITY
Adams, during his appearance before a union meeting last term, said he would be happy to negotiate on the basis of LSE parity with other S.U.'s, only he'd never been asked. In fact he had. The subject came up earlier in the term when Union Council asked the Director how we could achieve parity. He told them that a conference would have to be arranged between representatives of the DES, the School, the University, the LEA's and the students. This he gleefully assured us, would be not in our power to do as students and would in any case take many years, even if the other parties agreed.
Well then, Walter Adams, we may not have the power to do it but you certainly have, especially if we twist your arm behind your back by occupying the School until you do arrange to do it.
STUDENTS BEFORE BOOKS
There is also the little matter of a separate building to house all union facilities which is maintained directly by students. If we achieve parity we can certainly afford it, but where is it to be?
It is estimated (by the School) that 1 LSE will expand its area by 60% over the next five years. There are various 1 plans afoot, quite apart from the new ! library, to do this. This being the case, why shouldn't the East Building be 'handed over to the union for their sole-[use and enjoyment? While not exactly ¦ a palace, the area now occupied by the New Theatre, theTeachingLibrary (which is moving to Smiths) the quadrangle (offering direct access to the bar), the garage, and all the small rooms above could be added to the present gym, squash court and changing rooms to make a nice compact unit.
Only by a large-scale and long-term action will students achieve these objectives before we're all too old to need them. This proposal and others will be put to union at the next meeting. After that its up to us.
M.W.
In a Lecture for Social Work Students on Psychoanalytic Theory.......
Student: With regard to genitality, Wilhelm Reich judged maturity by whether you achieved X number of orgasms each week.
Miss Elkan, lecturer: Now that you've raised Reich, I think I must say that he became quite ill.
A Socialist Elite? At a recent union meeting, a representative of a newly formed unemployed workers group in Yarmouth delivered a speech full of rhetoric and political lack of understanding, calling for workers and students to unite.
Although his speech was full of fight and verve he made one fundamental mistake when he stated that "Students and workers are one and the same"
The implication was that students are in the same exploitative situation as industrial and white-collar workers. The aim in calling for such unity between workers and students is excellent insofar as it is a call for student support of workers militant struggles in the factories and on the streets, and is an attempt to give students a focus for activities outside of the university. However, unless the particular situation which students are in is understood, then there is no hope of harnesang the growing student movement to any outside activity and the movement will stagnate with its resultant inability to be a meaningful socialist influence on the class struggle outside the university.
There are two major participatory processes important for student socialists. One is the raising of their own level of consciousness from the basic stage of awareness, to an ability to articulate this socialist ideology, and the second process is to impart this knowledge to change the ideas of less conscious elements to those of a revolutionary socialist.
These processes are hastened, not impeded by practical activity within university , but not by this alone. Occupations within universities will not bring about revolution, but they are vital in raising consciousness of other less radical students.
Alternative classes for all courses are another practical form of activity, run by the students themselves with a helping hand from 3rd years or Post Graduates. This is an extremely useful way of encouraging students to question the ruling class ideology which is forced down our throats from the many reactionary lectures we have at LSE.
Militant student activity will do nothing but wither in the vacuum of total
flDAMS TORIHBf RllEGATIONII
The Sunday Once-upon-a: Time revealed in its last issue shocking allegations of cruelty and brutality practiced upon Sir WalterAdams—a well known terrorist.
The students union of LSE were accused of using brainwashing and disorientation techniques in an attempt to browbeat Adams to submit to their demands. This was the incredible revelation leaked to the fearless Times report by inside sources recently.
The evidence points to the fact that Adams was lured down to the Old Theatre (scene of many past bestialities) on Friday, 10th December, and placed on the famous 'hotseat'. There he was grilled for long cruel minutes by first one then another of his persecutors. His gruelling ordeal was euphemistically described as "a frank and factual interview" by union spokesmen. But the facts must speak for themselves.
Adams was subjected to one indignity after another as he shuffled helplessly through the
concentration of energies on student problems alone. The impetus for the revolts through campuses internationally in 1968 did not come from student dissatisfaction with their academic situation alone, but from outside forces, the most obvious being the Vietnam war protest.
LINKS
The students who led the revolt at LSE were to some extent able to articulate a strong revolutionary socialist line, (divorced from Liberal and reformist argument), which linked for example the Vietnam situation with the capitalist system, and at the same time were able to show the ties of the authority structure of this system to the structure within the university.
As students protested on the streets, within the university through occupation, were harrassed by police and threatened with suspension, subjected to a barrage of attack from the right-wing press, so the jig-saw puzzle fitted into place. Many students were for the first time able to understand the mechanics of the system ; and their consciousness was raised. I Because the student situation is an ephemeral one, many left-wing students of course left. Some joined revolutionary socialist groups, many didn't. Those who did join groups like the International Sociahsts, the IMG, and others, found the transition from Student politics to active revolutionary politics-orientated in practice toward the factories and the working class a difficult but necessary step if they were to be at all effective as revolutionaries.
ANTI-PARTY
Among LSE socialists at the moment there is a strong anti-party feeling which is inspired by a fear that the revolutionary party is a bureaucratic self-seeking elite, which in a revolutionary situation will sell the workers out and will inevitably develop along Staliriist lines.
It could well be argued in fact that this fear is inspired in the Libertarian individual only because his conception of the relationship between party and class is a bureaucratic one, and he visualises students perhaps unconsciously as a cut above the workers, and can only conceive of the relationship as one of "pre^hing".
He cannot bear the thought of being seen to lead anything be it even a struggle within the limited sphere of LSE union.
The role of 'the party' is seen by anarchists and libertarians as a substitute one. It is seen as a body which hopes to substitute for workers in the class struggle. In fact the role of the party is to articulate grievances and demands of workers which are inarticulately expressed. Their abstaining from the practical struggle outside the university and at the factory gates among workers only serves to abandon the Labour movement to the right wing, who are in the mainstream, the Trade Union
leadership, representatives of the capital-.ist class within the Labour movement: "The Labour Lieutenants of Capital".
Anarchists voices are the loudest during the mish mash of any upheaval. They are the most opposed to the concept of the party. Their hatred of leadership and party discipline conceals the real dorhin-ation which they are in fact exercising because they are responsible to no-one and make this quite clear. The idea of an organisation and the concept of building a revolutionary party is to give collective discipline to members by means of which they can be called to account by an active and informed rank and file.
ELITE
One of the arguments put forward by those examining the role of the socialist student has been to tender the passive academic hne. The argument seems to smell of elitism.
Sociahst ideology substitutesfor activity-even within the university. Workers are seen as a class suspicious of students and unwilling to hear arguments from students. So frightened are many socialist students of appearing to be a select body of academics "preaching to the workers" as it were, that they bend over backwards to cut themselves off from workers, the result being that they do appear to be the very ehtethat they despise so much.
It is an elitist, concept in itself to consider that students can 'preach'. It implies that students can learn nothing from workers, and that they can contribute nothing themselves to the revolutionary cause.
It implies that socialist students do not believe in the viforking class as the class who can bring about revolution. How can students play a role in a workers movement to bring about revolution if stud ents are only willing to theorise among themselves alone.
Putting theory into practice outside the university is the only way which students once they leave university can contribute to the class struggle. Students can do this by joining a cohesive group, a revolutionary party. Otherwise it is likely that the socialist student will be lost in the wilderness, unable to find an outlet for his political theory. Demorahs-ation will come quickly to the inactive socialist and the ex-student could possibly lose his revolutionary fervour, and his political consciousness will stagnate.
Activity re-inforces the ideas developed while studying. The socialist students contribution to the class struggle can be great, and when considering the problem of the role of a socialist student it must be seen as a role that is played outside University as well as within, otherwise all that theory is meaningless. We must not waste it by believing that we are preachers. We have a lot to learn and a lot to fight for.
R. Hurst
stock answers that are all his organisation allow him on such occasions. But squirm as he might, plead as he did, his pursuers were relentless.
Finc^lly, a spent and broken man, Adamswasallowedto quit the infamous torture chamber. He is presently said to be recuperating with friends.
Last night a union spokesman strongly denied allegations of either cruelty or brutality. "We have a very difficult job to do here", he said: "Terrorism must be stamped out. We may be a little rough in our methods but we obtain results. These men are known extremists and one can't use kid-gloves with them. But, at the same time, we are not savages."
An independent enquiry into the allegations {headed by LSE President and Union Council), after a thorough investigation of all the evidence, found that no cruelty or brutality existed They added, however, that there was some indications of ill-tre«tment.
M.W.
Dear Moaners,
Your November issue has fallen into my hands. Never have 1 read so much pretentious, juvenile and awful humourless twaddle within the compass of a single rag. If instead of heading one of your whines "Eat Shit" you had placed these childish words as a sub-title to "Beaver" it would have been a fitting introduction to a publication written in abysmal style and with nothing more to show than an endless repetition of whines and complaints.
I was myself a student at L.S.E. many years ago, and if 1 and my co-students could not do more than indulge without relief in the mindless and childish tantrums found in your idiot paper fuU of negative, whimpering and anti-personal rubbish, we would not have sullied the material but put it to better use. Frankly, the quality and content of your publication would best serve a toilet; but I even doubt whether in that place it would be an agreeable accessory.
To think of the enormous waste of time, effort and expense to produce such a load of muck. What a scoop to reproduce an internal letter dated 1967 to reveal a shocking plot! as if there was anything startling in it. What three-year old mentality it displays. Why not give up L.S.E. which apparently is no use to and return to the nursery where you rightly belong?
1 am sure your readers will be delighted to read this commentary on your stupid outpourings-if you dare to publish it.
Yours most sincerely.
Fellow Shit-Eater
Dear FSE,
Thanks for the rave-notice. We now know at least what we have to look forward to when we leave our nursery and enter the world of grown-ups. Your adult attitude serves as an example to all of us. We take it you are on the staff now?
Love, Eds.
LETTERS
DEAR EDITOR,-Can we use your publication(?) to tell L.S.E. about Third World First, the ultra dynamic student wing of the various Overseas Ai d organisations. We work for people such as Oxfam, Christian Aid, War on Want etc.
The students of today are the decision makers of tomorrow, the M.P.s, civil servants, managing directors and other such worthies. Now is the time to make such folk sympathetic to the appalling problems of the underdeveloped countries.
Akeady there has been canvassing in Halls of Residence asking students to give one per cent of their grants (equivalent to sacrificing one cigarette a day). But our main function is educational.
Hoping this sparks off some curiosity Love,
Simon.
DEAR EDITOR, Thank you for printing our Press Release in your last issue, which I hope was of interest to your readers.
