NEWSPAPER OF THE LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS STUDENTS' UNION
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Price 21p No. 107 February 25, 1971
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Page 2
BUNKERS ON THE UNION
The narcissistic antics of the union in the last few months and the virtual dissolution of Socsoc over the last year has tended to obscure the natural conflict between the students and the administration. I use the word "natural" cautiously not just as rhetoric. In the past it was very likely that far more of an academic community, bound together by common interests and with a distinct academic ethos, did exist— although no doubt it was never such an idyllic state of nature as painted. We, however, are living and working in the post-Robbins (Report!) university, where a great increase in the student population has been followed, as a necessary concommitant, by a lessening in communication between students and administration and also senior academics. Increasingly our only contacts are with the junior members of the administrative and academic staff. Yet no-one foresaw the effect an increase in numbers and acceptance of i'he fact that the university's function was to produce the managers and t^hnocrats to administer the complex modern industrial state, would have on the balance of power within the institution. Institutions and their functions are those evolved during the former situation. Indeed the existence of the court of governors, the academic board and the students' union in its present form stiU misleads those in the system into thinking nothing has changed.
Here we have the crux of the problem. The platitudes about the existence of an academic community are trotted out with regards to plans for representation. Most if not all student advocates of the scheme believe we are junior partners in an academic community, entitled to put forward our point of view. The administration have come to terms with the changed circumstances rather more quickly than many students who fail to learn from the experiences of the last few years. They appear to accept the notion of an academic community but place their emphasis, in justifying representation, on the students' role as a pressure group. Representation is their answer to the breakdown in communication; the underlying assumptions rule out any meaningful dialogue.
The natural allies of the adininistration in the new situation are the senior academics who sit on the court of governors and staff the various committees.
The students' union is rapidly entering into the relation of a trade union with the administration. Our legitimate concerns—our working facilities, accommodation, etc.— are not theirs, and because they have control over these, we have to negotiate. Under the existing constitution a recognition of this fact is impossible—this being intensified by the "special relationship" between the Director and our President, which took little account of the views of the students. The draft constitution prepared by the Constitution Committee, despite its imperfections seems tacitly to recognise the changing balance of power within the School. A mandating of the proposed political committee to act as our negotiators with the administration would render unnecessary these offers of token representation.
Junior members of staff—both academic and administrative—are also in an employer-employee relationship with the hierarchy running this establishment. W'hile their interests are not always ours, we too have potential allies.
And finally, where does this lead us? Surely ultimately to the running of this college by these groups—students, academics and workers. With a Court of Governors dominat-inated by big business which has the administration and senior academics in its pocket, the movement towards a democratic university is part of the movement towards a more democratic, socialist society.
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BEAVER_
The Turn of the Screw and the Turn of the Student
One of the petty vindictive cuts in the demon Barber's package last autumn was a cut back in the growth rate of the budget of the Social Science Research Council. As a result of this the S.S.R.C. has told universities that as from the next session, two-year awards cannot be extended as in the past.
Many graduate students at LSE are of course reliant on S.S.R.C. awards to finance them while researching for their doctorates and this move means that many will be in considerable hardship, while their work will no doubt suffer either from the necessity to find a part-time job and from the uncertainty into which they have heen plunged at the whim of a petty-minded government (the same one which slapped a charge on a visit to publicly owned museums and art galleries and which seems to want to bring back the public censor).
Individual social science departments are faced with the invidious choice between allowing existing students to complete their courses and allowing younger ones to start. It will be very difficult to choose which second year students to support when competition will be so intense for third year awards. They wi'U also have to decide whether to stop awards to second or third year students or reduce the year-entry.
The answer of the S.S.R.C. to the disquiet expressed by staff and students was that they had been "misled." However, in this matter the Council is in the hands of the Morning Cloud mob—caught in the dilemma of any government agency which has to plan for years ahead regardless of the vagaries of government policy. The powers that be may wish to decrease the year-entry. But of so why not admit it? Alternativdy, they may wish to stop half-finished research and divert students to the M.Phil, course. These are petty economy measures which knock another nail into the coffin of academic freedom by restricting the freedom of choice of students (and academics). However, there are even more disquieting rumours, stating that these obstacles are not being applied to "productive research". Many social scientists are beginning to feel disturbed about the role of government and large corporations in financing much of their research and the efi'ect this may have on their academic integrity. In this case who decides which is productive research? Evidently the government. Not only are they incapable of making this judgment in the first place, but with their openly biased nature evident to all, the situation is even more disquieting.
Film Society	Music Society
Annual General Meeting Annual General Meeting March 17th, 1.30 p.m. O.T. Friday, February 26th, 1
p.m. S.421.
Dear Liz,
For the last issue of Beaver I submitted an article entitled "Gay Liberation Front Sucks, Fucks, Licks and Loves, and Gets Busted", and I expressly asked that nothing in the article should be censored—to which you gave your verbal agreement so far as you, as editor, were concerned, though you predicted that the printers would apply their own censorship. I appreciate your whole-hearted efforts to find a more suitable printer.