I must insist however that you print an apology for what I expect was a printing error. Beaver printed our statement as saying "We have got the Financial res-ourses..." The difference consequent from this is remarkable, as it should have read
"We have not the financial resources......"
This point must be made clear, as we certainly did not and do not have the funds to take legal action in this matter CON SOC is an Associate Union Society, and as such does not get a grant. We have no outside sources of funds, and exist on subscriptions and whatever money we can raise by our activities.
YOURS SINCERELY,
JACQUES ARNOLD Chairman
We worked on this issue of "Beaver Jacques Arnold Clifford Dear Bob Dent Phillipa Duggan George Foy Rosie Hurst Louise Jacob Keith Jinks
Ono Osakwe Alison Quick John Rose Soc Admin Co-op J. Sydnor Maggie Wellings Robin Widdison Nigel Willmott

a


NOTES FROM AMERICA
TELL US ALL ABOUT YOUR FRIENDS
OVER THE PAST YEAR, Grand Juries havebeen impanelled across the country to seek infornnation against alleged illegal activity. Hundreds of people have been subpoenaed under penalty of possible imprisonment if they refused.
ONE OF THE MAJOR differences between Grand Juries and trials most Americans are familiar with is the Grand Juries are done in total secrecy. This includes secrecy in not knowing who you're talking to.
THE GOVERNMENT CANNOT use regular juries the way it wants to. Even though juries are often manipulated, are not truly representative of the populace, etc., they still have done things recently that the State doesn't approve of. For example, Bobby Seale, Ericka Huggins, and the Panther 13 were not convicted. It is important to see how the State moves, from public jury trials to secret Grand Juries.
MOST OF THE TIME witnesses are subpoenaed by a Federal Marshal. The FBI now serves subpoenas also. In the case of Leslie Bacon, one day while she was taking a shower, eight FBI cars converged on her house. They tore the door off and arrested her. She was kept in custody for a month in a hotel with Federal Marshals who watched her sleep. They kept reminding her that she wasn't a prisoner, as they followed her into the toilet.
IF YOU REFUSE to testify before a Grand Jury, the next step must be made by the Government. Usually, witnesses refuse to testify on the basis of the Fifth Amendment, which protects you from self-incrimination. You may then be offered immunity. When you are granted immunity you can no longer incriminate yourself. If you still refuse to testify, you are cited for contempt. If it is for civil contempt, you can go to jail for the duration of that particular Grand Jury. If it is for criminal contempt, you go to jail for a set period of time.
JAILED
THE IMPORTANT THING to understand is the relationship of the Grand Jury and the Justice Department. Guy Goodwin, the prosecutor, is specifically investigating things for which the Justice Department can't produce suspects, so it has to use the Grand Jury. It is doing this on a nationwide scale directly on the orders of John Mitchell. In the case of the Capitol bombing, the FBI and the Justice Department couldn't find the Weather underground, so they convened Grand Juries and subpoenaed and put in jail people who didn't have anything to do with it, but who might think it was a fine thing that it happened.
GRAND JURIES ARE part of a national conspiracy by the Government to track down "subversives" and to gather information not only about specific acts, but also about other things which might be of use to the Justice Department. Leslie Bacon was asked not only about the Capitol bombing but also about mayday activities, the Movement, etc.
SHE AND MANY OTHERS vaye refused to testify. Even though innocent and protected against prosecution, this seems to many the only possible response. In Leslie's own words, "WE ARE NOT SINGLE PEOPLE. WE ARE ALSO CONCERNED WITH OUR FRIENDS. IT IS ENOUGH TO MENTION ANOTHER PERSON'S NAME FOR THAT PERSON TO BE SUBPOENAED."
B&mWL.
cJOLIUS.., AWDtUHAfS
HOME?
ROI/iAK}LE€ilC>k)S ¦mREEOownioeutsf'
Beaver, Jan 20th 1972-Page 3
WERjEOR(SWJI2ifOSA
FGCICE STOE!
PENTAGON PAPERS
"/ am proud to stand with Daniel Ellsberg in tal<ing responsibility formal<ing the Pentagon Papersavailable to the American people. The Pentagon Papers were released to show America the kinds of deception and malice that have guided the policy makers in Washington for years in the planning and waging of oppressive war in Vietnam.
The misuse of power as recorded by the Pentagon Papers is closely linked with the same attitudes and misuse of power that results in social injustice at home.
/ am being sent to jail without a trial. The Attorney General offers me the alternative of collaborating with him in his attempt to prosecute Daniel
Ellsberg by testifying in secret before a Grand Jury. For me that is no choice. / would rather tell my story openly to the American people—free of the compulsion of Grand Jury subpoenas and contempt citations, and not as a tool of the prosecution. Then if I am sent to jail it will not be for committing a crime against society, but for advocating sanity and peace. But as dim as the situation is now / have great hope. Wehave not flinched at the oppressive show of force and our number is growing. The Berrigans and other priests, nuns and college professors have shown with raw courage that the resistance is broad and wide and extends from one end
"Some of us, white and black, know how great a price has already been paid to bring into existence a new consciousness, a new people,an unprecedented nation. If we know, and do nothing, we are worse than the murderers hired in our name. If we know, then we must fight for your life as though it were our own—which it is—and render impassable with our bodies the corridor to the gas chamber. For, if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for as that night."
Brother James
k_J
of this country to the other, and it pervades all walks of life.
As / look around the country / see growing resistance to this war. Masses of American citizens now see the gross misuse of power. The community of resistance is growing and Daniel Ellsberg and / have joined it. Others will do so in the future and help to expose the misuse of power and the manipulation of people. Our determination to resist unlawful and immoral authority is enlarged and intensified. We will win. Celebrate life!"
— Anthony Russo, former research associate of Daniel Ellsberg, who was subpoenaed before a Federal Grand Jury in Los Angeles, and went to jail for two months because he refused to answer the Grand Jury questions.
NEWS FROM THE PAST
The U.S. government was faced with much the same problem over the Vietnam mobilisation as police at Swansea, except it was a more pressinga and obviously political event. Again the ground had been prepared after the shock the impact of October's demonstration had caused. Patriotism was plugged and Nixon staked a lot on arousing the 'silent majority', however if they exist they remained largely silent. This called for a new offensive by Spiro T. Agnew, throwing insinuations against the protestors' manhood, bravery and patriotism, or more explicitly their communist ideals (like peace, ect.). It is amusing to note that America's right think one does not have to be brave to protest in the great democracy and sad to see the re-appearance of the anti-communist smear, which is being re-used in Britain, too. It is not surprising however, when one realises that Nixon has the technique as the aide to Joe McCarthy.
When it became obvious that smears were not working out came that trusty annual—the extremists' plans. Marches were banned and re-routed to dis-
suade 'liberals' from opposing the law (in order) and to force marches into illegality. Then there appeased the leak that certain 'exeeemists' were planning violence. The Washington march was banned and only allowed when it was guaranteed impotent by supervision by stewards from the march.
On the Friday evening a march, after a 'Death Vigil', approachedtheJustice Building to point out that the government had only ^en way to this march as they couldn't afford another Chicago and that the farce of the Chicago Conspiracy' trial was continuing. Here they found armed troops and were moved on by the police. One group tried to approach the South Vietnamese Embassy. The march included 70 year old veterans, housewives, young j mothers (Daily Express) but police cordonswere everywhere. Dr. Spock led one section forward to occupy the Justice Building in peaceful protest. One small group went up a side street to be charged by police and the crowd was forced forward with agents within the crowd starting fights, against Ithe cordons.
TEAR GAS
The police then launched a tear gas and baton attack with reinforcements pouring in behind the 2,500 or so protestors. The march fell back resisting the baton charges. Police cars drove into crowds trying to escape and pistols were drawn.
Next day the great march moved off and peaceably wound its way around the capital and Capitol. No clashes came as there were no police and the protest was run on linesdearto every government's heart, endangering nothing more transient than public opinion without public power. At theWhite House,every entrance road barricaded bu buses, a group was dissuaded from going towards it by the stewards.
That night a bigger group (about 5,000), many incensed by the previous night's attack, decided to exercise their right of protest and return to the Justice Building. Thistime there were more police and when the Stars and Stripes was run down and the N.L.F. flag raised the police attacked and the crowd outwitted them, launching assaults of stones and bottles at the symbol of the evil in Vietnam, the South Vietnamese Embassy and the Justice Building. Again tear gas and batons smashed the outnumbered crowd from the streets.
f)


OCCUPATION
-EDUCATION
A point on which most students agree is that the education at LSE is not what it would be if we controUed what we learn. We are conscious of the tact that much of what wFHo in classes and lectures we do only because of exams. An occupation provides the ideal situation to go beyond consciousness of this
fact and do something concrete to actually chai^it.	...
To create the conditions for an extended mass occupation it is necessary to deal first of aU with the question of exams. A very few have decided to ignore exams completely, taking our education into our own hands. To free more ot us from the fear of failure there seems to be one obvious alternative tcoUective
examination preparation.	. . ,	r	,
This can take the form of collating model exam answers for every academic department and distributing them for 'study'. Second and thkd year students can share the work they have done with first and second years. Graduates and sympathetic staff can aid undergraduates: in fact, the only way we shaU really get together is by aU aiding each other.	•»,
The task is not a small one, and it can only be accomplished \Vitn rUUK help. If your department is not abready organised, get it organised youpelf
First let's clear away the fear of failure. Then we can get down to the educa tion that we want.
Beaver, Jan 20th 1972—Page 4
EDUCATION V. SCHOOLING
AIM ANARCHIST-LIBERTARIAN PERSPECTIVE
Too many radicals reduce their critique of the education system to a critique of schools. The content of lessons is focussed upon (in terms of a simplistic notion of indoctrination) rather than the medium of the lessons. The result is that the conventional critiques seem to get stuck at a sort of class-and-privilege analysis of the school system rather than seeing how the bureaucratic structure of the child's progress through the school itself is already a part and parcel of the state-techno-cratic systems that confront the child in later life.
R. S. Peters is the chief educational mystagogueinthis country. His book Ethics and Education is based on a sort of sleight of hand performed with "models" of the learner. At no point does Peters tie up educational ethics with real people. Instead a teacher and children are replaced by potters and their clay (representing the authoritarian approach) and gardeners and plants (the so-called "libertarian" method). These two models are played off against each other (with a side-swipe taken at Skinner and his rats) preparatory to Peters' grand "synthesis"—his own model of the priest and the initiate. In fact this reproduces the same gulf between teachers and learners as the previous models only this time the distinction is super-human vs. subhuman. "The Lord is my shepherd..." illustrates this same difference. Either way the experts have got the pellets of revealed knowledge which the
CHEATING
CAMPAIGN
Beginning now the Socialist Society Education Study group is hoping to get a cheating campaign off the ground at LSE. It is already working -successfully at other colleges, notably Keele and Brunei, where students in the Sociology Depts have got as far as constructing alternative courses.