My article appeared under the corny and inappropriate headline "Disquiet on the Gay Front". The purpose behind my original title was to contrast the beauty of gay people coming together with the destructiveness of the police.
At the Beaver office I was given three different accounts of why the article was censored: (1) the printers would have censored it anyway and made a mess of the proofs which would then have to be changed—empty spaces couldn't be left where the censor struck as sometimes this would mean whole pages would be left blank, then (2) I was told the two people working on the layout had decided it wasn't a suitable title and so they decided to change it. Someone else added that he thought it would lower the tone of the paper, and it was sold to staff, and sales would slump if you published that kind of thing. Finally (3) you yourself told me that headlines, by convention were entirely in the hands of the person who does the layout, and he had told you that my title was too long and so had replaced it himself, and his word was final.
It seems that the whole scene at Beaver is a pile of shit, and that students writing articles cannot write what they feel without being censored.
BOB MELLORS.
February 25, 1971
-^
LETTERS
Why not Camelot
Dear Madam,
I feel I must complain about the treatment handed out to the new president, Ian Camlett, in the leading article of your last issue. It is well known that most of the staff of Beaver are violently anti-Camlett, which stems from the latiter's antipathy towards Stoke City F.C. and also to the fact that Chelsea murdered Aris Salonika earlier in the season.
John Stickitujpyourassos, you(r political correspondent, whom many suspect of writing much of the rubbish in your Paper, seems particularly averse to Camlett. This arch-type 'smoothie' who must rank alongside his contemporary Alex Duffy as one of the biggest 'shmocks' at L.S.E. is obviously jealous of Camlett's success, but he need not fear as I am sure that when Ian officially takes over, he will give 'Fat-ass' a nice post as the main part of the barricade in the renewed occupation of Houghton Street.
Finally I should like to end on a hopeful note. The hope is that Ian Camiett will hand over the editorship of Beaver to one of his supershmocks.
Yours faithfully,
G. S. RALTON.
Some need it more
Dear Madam,
At the Union meeting on the 12th February, it was proposed that we should give £20 of Union funds to the Post Office workers now on strike. The asserted aim was to express solidarity with the Trade Unions. What have we as students got to do with Trade Unions? We have no jobs, and it is significant that the first people to show contempt for students are the 'workers'.
Notwithstanding legal problems regarding our status as a charity, I move that we do not squander this money which appears so easily available. The Post Office workers are quite capable of working for their money like any responsible people. If, however, the Union is rich enough to spare this money, let it be donated to a charity such as the Spastics Society—'they are handicapped, or the Sunshine Home for Babies—they are blind. There is plenty of choice.
Is not their need greater?
Let's show that our social conscience is not just show!
ROBERT HARRIS.
Tuckett justifies himself
Dear Madam,
Since I came in for a little more denigration than is customary in your last issue of 'Beaver', permit me at least to make one or two points by way of reply.
Concerning my review of Eric Ashby's book on p.8--and this is a rather difl^erent matter—your handling of the proofs prior to going to press strikes me as being arbitrary and irresponsible. At your suggestion I shortened the article by some 150 words but, in the event, the deleted sections were incorporated in the article and you removed instead a passage of similar length containing the crux of my argument about student representation. This related to the implications of the 1940 Charter on student rights and responsibilities and the draft proposals of 1967, concerning which I thought Ashby's treatment totally inadequate.
Concerning the recent Presidential election;
1.	Mr. Pryce had nothing to do with my decision to run and, just for the record, I was never "incarcerated" in the President's office with Pryce "drinking Union sherry." Pryce himself doesn't know what sherry is and I wouldn't touch Union sherry with a barge pole. And while I have the opportunity to reflect on the contents of your article 'Rerum Pervertere Causas' (interesting title), you might take the trouble to verify your facts before attributing such distasteful language to Mr. Pryce himself.
2.	Your editorial comment on the recent Presidential election has about as much relevance as the election itself, dubbed by your reporters as a "Galactic farce" (whatever that might mean). You say that "for the first time in years we have a President elected by popular vote". You must be joking. Most Presidents are elected by 'popular vote' but then, there wasn't exactly a stampede for the ballot box. The problem with our Union nowadays, however, and this you might have touched on, is that presidents elected by popular vote rarely get any co-operation in the union meeting.
I was also amused at finding myself in one of the "accep-tcd groupings" along with Mr. Hickley and Mr. Rumble and condemned "to ignominy by a vengeful electorate. But for the record, I had always dissociated myself from the "former set-up", as you so delicately put it, and it was the petty wranglings of that clique which led to its "annihilation" after the first few counts with only a handful of votes to its credit. I wasn't eliminated until the eleventh count (with over a hundred votes).
Yours sincerely,
MIKE TUCKETT.
February 25, 1971
BEAVER
Page 3
A PHILOSPHY OF FORGE AND FRAUD?
A few questions to Mr. Levy and his friends
The Big Con!
Allan Booth at LSE
Reading the very interesting article entitled "The divinity of the Right Toward the Right Revolution (January 28th, 1971) the self assurance of which makes it clear that the human race has at last in the form of Mr. Levi, discovered the whole truth about itself and the societies it builds for itself to live in, nevertheless prompts a humbler mind to very respectfully pose a few tentative questions.
1. The statement "but above all chain the human soul ever more tightly to the plate glass and chrome polish to which we have reduced Western Civilisation".
Is this intended to imply, it has crossed my mind, that the cheap and shallow values of commercialism, and the
glittering world of advertising which regrettably have a hold on the minds of so many in the present age, have replaced a society in which what might be termed the "higher culture" of Western Civilisation were a common concern of all? Perhaps the era which is generally termed the "Renaissance" was a time in which everybody as assiduously pcrsued philosophy and the arts as Pope Leo X and Lorenzo de Medici arc reputed to have done? It seems more likely from all the historical evidence which we possess that this was an age in which the majority of Europe's population was completely illiterate; and then again, is Mr. Levy the only person (apart from his Right wing colleagues) who
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has survived the flabby self obsessed decade that has just passed with "higher" interests that plate glass and chrome polish .. .?
On the contrary, it may be implied that the short life of constant, repetitive toil on the land, abysmal poverty, illiteracy, superstition and constant fear of starvation (without any mcdical services available) represents a higher form of civilisation that we possess at present? If Mr. Levy feels a little ill-informed about the conditions of the general population of Europe before the liberal lie was forced on the world by the blood of the French Revolution and the sweat of the 19th Century, 1 might recommend that he reads Peter Lazlett's "The World We Have Lost", always remembering the England which Lazlett describes appears to have been one of the richer and more advanced societies of the time.
Perhaps on reflection he will feel that he wants to create a society which will not "re-humanise" the zombies of today but just humanise them.
2. "Marxism presents no real answer to this problem for why should the executives of the proletariat, always a small proportion of the whole, give up the power they hold in the period of revolutionary dictatorship? Fair enough—the experience of the Russian Revolution, to instance just one, seems to give these fears, first expressed before 1917 ample justification (this is always assuming that Marxism can always be taken to be synonomous with Marxist-Leninism—not an easy assumption to justify).
But what about Mr. Levy'.s, or rather M. Maurras' "other power"? "This power is the arbitrating authority which preserves the balance between the free associations
Indeed? we have already been told that 'the urge to dominate is independent of any class interests' and obviously as every form of democracy is so tyrannical we cannot possibly apply any Lockean ideas of checks and balances through repre.senta-tive institutions upon tho.se whose role it is to act as this through representative institutions upon those who role it is to act as this State. Let us formulate it another way —why should the arbitrating authority which preserves the balance between the free associations not use their powers for any purpose they chose?—or if the abuse it, why should they give it up?
It is no use being told about a state lightly limited in its sphere of action unless somebody gives an exposition of precisely who will limit this sphere, and precisely how they will do it. Seeing the pessimistic view of human nature expressed in this article I would have thought this particular truth to be self-evident.
3.	Why should Mr. Levy's rulers be less venal, and therefore less likely to encourage the growth of a plutocracy, than those of a liberal state?
4.	"It is because we love the people" wrote Charles Maurras "that we can make no compromise with democracy". Whether or not the Mauras of this world compromise them.selves with democracy by the use of those freedoms which are available to them in bourgeois-liberal states such as Republican France to propogate their ideas, and by engaging in traditional democratic practices such as public speaking and pamphleteering are be infinitely debated. But "because we love the people" coming from this source must cause one to pause for reflection. The patriotic and "people-loving" Action Fran-caise collaborated with the tyrannous invaders of their country, helped the Gestapo to capture and torture the more genuine patriots, to tranform French workers from victims of capitalist exploitation into brutally maltreated slaves of foreign conquerors and to hunt out French Jcwery and lead them to the most abhorrent slaughter.
I cannot help wondering if some of us, who do not so arrogantly profess such a great love of "the people", enough of this rather illusive do not perhaps have at least points which no doubt could and indefinable quality to prefer, on humane grounds, to compromise with democracy?
Jn short,! sense something ironical about the content of Mr. Levy's article although I am sure it was not so intended by the author. This Fascist-Anarchism here propounded has the same declared aim as that of most other political philosophy—to wit, the achievement of the maximum possible human liberty and happiness. It also contains the same inherent logical contradictions which have caused, as Mr. Levy is so painfully aware, the ideas of Rousseau and Marx to become so often in practice philo.sophies of force and fraud. The statement of Cam-
"The word 'AID' is so loaded nowadays that we might have done better to have avoided it," said Alan Booth, Director of Christian Aid, when he visited LSE during Christian Teaching Week. "You can find yourself suffocated by moral superiority or stifled by hard-nosed pragmatism." In a sensitive and highly self-critical critique of 'Aid' agencies he stressed the dangers of 'moral arrogance' and advised a judicious blend of idealism and scepticism.