What?
The initial basis of the scheme will be a pool of essays established by students from aD departments on the standardised models which the student production line is expected to churn out every year. For sociologists there will be the "theories" of various bourgeois demagogues; for philosophers, the endless critiques of critiques of Popperian wit and wisdom; for economists, the expounding of bankrupt ideas and capitalist myths which emanate from some of the world's greatest apologists (Robbins stand up and take a bow), and similar gems from other subjects. Furthermore many of our tutors have a habit of giving out the same old book review-type essays year after year (perhaps the only books they feel safe on) which deserve a more or less duplicated reply.
Why?
From this basis, students will have loosened the constraints imposed by the present course structures and will be free to pursue their own work-perhaps reading along lines of research which interest them rather than ones which they are told to have an interest in. It should then become clear that the prevailing competitive ethos of the education process is more than dispensable.
In its place we might see the collectivisation of work, the pooling of ideas, the sharing of research, argument and discovery rather than their possession as valuable currency with which to buy a degree. Students' own essays can then become sources of ideas for others and expression of new thought rather than the predictable well-worn regurgitation which is all the system responds to.
So support the scheme by turning up at the Union Shop any day between 12 and 1, where there should be a campaign stall. Bring in those essays which you feel could be useful. T^e any you need to duplicate. From then on its up to you to develop the scheme.
K. Jinks
SACK tm6
NOT THE . WORKERS*
school itself and the notion of the teacher as an exclusive role etc. Cliil-dren learn how to speak because it's relevant to their needs, they arenit pressured or induced they aren't taught (apart from how to spe^ak
"properly"). If they were they would doubtless stammer. Why can't they pick up the three 'R's as and when necessary?
THEREFORE a) Schools should be abolished. They could be converted into
learners cannot seek out for themselves.
Recent developments in American educational philosophy have at last introduced the leamer-as-a-person. People are mobile (unlike plants or ratsin closed boxes) and can seek out mentors, personahties, milieux, information and institutions as and when they need. The motive is intrinsically in the need all of us have to learn about reality in order to accommodate to it or change it. The idea that motivation has to be introduced (exams, pellets, etc.) is derived from a false (theological) notion of what knowledge is.
People must be presumed to be active, creative, self-directing and able to seek other people out and to help them. This apphes to one-year olds and ninety-one-year-olds.
Going on from this paradigmatic shift in the model of the learner is a fundamental questioning of the


m



V/A-.-.-.V,

community centres for all age-groups in the community, a cross between working men's clubs, arts labs, child-care centres, red bases, athenian forums, old-people's clubs, libraries, equipment pools, and community work-shops.
b)	Work places should be opened up for kids to gravitate into to learn directly and naturally.
c)	Information should be freed in society at large.
d)	"Little boxes" should be amalgamated into communes or living units centred around certain communal facilities.
e)	The whole commun ity should be both the school and the curriculum and everyone can be both teachers and learners at different times, depending on the situation.
Schools are boring. Learning takes place in all of life. Or should...since a fully educative society is impossible under state capitalist bureaucratic society. This is inseparable from the notion of praxis and means that the educational aspect of the revolution is deliberately open-ended to fit in with the new developing perspectives in workers' control, consumer control, women's lib., even town planning etc.
Keith Paton
Keith Paton is the author of a 70 page booklet, The Great Brain Robbery. It's available from Agit-Prop at 15p or direct from the author for 20p (post included) at 102, Newcastle St., Silverdale, Newcastle-U-Lyme, Staffs. Copies are also available from the education study group table every day in the Union shop from 12pm to 1pm.
•-sv.v.-.....
PROGRESSIVE EDUCATIONALIST MARGARET THATCHER->1 recent study with lap-dogs
Cassettes for sale
Best of Cream
Wheels of Fire,
This Was-Jethro Tull
Moody Blues-Threshold of a Dream
(at £1.50)
Ike and Tina Turner-River Deep Mountain High (at £1) Spencer Davis-Autumn 66 (at 75p) From Taff-Athletic Union.
DES-pair!
Your eager-Beaver-In depth-interview-team got the idea that it might be worth taking a look around the D.E.S. (liable to be well-guarded on January 23rd), so pausing only to arrange an interview with Ma Thatcher they packed up their cassette and a list of friendly questions. Unfortunately Ma Thatcher had been through a bad week, what with having had her very life threatened by blood-hunting militants from LSE and City college in the heart of Toryland. So a nice man from the Department called to say would they like to meet a Mr. Van Straubenzee, M.P. for Wokingham and well-versed as Thatcher's underling instead.
Unwittingly they agreed.
Digging up background info on the afore-mentioned Member proved difficult (whereas they had a framed biography of Ma). He sat on the select committee inquiring into stud-
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ent relations, which visited the LSE in April 1969 and departed pretty quickly under a student onslaught (Memory-Lane quote from Robbins in the Report para 985: "Dr Adams and I have been along to Scotland Yard and have had friendly consultations with the Commissioner"). Unfortunately Van Straubenzee, M.P., managed to miss every day of the LSE inquiry. When he was actually sitting on the committee he said precious little, beyond "could you repeat that please?"
So here was a man who listens, they thought; no ordinary politician this. They went along at the appointed time and they played the game of asking a Ust of detailed questions, nothing too hostile, drawing him along at their own pace, hoping that if they gave him enough
rope etc. Even asked him for a final statement to poUsh it all off (he told them how to write the article up and let him check it in case it was 'wrong').
Then they switched off the tape and went back to the busy Beaver office. They played it back to themselves. What a surprise they got! What do you think was on the tape? A whole hour of nothing that they didn't know before they went in. He was a real politician all the time and he had given them the run-around, the cliche, the well-rehearsed, spontaneous, off^-the-cuff, straight-to-the-shoulder meaningless cant. And they hadn't noticed it. So now you eager Beavers aren't so eager to interview politicians anymore.
K. Jinks J. SyAior

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Beaver, Jan 20th 1972, Page 5
We^ve tried Adams. . . . noyv what?
Walter Adams thinks the DES proposals are ill-conceived, whilst the new constitution is merely misconceived. He is for student union autonomy, but not for us. He welcomes public accountability, but not for him. His position is perfectly undertandable. He stands for 'no change'-the position of the ultra-conservative-liberal (the liberal bit is because he likes to be Uked).
Adams is against the DES because their proposals will cause him trouble So he makes pacifying noises in all directions. He is a very, very nervous man.
In order to achieve our aims of an autonomous union, we must be prepared to make him more nervous still. We must be prepared to push him to the point where it will be less trouble for him to give in than for him to hold out.
This can't be done by strikes or leaflets or meetings or even articles about how nervous he is getting. It can only be done by a direct takeover of the school and all its functions.
Occupation
The tactic of occupation is popular with students because it is practically the only weapon they have to persuade recalcitrant administrators intoamore reasonable attitude. They have been successful although limited in scope because passive occupation is not enough.
Alternatives
The university situation provides a unique opportunity for young people to get together and share the
experience of learning. We learn not just by theory but also by practice. We all have something to teach as well as learn. But the educational system at present discourages practice. We are the passive recipients of information which others impart under authoritarian conditions. This information is directed to individual students who must accumulate it up until they have sufficient of it to pass back again to those who originally dispensed it. This is the system; follow it and you will become an individual educational unit, coded, graded and packed off to join the outside world which treats you in similar fashion.
Cheating
The fact that we learn better in co-operation with others rather than in competition with them is of no account to the system. Co-operation isnot only discouraged, it is severely punished if it takes place in the exam room. We are forced to regard our knowledge as private property;
to jealously guard it against others who have not extracted it for themselves; to regard some as unworthy of such treasures. The joy of learning is not shared, it is hoarded.
This is patently wrong. By participating in it we are prostituting what intelligence we have to serve the purpose of the capitalist system. Experimentation is discouraged in education, not because it is undesirable but because it is subversive.
Exams
So the purpose of an occupation is not just to put pressures on Adams but also to show the academics what we mean by education-what the university should be about but isn't. Those students who are particularly boned up on a subject could arrange classes for other interested students. Seminars could be arranged for group discussion and preparation. Support for projects could be solicited. Speakers, films and debates could be arranged on popular subjects. All these and many more schemes could be undertaken if the students managed the school rather than the school managed us.
Nor would those who had exams this summer be at a disadvantage. Between us we must have sat every exam the school has perpetrated on us and read every book on every subject in the library. Coaching could be given to those with exams to sit; short-cuts and pitfalls could be illuminated; notes could be swopped and essays copied. In short, a large-scale cheating campaign could be operated. Instead of flogging your guts out collecting information separately, resources could be pooled. All this leaves more time to study the subjects that really interest you, irrespective of whether they appear on the exam paper.
Acconnmodatlon
In order to achieve this, LSE must be held by the students at least until the end of the term. All the facilities at present under the patronage of the administration must be secured by ourselves. Accommodation should be arranged in the School for the occupying forces. LSE will be a campus-university at last.
The actual maintenance of an occupation depends on support and involves security and catering as well
as entertainment. Committees must be set up to deal with these. Good communication is also essential. General assemblies should be held every day to discuss experiences and future organisation. Planning should be concerned with long-range aims as well as with the immediate ones.
Aims
The immediate aim of the occupation is to force the administration to accept the union's constitution and to channel funds to it. The long-term aim is to use the active participation of students in the struggle for independence as a mass base for a truly autonomous and radical union. The constitutional form is not enough without the mass support of activity of its members. The occupation itself will provide the opportunity to develop alternative forms of education which can in turn be used to force changes in the university situation.
LSE was the first British university to adopt the tactic of a 'sit-in'. Perhaps it will also be the first to adopt the tactic of a 'work-in'. All that is needed is support.

COMTROL^
WHO/A?
For Mature Students Only
Why we need a New Union
The LSE Governors created a students union sponsored, financed and manipulated by them. This generosity can only be regarded as an attempt to castrate the student body. By controlling its constitution, its officers and its finance, the Governors effectively prevent the union from fulfilling its principal task-that of representing the interest of students.
With a constitution written by the administration, the union is unable to adequately effect the conditions of students. As a result they feel that Union does not relate to them and they therefore do not relate to it— "Union is a wank" is the general opinion.
Apathy and alienation are the norm at LSE stemming from bad accommodation, long hours of travel-Ung, few if any social contacts in an impersonal environment, irrelevant courses, shatteredexpectations and a dearth of facilities—not to mention very little money.