We should never forget, he went on, that the principal operators of aid are the peoples of the Third World themselves. To suggest that the 'rich are getting richer and the poor poorer' is to underdate their real elTorts— —it's only true comparatively. We have to learn to respect more honestly what the Third World is thinking and which wav it is movina.
Bogus Aid
It has learned fast that much of the aid offered is not what it requires (Mr. Booth said he was speaking as a Southern Irishman!); that much of the private investment has to be called in question. He commented on President Kennedy's statement; "Foreign Aid is a method by which the U.S. maintains a position of influence and control around the world, and sustains a good many countries which would definitely collapse or pass into the Communist bloc'. Who ever dreamed it was disinterested? If it was, it would be open to far more serious objections. Of course. Governments use Foreign lid to reinforce their Foreign policies—it is inconceivable that they should contradict each other. But this isn't the whole story. To the real moral and economic benefits that accrue to the giver we have to add factors of conscience, con-
cern and the human relationships that already bind us to people in the Third World.
Pilot-schemes
On the role of Christian Aid itself, Mr. Booth pointed to the task of priming our own electorate, keeping up the pressures of the Aid Lobby, eradicating indifference. There are significant pilot-schemes that only a private agency can launch, to be taken up and expanded by Governments later. In Southern Africa, leaders of Independent African Churches are being trained—perhaps one of the main foci of black consciousness in S.A. today (c.f. the role of Methodist preachers in 19th Century Trade Unionism). Expertise, even more than cash, is being channelled through the Churches on an ecumenical basis.
Non-peace?
It's nonsense to think of all this as 'propping up Capitalism'. If it's true that docility is a hunger-symptom, it will stir up rather than pacify the oppressed. Development is NOT (pace Pope Paul) another word for Peace. But of course a good deal needs to be_ done to ensure that the balance of Trade doesn't go against the Third World. We have only begun to wage the long war against trade and tariff barriers and the wanton exploitation of areas producing the raw materials for our manufactures at home. This is one of the senses in which "you can't change the Third World without first changing yourself" (Helder Camara).
LSE Cath. Soc. are holding a TEACH-IN on DEVELOPMENT on Thursday, March 4. Mr. Frank Judd, M.P., Paul Cavadino, Ian Haig and Jonathon Power are amongst those taking part.
Graham Dowell
Parameters Of Garbage; Our Front Cover
This is from an exhibition
us' police inspector would certainly never be applicable to this system; more appropriate "we organised a police force because we wanted justice—and ended up organising a bigger police force.
Incidentally, from my recollections of "Les Justes", the statement quoted in the original article came from the mouth of a Czarist police Inspector—the best person to ask for a summing up of the experience of all past experiments in democracy?
M. Goddfrey
(at the Sigi Krauss Gallery, 29 Nial Street, W.C.2) by a group of artists calling themselves the Polygonal Workshop. They are investigating the transformation of an accumulation of everyday garbage. More important, P.W. intends to function with the public. Rejecting the idea of manufacturing objects, presenting them in a gallery and pandering to dubiously acquired tastes, P.W. hopes that through direct contact with those that visit them, study their notes, photographs and sundry, a situation arises for creation, ideas or objects, in either instance a process of mutual nourishment.
Page 4
BEAVER
February 25, 1971_

The Industrial Relations Bill
The Industrial Relations Bill is a major piece of reforming legislation, of the kind which is an essential for Our continued development and growth. However, the details of this highly complex bill, arc not well known. There has been a considerable outcry against the bill from certain quarters with such unlikely descriptions as rape, murder, and smashing the Unions, but relatively httle study of the facts of our industrial situation and future, and what the bill actually proposes to do.
The very first clause of the Bill sets out the principles on which it is based. It makes plain that it is designed to promote three things — collective bargaining, freely and responsibly conducted; free association of workers in independent trade unions; and the freedom and security of the individual workers themselves.
In applying these principles, the Bill's provisions fall into six main groups.
1.	To establish the code of industrial relations practice, setting out the standards which management and unions should have in their dealings, with each other and with individual men and women.
2.	To define and extend the right of individual employees—for example, by setting down the right to join (or not to join) a union, by improving contracts of employment, and by giving new protection against unfair dismissal and new rights to information about company affairs.
3.	To foster fair and effective collective bargaining by clarifying the legal status of collective agreements and providing new procedures for settling disputes where voluntary efforts fail.
4.	To ensure the fair conduct and administration of trade unions and employers' associations, by establishing a Registrar and providing that full rights under the Bill will be confiued to organisations registered in accordance with fair rules.
5.	To make new provisions for cases which present a major threat to the public interest, by making it possible to have a "cooling off" period of up to 60 days in the case of industrial action which could create a national emergency, and a secret ballot in similar cases where the attitude of the workers involved is in doubt.
6.	To establish a specially designed new system of informal and expert courts to deal with matters which might arise from the Bill.
The Bill is the result of five years' careful study and research. It is the Conservative answer to an urgent national need, and was endorsed by the nation on June 18th. The previous Government also realised the need, and tried and failed to bring in a watered down version of its own. The Labour Party's total opposition is therefore illogical, and was described by Mr. Mayhew, the Labour M.P., as ". . . playing at party games.
No one claims the Bill is 100% correct. Experience will show which details will need amending. Equally it will not be an immediate panacea for our industrial ills. Mr. Carr recently wrote of the Bill: "Let no one expect quick and easy results. The disease has a firm grip and will be cured only by steady and persistent treatment over a number of years. Moreover, it can be successful only through responsible voluntary action within industry itself. Law is no substitute for this —as I have said on innumerable occasions in the past. The ultimate test will be the extent to which the new law strengthens our voluntary system, secures the fundamental rights of individuals and supports responsible management and trade unions leadership. I believe it will exert a combination of pressures in the right direction."
The Bill is a progressive step, which must be taken to provide the background for our future prosperity. JACQUES ARNOLD, Chairman, Conservative Society.
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What is Right ?.....The Left ?
I expect to those historians of the student political movement, the new charter presented by Jack Straw, to the NUS at Margate, back in 1969, epitomizes what was then at its germinal. It had, as its central theme, the elevation of students' critical involvement with their environment to a new height.
Students were no longer to be unaware of society and its shortcomings, but this awareness had to be translated into an active commentary. Thus we had to expect in the future, mass student demonstrations on such topics as homes for the homeless, higher wages for the lower paid, support for the squatters, and so on. Needless to say this has become veritable in 1970-71, and will be more so in the future.
By doing this there lies a danger, probably unforeseen by the majority at Margate, and to many to-day. This political involvement will, (as has been the experience), attempt to polarize the issue betwen two camps, to neither of which many of us belong. On the one side, it is sup-
posed that there will be found all true detesters of privilege —in education and society, who must, in the nature of things, believe that the demonstration that we are now witnessing are wholly legitimate and desirable forms of protest. Anyone who thinks otherwise is tending to be on the other side, who is represented as consisting of selfish and unthinking people, indifferent to injustices and its evils.
In this crude polarization there is no room for people who oppose injustice, sympathise with legitimate and peaceful demonstrations against it, but regard the form that the protests are now taking as highly dangerous.
For it is one thing to feel it is a social injustice for people not to have a decent place to live; and an entirely different one to be incited to violence in order to achieve the aim of a living home for every person. But there are shades of opinion about the implications of this value judgement. They range from one extreme to luxuriate in moral indignation, against
Democracy
Dorothy Pickles, 193 pages, Batsford. £1.70
The corpus of literature on "democracy" tends to present a shapeless and confusing appearance. Almost every aspect of politics seems to be covered by it, and a topic to which nothing seems irrelevant is inevitably in danger of attracting those who lack intellectual rigour and specific knowledge.
The reader of this book is fortunate to have Mrs. Pickles as his guide through the jungle. Her analysis of the various expectations which democrats have entertained is lucid and well-illustrated; Part II of her book consists of a wise and stimulating survey of the problems involved in the institutional practices of democratic states. She offers, in effect, an essay on the character and limitations of politics as a means of achieving the democratic version of the good life. Her conclusions are informed by an "anglican" scepticism about Utopian politics, and what she has to say about the working of political institutions is as brisk and stimulating as one has come to expect from so experienced a teacher. The perfectionists to whom, in Chapter 10, her conclusions are addressed will probably remain unconverted; students seeking a reasoned and informative introduction to the politics of the modem world will find her book both useful and provocative.
A. J. BEATTIE
Your Money
On Tuesday, 16th February, Sir Wally Adder (Self-styled 'Director') called our veneered new President —• Camlett by name—to his Connaught House castle to ask him to call a Union Council Meeting in order to declare the Union's £20 donation to the Union of Post Office Workers unconstitutional! This Ian refused to do for 'Mr. Adams'—as he calls him—saying it was none of his business what the Union did with it's money. The Self-styled 'Director' also expressed fear that 'It would get into the papers' (especially 'The Times', who are at present running a series in the T.E.S. on 'The TRUTH about Student Unions). Promptly upon hearing this, a leading politico phoned 'The Times' news-desk! Your money is only yours when you use it 'properly'.
RIGHT ON, IAN!
GET YER HANDS OFF THE UNION, WALLY!
'Grogan'.
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the 'capitalists' as the people they love to hate, and at the other end, people who make far too great allowance for the historical circumstances, and who fatalistically avert their eyes from its consequences. The short hand of this comes to: left vs. right.
It has been the experience in this school, so far, that the majority of students have been totally apathetic to political involvement. One of the reasons being that there has been a dangerous decline in the style of political demonstrations in the last few years. Whatever the currcnt object of protests, the new technique by the militants, who chiefly organise the protests, is always the same—it is to ensure that those that disagree should neither be seen or heard.