The School of course is concerned about these problems. It is concerned that students should not have the means to organise against their conditions. It is concerned that not more than 500 or so students want to turn up on any one day to swamp aheady inadequate facilities.
Everybody knows at least one student who quietly disappeared from LSE never to return, and not a few who went straight into mental institutions. Incidentally, the Welfare Dept refuses to give any statistics on student suicides, breakdowns, etc.
Some won't agree that this is all a big conspiracy to keep students down, and maybe it isn't. But why are these conditions allowed to exist? Why are resources poured into a new library when the School claims it has no money to expand more important facilities? Why won't the School give us a union building Mtering for the social needs of students? Why is it so impossible for them to allow us an independent union?
The government has now turned to 'student-bashing'-Thatcher's Bill and all the talk about loans v. grants are only
the beginning. They've had a go at trade unions, immigrants, the social services, Irish Catholics and black Rhodesians; now its our turn. We represent a not very popular and rather too vocalminority and are therefore a prime target for a reactionary onslaught.
Of course students also represent the technocrats of the future, so the government is always quick to point out that it is only a militant minority which abuses its privileges and forces them to legislate against all unions. They no doubt hope that the 'silent majority' will rise up against the militants for causing all the trouble.
So students unions are to be treated on a par with trade unions? Why not? Many of us will be unemployed anyway after we get our degrees. We can have a taste now of that 'Brighter Britain' that awaits us.
If we want to fight the Conservatives we can start here. If students win this struggle they will be striking a blow for all minorities being used as a scapegoat by the government. And the government will need more and more scapegoats as time goes on.
The new constitution attempts to loosen the Tetters the School has fastened on students. It is more flexible and more capable of acting as a pressure group to represent the interests of the student body as well as being more democratic. It's not going to solve the problems that students face, but it does at least give us the possibility of solving them. It cuts the apron strings.
When we have our union, we must fight for the right to control our own facilities, all of them: the refectory, coffee bars, halls of residence, etc. We must demand a separate union building incorporating these facilities and many others. If we had space we could provide common-rooms, creches, societies rooms, quiet areas, reading-rooms, etc. Another urgent need is for a subsidised main meal because of the many students whose diet is irregular and inaequate.
AH this sounds like a pipedream, but other universities have it, and many of them need it less than we do.
Under the old constitution, it would be difficult if not impossible to win these changes and then to retain them. So fighting for an independent, union is not just fighting for an abstract concept of freedom; it is fighting for tolerable conditions, for the right to decide our own environment. 'People before books'.
Beaver, Jan 20th 1972-Page 6
Background
In June 1966, it was announced that Dr. Walter Adams, he Principal of University Coll-je, Rhodesia,had been appointed Sir Sydney Caine's successor. This announcement shocked many students with liberal consciences and reasonable memories, who recalled that the authorities at UCR had failed to take any stand against the racialist government of Ian Smith.
Some began to enquire into Adams record at UCR and the circumstances of his appointment to the LSE. The findings were printed in an Agitator which sold out its 750 copies almost immediately. Union then passed a motion question ingthe appointment. What was objected to was not Adams politics, (reputedly Liberal), but that several times he had sided with the racialist government when students at UCR had attacked the apartheid system.
The administration of LSE and Governors advised Adams not to talk to the students protesting against his appointment, while themselves partici participating in a campaign of
pating in a campaign of letter writing to the newspapers supp orting Adams as Director. Adel stein, then Union President 'was refused permission by Ad ams to reply as Union President to a letter printed in the Times by Lord Bridges, Chairman of !the Court of Governors. This was seen by Union to be a denial of freedom of expression, and a letter was sent. Adelstein was then tried by a board of discipline. Students responded by boycotting lectures which was 80% effective.
BANNED
Adelstein was found guilty, butwas not punished. Duringthe boycott of lectures some interesting lessons were learnt by those participating. Official organisers of a mass meeting in Houghton St, felt their main concern was to help the police in keeping the traffic moving. The meeting was closed after ten minutes, and general debate on wider issues was prevented.
The NUS President-elect refused to support durect student action, so students took their own action. They sat down in the administration building blocking the way to the room in which the 'trial' of Adelstein was taking place.
Nothing happened until the students returned from Christmas vacation. Then the Adams question seemed to have died a peaceful death. A few students however refused to see it rest as they saw the question of Adams appointment as one which fundamentally affected students rights to take part in such decision making. A meeting was called for January 31st, but Marshal Bloom, the President of the Graduates Students Union (G.S.A.) was told by , Caine that the meeting was banned.
The effect on students was electrifying. 500 students supported the meeting which was held in the Old Theatre. There was some difficulty in getting in as porters barred the way. When about 150 students entered by forcing their way in, uses were pulled by porters so that there was no light. This, was done on the orders of Harry Kidd school secretary.
DEATH
After a student occupation lasting a quarter of an hour, students were stunned by news given by Caine, that a porter had died during the upheaval. He had died of a heart attack, and the governors later recognised that his death had been accidental.
Nevertheless, students felt in an irrational way that they were to blame. If only they had done this instead of that, it might have been avoided .... Geoff Martin, NUS Presidentelect, appeared on TV saying that this showed the danger of student militancy. Accusations were bandied to and fro at Union meetings, and a Soc-Soc member was shouted down when he attempted to defend the action of students to hold the meeting on Adams.
This wave of emotionalism soon died down, but it did leave a residue of unwillingness in many students to contemplate further direct action for a considerable period.
TRIAL
124 members of staff signed a statement condemning the action of the students. These included many nominal leftists like Titmuss and Greaves. Mass expulsions were called for by the Academic Board, but a rearguard action by thelessreaction-ary led to the setting up of a Ctte. of Inquiry. Legal victimisation was preferred to arbitrary execution.
Six student representatives were brought to trial before the Board of discipUne. Students were as yet in no mood to take direct action in defence of these accused, and the inquiry being under no pressure let the trial drag on for six weeks.
VERDICT
In March the verdict was announced. Very few students showed their open support for the victimised, and only 100 students were associated with the Students Defence Group which had been set up. The verdict was a major step in unmasking the realities of the situation.
It did not shock all students into changing their outlook, but gave impetus to the sit-in which resulted from it. Adelstein and Bloom were to be suspended until the end of the Summer term. This was the verdict given to 800 expectant students on the historic day, Monday March 13th, which was to trigger off events 'unprecedented in British University History' (Times 14.3.67.)
Taken in part from:
(LSE What it is and-How we fought it)
LSE
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Eight days of struggle followed. Monday night saw 100 students sleeping in. Connaught house was occupied the next day. Sinclair (a member of the administration) had been given disciplinary powers by Caine, and he managed to get into the occupied building. He appealed to the students, telling them that he had neither the desire or the powers to suspend them.
He left the building after receiving no response, and returned with Kidd, the school Secretary. After a plea from a Police Inspector who accompanied them for all students to leave peacefully, Sinclair turned to the occupiers and shouted, 'You're all suspended, how long shall I suspend you for?' A student replied, f 'As long as Bloom and Adelstein'. 'Good' stuttered Sinclair, 'you're all suspended for three months'.
The students were forcibly removed from the building and returned to the main sit-in where some 200 remained. By Wednesday support had grown to one thousand who demonstrated in and outside the building. 500 students spent the night at LSE. The students felt at this point that nothing could stop them winning. But to some extent the jubilation at their own solidarity and strength obscured their weaknesses, and the end of term was drawing near. The choice facing students was between more radical action or the crumbling of the sit-in through fatique and ineffectiveness.
DECLINE
March 16th and 17th saw a decline in student militancy. The Appeal against the Adelstein Bloom suspension was to take place on Friday 17th. By then the Administration had taken a crash course in Public j Relations: talk of 'Provos' and 'Trot-skyites' ceased. Sinclair began to talk to students about matters concerning the running of the school building, as if it were normal for students to decide when doors could be opened, or who should pass through the lobbies.
Waysof'savingthe situation'began to be offered: odd MPs were dragged up from Westminster to spend five minutes displaying their ignorance and giving their advice to abandon the sit-in.
Official negotiations between student representatives and. the authorities started on Thursday afternoon. This had far more effect in damaging morale of students than had the open intimidation of the first three days.
The new niceness' tended to obscure the real issues at stake. The authorities no longer insulted students. The question of Bloom and Adelstein was in danger of being buried beneath a mass of irrelevant, nominal concessions.

It was announced that instead ofjj the 102 suspensions a fine of £5 was to be taken and given to charity. The students were adamant that this would not be paid but one element uniting these students with Bloom and Adelstein was successfully removed by the Administration.
The Standing Ctte. reduced the suspensions so that in the final month Bloom and Adelstein were 'allowed' to use the library and visit their tutors. The Director was 'to use his best endeavours to procure that the University of London will allow Mr. Bloom to sit his proposed examinations'.
REPRIEVE
A split then occured in Union. Students searched in vain for some sign of real concessions but could find none. The views of the moderates held sway in Union as the end of the Lent term was in siglit. The vote at a Union meeting was 177 students in favour of continuing the sit-in, 232 against.
Some students remained at^LSE during the vacation, but the sit-in was over. Meanwhile student representatives met the administration behind closed doors, and eventually the Court of Governors lifted the penalties on Bloom and Adclstein.
VICTORY?
The students had obviously won a substantial victory. The main question was why? The facade of friendliness shown by the authorities near the end of the sit-in had obscured their real bitter opposition to the students. It also obscured the harm it was doing to the administration. This could be tolerated only for a while. Students returning after vacation might have some difficulty in whipping up enthusiasm for another sit-in, but 'guerilla' sit-ins could be a possibility as students would be refreshed. This worried Caine no end. He even threatened to close the school until October.
After the students'initial stunned reaction to the victory, many stud-^ erits began to understand this. For a brief period united action had destroyed the authoritarian structure which transmitted the arbitrary justice of a powerful authoritarian structure at the top.
The legitimacy of the 'structures' authority had been discredited. The
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Beaver, Jan 20th 1972-Page 7
To end with the words of this book in the concluding chapter would be appropriate: "S student militant works with a population that changes completely every three years, and whose energy and idealism has not yet been worn away by the factory routine. Students are also much more open to the psychic liberation that comes from a successful confrontation and, not having families to support, they can better afford to take risks.
The strategies of the slow build ui
preceded by lengthy 'ideological preparation' often finds that by the time someone's consciousness has been raised sufficiently for action he has in fact graduated from university and one msut start all over again."