The danger is that intolerance will create intolerance. Latterly in Britain the extreme right has been quiescent, impotent, and largely discredited; but it is not impossible to envisage the gradual evolution of a backlash in which otherwise peaceful citizens might, in desperation, react in alliance with dangerous forces of the right. This is what happened in the 1930s; it is not impossible again. The National Front is a moderate expression of this revival in the extreme right, elsewhere the left and the right have come to a confrontation. In France in 1968, soon after the Paris troubles, one of the biggest marches
ever, brought together all those followers of De Gaulle; in Italy neo-fascist students start running battles with anyone they think belongs to the left; the same applies in Japan and so on.
Can we have then this confrontation within the universities and Polytechnics of Britain? Is there a danger that the latent right wings in the colleges of education could be awakened by a direct, and constant, injection of the student into the political arena. Will they, the "silent majority", wake from their apathy and make their opinions (amongst other things), felt? Right wing extremism historically has been produced by left-wing extremism and, it is arguably the worst of the two, in its ultimate form. The majority of today's demonstrators, who are perhaps idealistically and unthinkingly following a pattern of protest mapped out by extremists of the left, could adopt no more efficient means of manufacturing fascists than by the relentless assumption that anyone who disagrees with them at any point must be one.
What is an undeniable fact of politics is that, if politics are taken on to the streets, it is the nastiest people who win—and it is not easy to bring them back to the civilised processes of democratic debate.
VIVIAN E. FALZON.
(Conservative Society).
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For further information write or telephone the Society.
used textbooks bought for the highest prices
Second-hand (marvellous range) and Stationery (everything for the student)
Department. The Economists' Bookshop,
King's Chambers, Portugal Street,
London WC 2.
For a quotation ask to see Brian Simmons
I'cbruary 25, 1971
BEAVER
Page 5
Sex and depravity in tiie iust itoie
of Twickeniiam
APOCALYPSE _
The Union Cliques
Considering the recent presidential elections which probably means the end of Union politics at LSE it is worthwhile taking this opportunity to trace the development of Union politics from its zenith of power at the time of the Adelstcin affair up to its final death which occurred when I was elected President a few short weeks ago.
Adelstein was probably the most popular President this placc has ever had. He had the mind of a fox in the body of a Joe Bugner. This is in contrast to our last President who had the mind of a Joe Bugner in the body of a fox. When Adelstein was suspended the students rallied round their beloved leader and occupied the School. Students from all political societies rallied round to protect their President and his reinstatement followed shortly. For Adelstein himself the success of his followers meant little. Though he made many subsequent appearances at LSE Union meetings the show of popularity in his favour somehow did not fit in with his idea of true socialism. Those of us who are privileged to see him on the terraces at Stamford Bridge cheering on Chelsea are the only ones who know what those days of passion have done to David. He is now a bower boy'.
Next in line came Peter Watherston. Although a Conservative, he was the best handler of union meetings I have ever seen but he unfortunately laboured under a dreadful disease, chartered accountancy. His many years with this disease before coming to L.SE made his case hopeless. He was so
Chris Help—G. (ex)
T.J. Your Monday Club subscription overdue.
Elisabeth how is your welfare?
Nick Spurrier wishes to announce he has withdrawn his oiler of suicide.
Grease wanted. Apply Colin.
Is John Stacey really dead?
Wanted. A new election. Apply John Morton.
Is it true, Steve? Dawn
A dirty weekend is right up my street.
boring that union meetings were preferable to the Shaw Library for the mass of insomniacs at LSE (though Alan Day's first year economics lectures were still number one on their list).
Union was crumbling fast and a leader was needed to restore its flagging morale. There were many notable figures such as Francis Dobyn, a better right winger than Charlie Cooke but funny with it, Jimmy Beck the weight lifting constitutionalist or even Geoff Jordan, who was pissed more often than not.
Then as if in answer to our prayers, the Lord sent us the ultimate in schmocks, the double deahng, back stabbing highly neurotic and incredibly ugly Colin Crouch. He was unlucky in two ways. Firstly his taking up of office came at the same time as the ascendancy of Soc Soc and secondly because his mother didn't drown him at birth. Here was the ultimate in moderates. He appeared to be sitting permanently on a pogo-stick as he hopped gleefuly from one political platform to another. One day he was Che Guevara, the next John Wayne. The Vietnam occupation led to his downfall. In the heated atmosphere surrounding those events he was bitterly attacked on all sides. In the end his eyebrows got the better of him (how many of you remember his fantastic leaping eyebrows) and he was swept into oblivion.
Now the students cried out for a leader. The occupation had led to the gates being ripped down. The school had been closed. The next presidential election was the most exciting ever.
Martin Tomkinson, the
CC/DW.
Carrots required. Michelle.
Where have all the microbes gone?
Let it ail hang out. Cec.
Pete have you seen a fist lately?
There arc still 49^ hands in a rod, pole or perch.
Clique requires secretary.
John Stathatos wishes to announce that when he said he was a cousin of Col. Papadopolos, he was twice remov^.
epitomy of Socialism, versus Osuji Chuckwuma, the epitomy of careerism, versus Francis Keohane the epitomy of Val Doonicanisni. And the huge electorate voted in the man whom they felt was the only moderate standing, but was in fact only standing, in my opinion, so that he could buy a new sports jacket. Keohane was a tragic case. A staunch Labour man he was unfortunately a little too sincere. His Irish banter became a little too much for our long suffering ears and he was booted out becoming Catholic Society's first student martyr. Soc Soc had won a major victory, if not at the polls then at least in union. The road was now open for the most popular president this place has ever had.
But unfortunately, whoever that was must have taken the wrong turning, for in stepped Mr. Chris P^ryce. Believe it or not it took me three months to find out who he was, and another three to find out what he was. The reign of this zombie was sheer boredom, and this showed in the remarkably low poll at the next Presidential election. The two main candidates were the lovable Angela Greatly (now unfortunately married) and the loathable Mr. Gareth Pryce, who many believed was Colin Crouch
resurrected. And let me just mention the shock candidate of the election, who spent the entire hustings eating a banana, and due to a poker marathon forgot to vote. This lovable young man still managed to get enough first preferences to finish third in a field of eight. However, Mr. Pryce was elected. Miss Greatley ejected, and Mr. Duffy erected. The union was on its last legs, with a chain smoking megalomaniac in office, politics became a forgotten word.
The rest is now history. I find myself privileged to join this long list of schmocks on the large notice board outside Florrie's. The Union has finally got what it deserves. As I stand on the terraces at Chelsea, with David Adelstein, I feel a great bond between us. Memories of the last few years are common to both of us, and we have both become Presidents without giving a damn. That is where the similarity ends. He knows more about politics, but I know more about Football. He might know the works of Trotsky back to front but his knowledge of Peter Osgood's positioning for corner kicks needs much to be desired. In other words, David is the light reader, I am the Intellectual.
LC.
For some years now people have claimed that the Union is dominated by a small body of politically motivated men and women. This tale has been perpetuated by the political machinations of various societies in the School, whose purpose it has suited to bring the Union administration into disrepute. The myth to my knowledge first arose during the crisis of 1968/69 when members of Council did use the administration to obstruct Union policy. But this overlooks many facets of a complicated situation because it assumes that the whole Union bureaucracy act as an homogenous group. The events of the last few months should prove how painfully transparent this thesis is, but the legend has been slightly altered.
There is not one clique but many that organise and control the Union. Apart from the words organise and control this approximates to the truth, but the qualification turns it into an outright lie. The committees of the Union are nothing like all-powerful, and they can only function properly with the co-operation of the student body. If students choose to be passive in their co-operation then that is their fault. The cliques exist.
They came into office with those people who are elected to Union Council or
F . . .
Not John I hasten to add, strictly a matter for our lord who has finally dragged Britain whimpering into line with the rest of the world (Oh Nigeria!) To be different is a crime indeed: however if what is to be, has been, and is (perhaps) why did the DCB have to give birth to the most absurd coin since the groat finally gave up the ghost. If any member of L.S.E. who is not a peer of the realm can justify the size and weight of the new halfpenny, then I say "rodomontade" to him, and wish him well.
stay in office because they are prepared to work with Council for the benefit of the majority of the students. Without the work of the Finance Committee on the budget the whole Union would grind slowly to a halt. If New Students' Conferences were not organised people would be flung into LSE without any knowledge of what to expect. The shop and the bar have to be administered.
If people were not prepared to work with each other, which means being friendly and co-operative then nothing would get done And that can be proved by the administrative chaos created by the blood-feud waged in the last few months.
All this feuding is superficial to the real functions of a bureaucracy which is to provide a service in running the Union for the students. To alienate yourself from the works of the Union as if it does not affect your everyday life here is putting your head in the sand.
If you dislike the way Union is run just complaining will not change. You must either be willing to work in the Union departments or you must change the system. There is no other way.
D.K.
FISKE
For the long in molar amongst us, its size is that of the old silver threepenny bit, which will naturally go a long way in relieving any fears you might have had on pre-marital sex. So far our lusty laird has justified it on the grounds that it's normal by world standards, so? I've had my doubts about the world for a long time.
To sum up the situation it's far too light to throw at a passing beefeater and too valuable to do the obvious with. Is this what we fought to save in the last war?
J.A.
Personal Column
Page 6
BEAVER
February 25, 1971
-
WHOSE LAW AND ORDER?
Police Technology Improves;
"WAR IN THE AIR—AND THE TARGET IS CRIME"
"London's Police took to the air today in a new beat-the-bandit move. Two helicopters carrying police observers were patrolling the sky over north-west London keeping in radio contact, through the Yard's Information Room, with the Q-cars below.
Should there be a bank robbery, or similar crime, in the area the plan is that the helicopters will join the chase . . ." EVENING NEWS, 4/2/71.
A 'similar crime'? Like what? The NEWS went on to give an explanation of sorts: . . The Metropolitan policc have used helicopters experimentally before, as traffic observers. They were up during the big Industrial Relations Bill demo on December 8 and will be up again during the next one on February 21."