Thatis our task during our occupation, to prepare students for socialism. At the same time we must try and build the revolutionary party outside of the university so that those who leave may have some framework in which to carry on the
,striipplp fnr snnialism__

central problem of the administratis was to reassert this. The supposed l^gesse of 'clemency'hides a student viotury^ To deny this is to aid the reinippsition of the old power'struc-ture, albeit in some new form.

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VIETNAM AND THE GATES
October 1968. Within two weeks of the beginning of termh it was suggested in Soc/Soc that LSE should be occupied during the weekend of the 27th Vietnam march.
Onthe17thOctobera motion to the effect that LSE should be occupied was put to Union and passed 321 votes to 208. From then on there was panic on the administration side.
Wednesday 23rd October. "An overwhelming number of students, 1,200 turn up to a Union meeting. A motion to recind the Oct 17th Occupation motion is discussed. The Conservative and Labour Society Leaders remind students that the Academic Community in which we live will be destroyed. What had the occupation got to do with Vietnam they asked.
A close vote and then a recount on the motion brings it to 598-592 in favour of Occupation. The Union President asks the Union to declare by acclamation that it does not condemn those students who wish to occupy. Union so claims.
The Director put a letter on his notice board saying that the school was to be closed from Saturday evening to Monday morning for staff as well as students. That same evening, (24th October) the Occupation began, with only about 200 students sleeping in.
SUPPORT .
On the Friday morning, students went off to get food, and the Director stepped in with one of the porters and went round locking doors in the school. Support grew for the occupation to 1000. The 24th proved to be the biggest day in the history of Student Militant action.
L.S.E. was reasonably quiet during November. In December, however,
the "Oration" day, which is the only time governors come within spitting distance of the students, was disrupted by students who wanted a general debate with the governors.
Over the Christmas vacation the gates were put up, in fear of further occupations.
The Gates came down on Thursday 24th January, when Adams had closed the school as he had threatened to do ever since the massive demonstrations of the previous October against Vietnam.
Students were faced as usual with a barrage of press lies and distortions. This did not deter them. On the 25th of January, "we woke up to lurid headlines of student 'riot' 'rampage' etc, and 'radio reports reminiscent of the 'storming of the Winter Palace'. (Hoch and Schoen-bach).
After an occupation of ULU to cut the long 'Natives are Restless' story short, demoralisation set in. This was towards the end of January. But the administration came to the aid of students in providing new impetus for activity. Laurence Harris, a Lecturer who had supported the Gates received a letter from Lord Robbins explaining that his appointment was to be terminated on the grounds that he had supported the 'Gates issue', that he had actively participated in Union meetings which had passed motions against the administration,andhad supported proposals to enter the University of London buildings by force.
Blackburn and Bateson (Lecturers also received similar letters. Ted Short the Sec. of State for Education then launched into a diatribe about 'Academic Thugs', Americans and 'Brand X revolutionaries' who 'are disrupting and undermining British institutions'.
LOCK-OUT
Injunctions were brought against thirteen active members of Soc/ Soc designed to prevent them from coming near LSE. At the same time a letter went out to students from Adams; "The unhappy events of last week force us to reconsider fundamentals. I want to affirm to you my belief that the LSE is an academic community. This means that the values we hold-the values of freedom of opinions and tolerance of respect for truth and disinterested enquiry—must be shared values. It means that the rules by which we conduct our affairs must derive their strength from the positive support-not just the acquiescence-of the overwhelming majority of the community's members".
This came from the man who had just closed the school in defiance of that majority.
There followed meetings and meetings. Eventually a lock-out of stud-1 ents and academic staff proceeded. Mid-February Students returned to college. They had learnt a great deal from the occupation. More elaborate and therefore accurate information comes from Hoch and Schoenback's book 'The Natives are Restless' prin-1 ted by Sheed and Ward._______
Lessons Of 68 ~ 69
The struggle at LSE in 68-69 lit a beacon but it did not change the world.
The idea of revolution was re-integrated in the political vocabulary of our times but the reality of revolution is still a long way off.
I met a miner some months ago—an old socialist from the 1920's—he hadn't been politi cally active for years but he had observed the emergence of the student movement with great interest, and he had con eluded that the trouble with students was"that they watched the world through a glass tank".
This encapsulates the central flawwith student activity in the past—a lack of awareness of their real isolation—, actually it only becomes apparent to those of us who went through the student movement and then attempted to test our ideas 'on the other side of the glass'.
For the student movement is essentially a movement of protest—it can scream fluently and loudly at all the crimes of our society but that is all it can do scream.
Even in the local fight with Uni versity authorities, students strengtl can be dissipated with even the smallest crack of the whip. For students to think that they can take on the government by them selves by exercising the fantasy compartments of their minds, in practice leads to nowhere land or to real tragedy—i.e. the Kent State killings.
This is not to decry student protest,farfromit. It is to encourage it and to encourage its participants to learn from their experience, that
if they really want to change things then they must go beyond the limits of the student movement.
It is easy enough to say this now. It should have been said much r.iore firmly by the Marxist leaderhip of the Socialist Society at LSE in 1969. But we were weak and immature. We were seduced by the drame of our actions which resulted in our becoming almost totally absorbed in the intoxicating atmosphere created by the rebellion. -The "REVOLUTION NOW MAN" atmosphere which meant that the only result was bouts of manic depression when the struggle cofepsed, and we recognised its true signifi-cance.-A tickle on the body-capital instead of a sharp knife wound.
But what is it that lies beyond these limits of the student movement. It is quite simply the social reality of the vast majority of people—the humdrum monotonous existence of working-class life.
An existence where the glossy wrappings of pseudo post-war affluence are being torn apart by the depression of real wages, mounting unemployment and the <arve up of that phoney centre-piece of 20th century British capitalism-that phoney centrepiece, the Welfare State. Not to mention that delightful exercise in military oppression in Great Britain's backyard, Ulster.
It is precisely the revival of class war, that lies beyond the student movement. A war that urgently vitality and intelligence that dvuucterised the best aspects .of ihest&^lent revolt but a war ^that Wl not tolerate, because it oomndk afford to tolerate, preten-tia(Bftess, sloppiness, and self-indul-gent'-fantasies that characterised its worst aspects.
John Rose, (International Socialist,
(Active during 1968-69)
Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! Sail on, O Union, strong and great! Humanity with all its fears.
With all the hopes of future years. Is hanging breathless on thy Fate!
Longfellow
fLONG AWAITED SECOND
EDITION Read what your fellow
students are writing
Available from Union Shop,]
Economist and Millenium
Staffers, only 20p
HOMOSEXUAL MEN AND WOMEM
Joint Campaign for Homo-| sexual Equality.
Student and youth groupsJ meet regularly in London | Contact: Tom Barry, 102 WaN ton Road, East Molesey, Surrey.
Beaver, Jan 20th 1972-Page 8
IN DEFENCE OF STUDENT UNIONS
On January 23rd, the demon stration called by the NUS against the Tory Government's proposals on students unions is likely to be one of the biggest demos seen in London for many years. Almost every further education institution is mobilising support. But what will its effects be? In the present confusion of aims, very little is likely to be achieved.
Who, for example are students fighting? Mrs. Thatcher, the Tory Government, the LEA's, the state? For what ends? To preserve boat clubs and debating societies, or for political independence? This confusion must be cleared up if the mobilisation of students is to achieve anything in the coming months.
The Attack on student unions is a political attack by the state.
That these proposals were initiated by the lea's is a red-herring put around by the Federation of Conservative Students. Most local authorities have themselves attacked the Government's proposals.
The real basis for this attack is rooted in the socio-economic system and is part of the same attack on immigrants, trade unionists, the lower-paid. The stagnation of British capitalism over the last few years has had two linked effects. Firstly, the militancy of the working class based on the expectations built up in a period of growth has cut into profit margins, i.e. the wealth of the dominant class. As the whole system is built on investment by private capital owned by one class, the very existence of that class and system means the demands of the working-class have to be resisted.
As the expectations of the working class, both of full-employment and steadily rising material rewards, are frustrated, their militancy becomes directed against the very structure of production and society, not just against the distribution of total production. This is even more pronounced in groups who had little gain even in times of economic growth, i.e. immigrants, workers in depressed areas, etc.
The effect on students of this class struggle is also dependent on their role in the economic system. As students per se, they have no direct role in the means of production; their importance is in the role they will play in the future; as the necessary physical and social technicians necessary to organise and run highly complex production processes and
concentraiions of populaticgi and to create new. needs to make sure future production is consumed.
It is necessary to emphasise that monopoly capitalism cannot function without large numbers of these technicians. The stagnation of the system therefore hits students in the following way: Being taught as brain workers implies a better ability than most ^oups to comprehend the true relations in society. So long as the group is assured a privileged position in their future jobs, students easily acquiesce to the idedogy of capitalism. Stagnation means graduate unemployment of increasing magnitude. In this situation, they begin to see how expendable they are and the similarity between their own position and that of manual workers becomes clear. They therefore begin to question the ideology of capitalism and the role of the university in society.
This is why, as with other groups, student organisations must be weakened: so that they are unable to organise to affect the structure of the education factory in which they are just a necessary product-a capital investment-and therefor unable to attack the whole class structure of society.
The state tries to 'incorporate' all institutions.
The most efficient way to maintain class rule is to incorporate all autonomous organisation into the state, which is simply the concentration power of the ruling-class. This was first employed by Mussolini in Italy under the name of Fascism.
The present attempts by the western states is qualitatively different and might be termed 'proto-fascism!; or to use a better known concept-repressive tolerance. This means that instead of banning all opposition, as in a totalitarian state opposition is allowed so long as it does not threaten the existent social order.
In order to achieve this, it is necessary to ensure that no opposition groups have the autonomy to decide democratically their own aims and rules, but that their aims and rules are subject to control by the state. As the state is a democracy (i.e. elects a Parliament occasionally) this control is therefore 'democratic' control TTiis is highlighted best by the Industrial Relations Act which took away the power of unions to decide their own legally-binding constitutions.
In the case of student unions, 'Incorporation' means 'Accountability'.
With self-financing trade unions the state has to use chimerical 'national
mPAKTMENTS
GEOGRAPHY DEPT
Do you l^now that two hump backed whales equals one blue whale? That Archibald Grant was a well-respected 18th century Midlothian farmer? Such trivia is turned out in the guise of higher education and often appears merely to justify the lecturer's existence.
The declared intention of the course-unit system is to allow the individual to build up a degree to suit the individual student's tastes. This being so we in the Geography Dept are then subjected to a total of seven compulsory units out of the nine required for a degree.
A common first year of four units may well serve as a broad introduction to the subject, but specialisation beyond that is severely mauled by the compul sory British Isles and Regional units.
Many of the Department staff claim to support some course changes, but use as a scapegoat for inaction the con servative attitude of Kings Coll ege staff.
S.J. Miles G.E. Cadman 1. Smith
interest' arguments to gain control. In the case of student unions, it has an easier job because student unions use public funds. Therefore, they argue, s.u.'s must be accountable for the use of these funds-accountability to the "state". But, to quote an IMG leaflet
"Who is master of the state? What does the court which tried the Mangrove 9 serve? What do the jails holding political prisoners in Ireland serve? What do the ministries that fight the postal workers, the miners and the electricians serve? In whose interests do the officials implementing the immigration cuts work? Who benefits from the army's butchery in Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus, and the bloody war it is engaged in right now in Ireland? And what group profits from the stage-managed 'battles' in Parliament and the horse-trading behind the scenes? These are the bodies that make up the state, and they serve the interests of nobody but the bourgeoisie."
We should fully support financial accountability to those who produce the wealth of this country, i.e. the working class, but this is in no way achieved by accountability to the state.
LSE is already incorporated
LSE is not an educational establishment like others-its legal status is a limited company; and the students union is a department of that company. LSE already has a composition fee system; the Athletics Union is divided off; extensive constitutional control I's exercised by the School. But LSE is not an isolated struggle. Our chances for an autonomous union are governed by the general political policy of this government.
The reality of academic and college support.
The academics and college authorities at LSE as everywhere have expressed their disapproval of the government's proposals. Yet, out of all the academics at LSE, only 43 signed a petition supporting the students' fight, and the authorities refused to close the school despite having taken such action in previous situations.
The reality is that academics want student unions to carry aU the functions it excludes from its narrow academic conception of education. They want nothing to do with the social problems of student life and therefore- fully support the 'boat-club mentality' in students. What they do not want is the realisation by students that the 'academic community' is a myth and that the aims of students and colleges diverge very radically.
The students union becomes dangerous to their power and authority when it posits and supports a separate student interest.
State Funds must be used against the State.
We should be certain this attack is a political attack and therefore analyse the nature of contemporary politics. Because of the growing repression of the state, our political case should be this; in order to achieve a democratic society, autonomous democratic bodies-determining their own aims and constitutions democratically-are a vital necessity. We should therefore have no reservations about demanding complete autonomy and no
financial accountability for students unions.
The Liaison Committee for the Defence of Student Unions
Because the NUS executive have refused to make a principled political stand, radical unions and groups have organised themselves to put forward radical policies inside and outside of the official NUS structure. LSE has affiliated to the Liaison Committee on the basis of its politics, which can be summed up in seven points.
1.	Total political independence.
2.	Rejection of financial accountability.
3.	No negotiation on Thatcher's proposals.
4.	No collaboration with college authorities.
5.	Fights to extend autonomy.
6.	Use of militant, political action.
7.	Attempts to link up with all exploited groups.
Now is the time to move from theoretical to political support for radical politics, in supporting the demonstration on January 23rd, but also in generalising the struggle to attack the whole structure of education.
Nigel Willmott
SOC. ADMIN DEPT.
Voices from the Past?
"Every social worker is almost certain to be an agitator. If he or she learns social facts and beUeves that they are due to certain causes which beyond the power of an individual to remove, it is impossible to rest contented with the limited amount of good that can be done by following old methods and agitation to get people to see a new point of view....
The word 'agitator' is distrustful to many; it calls up a picture of a person who is rather unbalanced, honest perhaps, but wrongheaded, possibly dishonest, troubUng the waters with a view to fishing in them for his own benefit. This is mainly the point of view of the person who is on the whole contented with things as they are................"
Clement Attlee, Lecturer LSE, 1920 "If casework skills really exist, surely they are wasted on the British working class; would not the caseworkers do better to get their hands on some of the world's rulers."
Barbara Wooton, 1959 "There is in every profession a danger of fossiUsation..........................."
Seebohm Report 1968 SOC. ADMIN CO-OP


THE DECISION-MA KERS
Court of Governors Meeting, Dec. 16: A Reconstruction
Sir Walter Adams;	I'm in the unhappy position of having to inform
you that the natives are once again restless.
Baroness Stocks	Let them eat cake!
Lord Crowther:	I've heard something about this. Damned imperti-
nence I call it, bless my soul, ahem!
Earl of HalsbuiT?	Some rubbish about a union isn't it. One of your
Bolshie friends, I presume, Vic?
V. Feather;
Lord Hirshfield;
Lord Robens;
allow them to Dame Mary Green; Sir Walter Adams;
Earl of Drogheda;
the fuss Sir Walter Adams; Baroness Sharp;
anybody!
No, No! You know I gave that sort of thing up years ago!
I recall when I was a student at Cambridge.......
Yes, yes. We know all about that. Point is, do we have a mion or don't we, eh what?
But I though that they already had a union?
Yes they have. That's just the point............
What the deuce (pardon n^- language, ladies) is all about then?
They want a new one.
I would have thought one union rfas enough for I don't approve of all this chopping and changing anyway The youth of today don't appreciate their good fortvine. Why, I remember, during the worst days of the Great War, we cotadn't get aspic jelly anywhere. It just wasn't available, darlings. We tried............................
Lord Robens:
Well that's settled then. They can't have a new
union until the present once is quite worn out. Let's get on to more important business. Oh, I say Lord Molson, your glass is quite empty!
Lord Tangley;	Chin chin, everybody!
Beaver, Jan 20th 1972-Page 9
CONSERMTIVE PULL OUT SUPPLEMENT
PAGE ONE
CRISIS IN THE UNION
~a Tory answer
During this term we at the L.S.E. are going to be involved in the controversy over the Government's Consultative Document. Up to the present in the L;S.E. and elsewhere the response to this document has been anything but Consultative. The document has been labelled as an instrument of 'Tory oppression', and blind and thoughtless opposition to its proposals has been the order of the day.
However, as students, we must take a reasoned approach to the matter, give it detailed analysis, and come up with well thought out alternatives.
A University is supposed to be a place for rational argument and not one for oppressive totalitarianism. The tactics of the morning of the last 'day of action', where intimidation and physical obstruction were used against fellow-students going about their own School, were a disgrace to any freethinking institution.
Students should be free to make up their own minds. And for this reason I am attempting to lay out some arguments for consideration and discussion.
PRESSURES.
First and foremost we must consider tlie pressures that broug)it about this document. Contrary to the beliefs of some people, this was not a Tory plot. The Conservatives have always been pro-student. There are more Conservative M.P.swho were University students, than Labour M.P.s. Mrs. Thatcher herself was President of Oxford University Conservatives.
The pressures came from the Local Education Authorities. These have always objected to paying Union fees, over the level of which they have no say. And this feeUng prevails in Tory and Labour Councils alike.
It is interesting to note that when Kingston-upon-Thames LEA found a legal loophole by which they need not have paid Kingston Poly. Student Union its fee, Mrs. Thatcher supported the students and made a technical amendment to safeguard the union fee. It was as a result of this incident that the need for reform was recognised as urgent. Reform is a necessity that has never been avoided by this Government.
OPPOSITION TO D.E.S. PROPOSALS
However, 1 object to the form that this reform has taken. Fortunately this is a	Document and the
reforms are not definite.
By handing the Union p:ant to the College Authorities to disburse in the amount, and to whom, they see fit. .the Proposals will have two results:
In the small Colleges which have weak unions, the Authorities may well run the facilities themselves and provide no funds to the Unions. This would fatally weaken many small struggling Unions. The Authorities would then have the capacity to interfere in the Union's affairs.
In the Colleges where there are strong Unions, most College Authorities would still hand over the funds, with potential for abuse unchanged.
Any onus for control over finances would be directly with the College Authorities. With weak Unions they would be overbearing whereas with strong Unions they wiU often not intervene in situations of abuse of funds, for fear of disturbances.
The proposals make rather woolly suggestions about Societies. These could be dangerous, but the vagueness at least provides the opportunity for practical suggestions.
A major defect of the documentisthatit does not face up to the extremely controversial and intricate problem of democracy within the Unions.
DEMOCRACY
We know from our own experience of the tedium and time-consumption of Union General Meetings. These U.G.M.s are the forum of the Union, but due to their myriad defects and general boredom, most students do not think it worthwhile to turn up; or due to their frequency, have not the time to spare.
BUT THIS IS NO REASON WHY STUDENTS SHOULD BE DISENFRANCHISED. For this is the consequence of the present Soc. Soc. Constitutional proposals.
SOC. soc. CONSTITUTION
Their proposals provide for election to all senior posts in the Union, by show-of hands in a U.G.M. with all that that entails, in terms of intimidation, filibustering, gerrymandering, and irregularities. Before coming to the L.S.E., I never thought 1 would see Socialists proposing the abolition of the (secret) ballot box for major elections. At the same time they propose a drop in the U.G.M. quorum to 100-a mere 3 1/3% of the student body.
They are proposing a system where, the Student Union Constitution could be changed by a mere 67 votes (out of some 3000 students).
With the present abysmal standard of
Union publicity, this would open the way for rule by a caucus of which any totalitarian would be proud.
The Soc. Soc. Constitution also provides for the banning of any Society which incurs displeasure. The inevitable result will be the suppression of opposition.
If a Union, with as proud and successful a history as that of the L.S.E. Students Union, can find itself in such a danger, then there must be some impartial outside person to lay down standards of representative democracy.
1 believe that reform is needed to both guarantee Union finance and safeguard public money provided for collective students' amenities; and to ensure minimum standards of representative democracy in the Unions. That reform is the establishment of a
REGISTRAR OF STUDENTS' UNIONS
He would be an independent Constitutional lawyer, appointed by the Secretary of State, after consultation with the NUS and the Vice-Chancellors. His duties would be to approve Students Union's Constitutions on the basis of certain minimum financial and democratic standards. Haying achieved this approval, the Union would then have the absolute right to a per capita grant by the U.G.C. It would then be completely free to spend that grant as it saw fit, within the powers of its own Constitution.
ADVANTAGES
The advantages would be greatest for the smaller Unions and particularly those of the Polytechnics and the Teacher Training Colleges. For the first time they will achieve parity of finance with the big Unions. This injustice has long been
neglected by the N.U.S. All Unions will be ensured finance on an equal basis.
INDEPENDENT UNION
EverV College, throughout the country, would at last have a really independent Union. At L.S.E., not the hollow sham of the Soc. Soc. view of "autonomy", which if followed will lead to a Union which would be both bankrupted and in an impossible position-if in their righteous self-pity they have not destroyed it altogether.
The financial standards required by the Registrar would be provisions written into the Constitution and Standing Orders, ensuring that Union funds are only spent on closely defined student amenities.
Politici payments, however justified the cause, must not be made with Public Money. It has been provided for collective student amenities. If the public wish to make political or charitable payments out of public funds, the Government of the day will do so on its behalf. This will not affect any individual student's right to spend his own money (including from his personal grant) on whatever he pleases.
If 'ultra vires' (=unconstitutional) payments are made, the Registrar would be able to freeze the Union's funds and order restitution.
The democratic standards are a more difficult matter. As a minimum they should include secret balloted elections for top Union posts, and U.G.M. quorums of at least 5%.
Provisions for Constitutional Amendments should be worked out and subject to referendum by ballot by all students. Amendments would also have to be approved by the Registrar.
OMBUDSMAN
The Registrar brings the unfortunate aspect of an outside body into the Univers-
Iities. I am afraid I do not consider that Students Unions are today part of the Academic World. They have progressed a long way in the last decades. They are beyond the ambit of the Academic Authorities, who have been unprepared or unwilling to insist on certain standards.
Society-at-large insists on reform, and who better to act than an ombudsman arbitrating between the paying public, and the receiving Students Unions?
Criticism of the Consultative Document has come firom the F.C.S., N.U.S., Vice-Chancellors, and even from the Local Authorities. The Conservative Party is swinging against.
Now is the time for real student Statesmanship. The N.U.S. has been disastrous in its approach. It has acted in the most effective way to inflame public opinion and to gather support for the Consultative Document, by running disorganised demos. 1 dread to think of the possibilities of the next 'day of action.'
THE CHALLENGE
We are at a turning point in the development of our L.S.E. Students Union. We can either follow Soc. Soc. along the path to disaster by supporting an oppressive Constitution and taking part in counterproductive demos., or we can re-establish L.S.E.'s brilliance, by evolving a truly democratic new Constitution, and formulating our own views on this great issue of Students Unions Reform.
JACQUES ARNOLD
Chairman, L.S.E. Conservative Society.
GHRISTHmS CHOI
The LSEwasdead,everybody knew that, the question that people were asking was why did the LSE die? The new students did know why the LSE had died, in an indirect way.
The LSE had in fact died from over consumption. The symptoms were those of dead ideas, resulting from a plague that was disastrous to any university that caught it. The plague was that of provincialism. First developing in the intellectual staff, it developed them into academics, losing the capacity to create. The former intellects now Degan talking in terms of criticism. The words they hated to hear consisted of sentences like...will to intellectual power...creation of ihoxight for thought's sake. One of the academics remarked that his students should not get too involved with subjects.
The plague had hit the students. They now began to read books hke HOW TO PASS EXAMS and MY FORTY THREE YEARS IN THE CIVIL SERVICE. The Guardian is their thought-book on how to be a truly compact lemonade liberal.
There has been a certain shudder in the death-bed. A certain movement occurred. Soc. Soc. administered a dose called "autonomous union". But it was only the body repeating itself.
A new dosage they might consider is that of creating a new and more dynamic intellectual power.(like you? -Ed.) All of the aware students (of any political thought) must regard the above condition as being of the utmost importance; once accepting this, we must change it.
M.L. Mackintosh (Chairman ULUMonday Club)
London School of Economics Conservative Society
Hon. President The Rt. Hon. Sir Alec Douglas-Home, K.T.,M.P.
Houghton Street London, WC2.
10 ">0 "^1
c. • a. £- • I ^
Tae iciitor,
Beaver,
XJ• • lii• o't'v^G.en't' LJiixoxi*	_
Dear .Uiss -Veilings,
I v/onder if you woald li.ve to include this report of oar Xmas Party in the next issue of Beaver.
CONSERVATIVE SOCIETY XI.iAS PARTY.
An L.S.E.Conservative Society Christi-nas Party attended by members
held in »Voodford,iissez,on
disadvantage
and their respective boy or girl friends the final Saturday of last term.The only so far from Central London v;a selves before getting to the pad.Still as a re.aiinder to buy a new A-Z.
That ex-chairman of a Uaioa Meeting and L.S,Ei« primary
of holding a party that nearly everyone managed to lose them-somebody remarked it should act
non-Socialist
sj^okesman,the ubiquitous Jacques Arnold was,of course,there,to disappear ..around midnight to a corner murmuring something about the Registrar being the obvious solution to the problem of Student Union Reform.He was joined in rather noisy debate by David Robertson v;ho had brought along a bottle of Martini and drank it all by himself.Meanwhile Jacques' girlfriend was chatted up by someon^se .The rest of the party ignored them and continued with the festivities.A good selection of food was available although Brian Broadbridge created a stir by producing a sponge cake filled with greaseproof paper which he explained was no good anyway because it was overcooked,Jacques Arnold brought a can of peanuts.The main thanks though for the food must go to David Evennett's sister and Christine Davis v/ho provided some excellent cocktail savouries.However the main ingredients for a good party are the people virho work quietly behind the scenes and do the co-ordinatiS)n .For this v^e must thank David Evennett.
Ov7ing to the success of this party the Committee has been inspired to plan another party for thlfi term.Con.Soc.members will be kept informed.
(L >Q-o -CLIFFORD J.DEAR.
Vice-Chairman L.S.E,Conservative Society.
Beaver, Jan 20th 1972-Page 10
CONSERVATIVE PULL OUT SUPPLEMENT
PAGE TWO\
A NEW LOOK AT STUDENT LOANS
News crept out at the beginning of January that the Department of Education and Science had carried out a preliminary study on the idea of partially replacing student grants by a loans scheme. The idea, which if it was implemented could save, it has been estimated around £50 million annually, was immediately frowned upon by such bodies as the National Union of Students and surprisingly the Federation of Conservative Students. Both would seem misguided on this subject.
A loans scheme-and not necessarily just a partial loans scheme-is the obvious answer to the increasing pressure on local authorities and government alike of the Educational budget. As increasing numbers of young people go on to Further Education this budget is going to become in the future even more demanding. And whilst money is going towards students upkeep it is being diverted away from the education areas which really and urgently need financial support-the most blatant being secondary school buildings, nursery schools and centres for the handi
capped.
OBJECTIONS
What then are the objections to a loans scheme? F.C.S. declares that it only believes in systems of student financing which aim at providing the greatest number of people with the greatest opportunity for education regardless of parental background or income. So why an objection to a loans scheme? A loans scheme fits this criterion better than the present system of grants. Under the present system students from the middle and upper classes and income brackets are discriminated against through a parental means test. This can lead to the student on a maximum grant being vastly better off that the student on a minimum grant supposedly being brought up to the maximum by parental contributions. The loans system would ensure everyone irrespective of parental class or income embarked on further education as an independent individual and not a parasite on parents. It could be argued that if the sons and daughters of the rich were allowed loans then firstly, they would be vastly better off owing to parental contributions than those students purely on loans, and secondly, the offspring of the rich would get "daddy" to pay off the loan when they finished college and
thus start work with an unfair advantage ( ductory period before the repayments over other loan-only students.	I start the scheme will cost more than the
\-only
On the first point, as long as incomes continue to be unequal there will always be the possibility of this happening-it can under the present system. What a loans scheme achieves is that no one is forced to rely on their parents for support. On the second point repayment of the loan-and having a loan would be compulsory-would be by an attachment to earnings system and thus parents or anybody else would not be able to pay off the actual loan. The only action well-off parents or relatives could take would be to give the amount of the loan as a gift to the student thus giving the fortunate graduate a lump sum advantage over loan-only students. And this can happen today, as again it always will whilst incomes remain unequal.
Thus to sum up, a loans system would enable every student to be independent irrespective of background, a situation the present system does not permit. Those who argue that the same results could be obtained by giving every student a full grant have failed to grasp the reason for the advocacy for the introduction of a loans scheme-to save money which can go to more financially urgent educational areas. Obviously during the initial intro-
present system but once the repayments do start the savings will start to accrue. It must be remembered that at present the cost to local authorities and the government of student maintenance is around £60 million annually.
DISINCENTIVE
A loans scheme is often attacked for being a disincentive for certain groups, for example women and those proposing to enter low-paid jobs. A carefully thought out scheme need have no such disincentive. By having repayments of loans attached to earnings those who earn nothing, repay nothing; those who earn a little, pay back a little; those who earn a lot pay off their loan quickly. In fact a loans system could be used as an integral part of indicative economic planning. If a graduate goes into certain given •occupations-say some arm of the social services-then no loan repayment is made. There would be no reason for the poor to be put off entering a loans scheme-no job after graduation then no repayments; a badly paid job after graduation only small repayments. If a student drops out before graduating then probably some arrangement could be come to
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whereby the debt was wiped out. For those graduates whose economic situation changes during the repayment period-such as acquiring an elderly or handicapped dependent for ex^mple-an arrangement for a suitable reduction in loan repayments could be forked out.
REPAYMENTS
As to the level of repayment it would appear to be expecting too much to demand that students should have to pay the full cost of Further Education-for example for the provision of buildings, heating, lighting and so on. But the student should expect to pay for his maintenance as he would in any other occupation. Hence students would have to accept loans. For those who feared the idea of borrowing money and preferred to work first and save and then spend, a system could be implemented whereby again through an attachment to earnings system credits could be built up to the value of a loan. Those who argue that a student should not be expected to have to pay for his maintenance like any other person in any other occupation would appear to be advocating a distasteful form of privilege not

consistent with the ideal of equality of opportunity.
Length of repayment period would obviously depend on how quickly the loan was being repaid. Graduates would be repaying according to salary and it would be quite possible to fix minimums and maximums-applicable to all irrespective of income-to prevent repayments dragging on forever or loans in effect being repaid by a few lump sums. These extremes could act as incentives for graduates, to go into interesting and valuable but badly paid work during the currency of the repayment of the loan prior to entering the more financially rewarding sectors.
POST-GRADS
A loans scheme would also be advantageous in the postgraduate field. At present many students, unable to secure finance, are unable to turn to take a postgraduate course, or have to take it part time. A loans scheme would remove this financial barrier. Whether loans to students would have to carry interest and at what rate can be discussed with interested bodies
before a decision is taken.
With the growing student population and the increasing possibility that the tolerable level-what is tolerable I am only too aware is
a value judgement-of the Education budget is being reached under the present financial situation, a students' loan scheme appears to be a viable solution to the dilemma of educational resources distribution. It is to be hoped that it will not be allowed to be pushed under the carpet by defenders of the status quo and that a loans scheme will figure large in any debate on student finance. It deserves a better place in discussion than it has had up to now.
Clifford J. Dear
Vice-Chairman L.S.E. Conservative
Society.
CON-SOC VISITS THE TELEGRAPH
"We've had a bomb threat from the IRA so you'll have to leave all your bags here." So began Con Soc's visit to the Daily Telegraph on Thursday 9th December. The visit proved to be extremely interesting, the most memorable feature being the obituaries that are prepared and kept up to date on all famous and infamous people (including Sir Walter Adams?), Our guide a veritable Potter (I.T.V.'s "Please Sir"), whos? obituary is kept in the ¦ Old Bailey, also explained how the Telegraph is transmitted to the QE2 every night, so that each passenger can be given a copy at breakfast.
The first part of our tour over, we adjoumed to the staff canteen, only to be harangued by canteen-staff wanting to know how Conservatives could have long hair (Jacques not being present) and what our policy is towards China! The second part of our tour commenced as the first edition began to "roll off the presses". The same presses have been in use nearly every night for the last 50 years and present production is 1.5 million copies per night.
The main conclusion to be drawn from the evening is that Con Soc not only has the best programme of speakers, but also the best programme of external events. Thanks to Clifford J. Dear for making all the arrangements; next outingfor 6 mem ers is on Wednesday 19th January to "The Times".
John Blundell
Beaver, Jan 20th 1972-Page 11
THE ATHLETIC UNION PAGE
Down and Outs fwm
London to Paris
or THE TALE OF TWO PISS-ARTISTS
At 8 o'clock one dank and dark Friday morning the L.S.E. rugby team stumbled their way to Victoria Station under the misapprehension they were going to Paris to play Rugby.
Characteristically "Fingers" Whelan cut the conductor for his ticket and off we went shouting "Paris or Bust"—and everybody forgot about Paris.
Ten hours later and a little lighter in the head and pocket we arrived to be greeted by our hosts and whisked off to our secluded training headquarters in the country.
Rigorous training was soon undertaken until early in the morning being joined halfway by a few shirkers who decided to train alone.
AMAZED
Reinforced by this false COURAGE (which is pretty false ayway—the team reassembled at ten the following morning and stood in the middle of the pitch in amazement as the French team used the Indi an's ploy of circling their victims.
After this show of French
exhibitionism the game commenced.
In a scrappy game caused by their student Referees mis-interpretation of the laws of the game—a point which did not go unnoticed by our vociferous supporters we took a 6-0 lead thanks to the boot of "Fingers", a remarkable feat. "Shorty" Swinden took leave of us halfway through the 2nd half, the strain being too much for him, to be replaced by "Rudy".
APOLOGY
A dubious and later and apologised for decision gave H.E.C. their equaliser which despite our strong finishing pressure they hung on to. There followed a banquet, a period of "general ribaldry".
Captain Fred Marrow excelled himself in his inability to consume the vast amount of alcohol available to him—a one man attempt to drink the bar dry.
After this the team went their own way though funnily enough the Pigalle was always the final destination. Several members distinguished themselves by travelling back in body though not in spirit, a state further troubled by the rough crossing.
SIMMONDS
UNIVERSITY BOOKSELLERS
Our shop is not the biggest in London, but it is among the best. And it's a place where you will obtain individual attention.
16 FLEET STREET LONDON, E.C.4
(opp. Chancery Lane) 353 3907
JEWELLERY AND WATCHES
20% • 25% DISCOUNT to all NUS members and Un^/ersity staff DIAMOND ENGAGEMENT RINGS. Gold—Wedding and Signet Rings. Gold and Silver—Cigarette Cases, Powder Boxes, Bracelets, Necklaces, Charms Brooches Earclips, Links. Silver and E.P.N.S. Tea-sets, etc. 10% - 20% DISCOUNT to all NUS members and University staff on all Branded Goods—All Swiss Watches, Clocks, Cutlery, Pens, Lighters etc.
and on all Second-hand Jewellery.	'
Remodelling and repairs to all jewellery and repairs to watches
GEORGES & CO. of Hatton Garden
(Entrance In Greville Street only) 88/90 HATTON GARDEN, E.C.1
Showroom Open Weekdays 9-6, Saturday 9 - 12 Special attention to orders by post or "phone: 01-405 0700/6431
KEEP-FIT CLUB
The Keep-Fit Club has restarted this term
I
on Thursday nights from 6.00 to 7.00 in the Gym.
Anyone interested is welcome to come along
CHLERBaH
Film Soc Contributors and Public lectures
Thursday 20th Jan-Film 7.00pm Jule at Jim
Truffaut Traig-Comedy Public lecture 5.00pm.
XlXth century explanation of the nature of chemical activity Chemistry and Mechanics (First of two) Proff. E.N. Hiebert.
Friday 21st Jan. Public lecture Second lecture on above.
Possible Occupation
Tuesday 25 th January
Film.......The Russians are Coming
.Public lecture Special University lecture Proff. E.C. Banfield.
Wednesday 26th January Public lecture
Conflict and Co-operation.. .(How apt) Man and the Social Sciences.
Proff. G.L.Goodwin
Wednesday 2nd Feb.
Public lecture
Social and Public Remedies Man and the Social Sciences Proff. R.A. Parker
Thursday 3rd February Film
Hellzapoppin
Thursday 27th Jan. Film Rocco and his brothers Dir. Luchino Visconti
Tuesday 1st Feb. Film 'Z' Yves Montand/Irene Papas J.L. Trintignant
NOW AVAILABLE AT THE UNION SHOP At Great Reductions: Coffee Percolators, Radios, Electric blankets, kettles, toasters. Irons, shavers, record players, radiograms. Tape recorders, electric drills, vacuum cleaners, Televisions.
WE V\^OULD LIKE TO DRAW YOUR ATTENTION TO TWO OF THE OUTSTANDING FILMS OF 1972
TOM ( 01 in I^.V\Y M Ivan in
iLEX.i^»ER
THE 1970 WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE.
TOM COURTENAY n Alexander Sobhenitsyn's
"ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF IVAN DENISOVICH
with ALFRED BURKE
JAMES MAXWELL- ERIC THOMPSON Mus«byARNE IMORDHEIM SaearJajb*RONALD HARWOOO
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FREE THE LSE
Starting this Friday, Union will be occupying the LSE. The purpose of this occupation is to strike a blow for autonomy, and against the various authorities that now control our education, our unions, and our very development as students.
The first of these oppressive forces is of course, HM Government, as represented in this instance by Margaret Thatcher and the DES. Thus the first reason for calling for this occupation is to support Sunday's NUS demonstration by "providing accomodation and facilities" for fellow students from outside Lond-
on.
Speakers at last Friday's Union meeting, where the motion to occupy was carried overwhelmingly, declared that militant response to the Consultative Document has earned some government reaction, if only in the form of a nice show of Tory manipulation attempts. The DES is now trying to get away with postponing their plans until July, when students will no longer exist as a body. The government's goal remains the introduction of some degree of "public accountability" (i.e. financial control) over our unions. Proposals for a Registrar have replaced the original idea of making each college authority responsible for its own student's finances. The end result, if these plans succeed, remains the emasculation of any independence student unions either have now or could hope to achieve in the future.
Speakers at the meeting pointed out that this issue goes deeper than a mere desire for student freedom. It should be realised that when the government mentions '"accountabihty", they don't really mean that we should be responsible to the actual producers of society's wealth for Jiow ware spending it. Rather, they mean that we should answer for our expenditures to f/iewi-the same government that uses the people's wealth for gas and guns and concentration camps in Ireland, for selling out the Black people in Rhodesia, for somehow in this technologically advanced day and age creating amillion unemployed in this country, for supporting the American troops in Vietnam, and so forth ad nauseum. It is such anti-social acts as these that should in fact really be termed "ultra-vires payments"!
Therefore, Sunday's demonstration is not simply an action in defence of student unions' right to control their own finances, We are also saying that we are well aware of the government's motives for starting this attack. We realise that they arc concerned not primarily with our chess clubs and religious societies, but with the political actions students have been taking in recent years. Occupying this weekend, and marching this Sunday, is one way of showing the government that we intend to continue acting politically and we intend to continue opposing their rotten, oppressive, capitalist system.
Autonomy at home
The LSE Union itself at present has, of course, no autonomy worth mentioning, as we have for many years already been operating under the Thatcher proposals. It is in fact symptomatic of the very nature of this university that the position of its college authorities should coincide so perfectly with the Tory government's prpposals. Those in power at the LSE
represent leaders of government and business circles, and they see the purpose of institutions such as the LSE as being to perpetuate functionaries who will carry on their authoritarian and exploitative system-either by exercising power themselves, as within the government service, or by conditioning others to accept this power, through serving as teachers, managers, and in similar positions of social control.
It was pointed out at the Union meeting that this very concept of the LSE as a provider of future Tories and business tycoons, is one of the things we must contest this weekend, The issue of autonomy cannot be restricted to the cause of political independence for Union. Rather, we must extend this concept into the sphere of our every-day lives. We must begin to question how much control we as students actually have over our own education. For not only does this system control the number and type of people
admitted to institutions of so-called higher education, but once we get here, it controls what we learn and how we learn it. Instead of providing a forum and the resources for us to educate oiu-selves, they present us with a ready-made syllabus of facts to be memorised and "value-free" formulas with which to properly pigeonhole and describe social forces-as opposed to criticizing and understanding them.
We are occupying the LSE, not only in opposition to threats against Union, but as the first step in an active effort to begin re-asserting control over our everyday lives. Most fundamentally, we are occupying as a means of self- education, to tlu-ow off this school's and this society's control over our minds, and to start a collective, independent process of self-definition. We aim to begin dealing critically with the questions of who are we? Why are we here? What do we really want to learn? What are they indoctrinating us? What is our relationship to crtr-iAtv ac	and as social scien-
^The Union is Dead Long Live the Union!'
Last Friday, union voted to uni- ence between Council and Adams on laterally implement the new consti- the board in the St. Clements build-tution. All the channels have now ing.)
been exhausted-that is, if we believe Hence we are now at a critical that we cannot accept any compro- point. Either we have to knuckle mise on the principle of autonomy under and accept that we can do We could go on negotiating till king- nothing about the Schools power dom come over small details or insi- over the constitution or we have to gnificant clauses but the fact remains challenge that power by disregarding that the Court of Governors have said the Courts veto of the new constitu-quite clearly that they are not tion. This latter course was over-prepared to accept a union constitu- whelmingly adopted by the Union, tion which is controlled completely	if we really believe in union
by the union. (See the correspond-autonomy ^then we can show this by
putting into practice the new constit-
tists? What role shall we play when we leave university? What exactly does a degree represent anyway?
In short, we aim this weekend to for once introduce some real education and some real social science into these Houghton Street Buildings.
L.J
ution. If we mean what we say, then we should be prepared to defend this move by all means necessary. This was the message of last Fridays union meeting.
Move with Vour feet l