The NEWS article goes on to say, "But today is the first time they have b^n used in the crime war. . ." so they must not view the TUC demonstrations as 'crimes'—but neither do they condemn the use of helicopters for surveillance of legal demonstrations.
Where will helicopter use go from here? It is interesting to see how they have been used in the United States:
"On Tuesday, May 20, 1969, Berkeley, a city in the United States, a university town with many surburban dwellers as well as the faculty, staff, and students of the university, was attacked from the air by toxic gas from a helicopter . . . The gas was sprayed into an area where seven hundred people were confined by the National Guard in close formation. These people, these American citizens, had no means of cscape from the gas that is used in Vietnam to flush suspected Viet Cong from tunnels and dug-outs and caves. According to the Geneva Conventions, poison gas cannot be used in wars between states. According to the same convention, shot-guns cannot be used in war between states. Shot-guns and toxic gas were used by what are sometimes called 'peace' officers against the citizens of this country." (Protect The Earth, by Thomas Parkinson. City Lights Books, San Francisco, 1970, pp. 26-7).
Does it sound far away? Look at the actions of the British forces in Belfast. Look at the case of Rudi Dutschke: did that seem possible five years ago—or even last year?
Criminal methods perfected in Indo-China ('criminal' by the Geneva Convention) are now used, e.g. Berkeley, against the 'subversive' forces in the U.S. For some time
after the event mentioned above, helicopters hovered over the campus incessantly. Looking for criminals? If so, who do the authorities consider 'criminal'? An article in the Times (1/1/71) offers one possible answer:
"The State of Indiana is asking the United States Government to help to finance a controversial experiment in crime control. The plan is for civilians to be hired to report on rumours and gossip circulating in their communities about potenti-aUy criminal or dangerous acts. (1)
They would operate secretly in districts where they had lived for many years and would be known as the 'rumour control monitors'." The Times NY correspondent went on to add that the scheme ". . . . is already in operation in one Indiana city. Fort Wayne. Twelve young people there have been hired by the police, at S2.50 (£1.05) an hour, and have been asked to attend gatherings.
Superintendent Robert Konkle, head of the state police, said that the monitors would not engage in 'political harassment' although they would be expected to report subversive (2) conversations." (Emphasis mine: L Remember Rudi. 2. Who is 'subversive'? The IS , whose phones are tapped ? Martin Luther King, whose phone was tapped? The MIS. the FBI, whose phones are presumably untapped? Arc 'rumour control monitors' terribly distant? Do you go to 'subversive' meetings or demonstrations? Did you go to the Misuse of Drugs Bill Teach-in at LSE? The meetings on Anti-oration Day in the New Theatre in L^E? The Houghton Street demonstrations? Did you see secret police at any of them? Are you a criminal? ARE YOU BLIND?
Police investigation into 'crime' and questioning of 'subversives' is growing. Note the aftermath of the Carr bombing, partly covered in Sennet (19/1/71, p. 12):
"Details just coming in of police raid on student militants' homes. Pretext: Carr bomb attacks.
Half-past seven Sunday morning plainclothes police woke Pete Brayshaw, thoroughly searched the room and hauled him off to Bamet nick for three-hour questioning by four policemen, on political views, violence, contacts, etc. . ." (Emphasis mine). WHY WERE THEY INTERROGATING HIM? Aren't the forces of Law and Order satisfied with the 'justice' meted out at the Senate House Trials?).
Laws: we know what they are and what they are worth. They are spider-webs for the rich and mighty, steel chains for the poor and week, fishing nets in the hands of the
Government."—Proudhon.
ADMINISTRATOR — COLLABORATOR
Is is fashionable to desire change in Rhodesia and South Africa. Some want to change things through existing institutions like the South African Armed forces and the educational system, others conclude that reformism is useless and that the only agent of change in the NATO supported Portuguese colonies, in South Africa, which is riddled by British, American and West German (take your pick of any of the Imperialist powers, folks) finance and in Rhodesia, which in turn is propped up by thinly disguised direct investment from the friendly west (yes, and it applies as much to the nationalised industries like the Steel Board) as any of those nasty private entrepeneurs—Social Democrats take note) exists in armed struggle.
In this difference lies the crux of the defence or condemnation of the positions taken by Sir Walter Adams, self-styled principal of the LSE and late of University College, Rhodesia, Terence Miller, self-styled academic of no repute and late principal of the University College, Rhodesia, Sir Douglas Logan, last heard of claiming to be principal of the University of London, which institution was deeply implicated in the self-styled University College Rhodesia until its special relationship was so rudely terminated by the latter, and so on down the list of the captains of industry and acade-mia that people the corridors of power in the City, Whitehall, and higher educa-
tion, and who are the decision makers and policy-formers of British self-styled democracy.
And once again students and staff can witness the rerun of the performance your predecessors and colleagues so enjoyed when Wally was appointed by our self-styled governors, for in their inimic-able way the have done it again: new venue, new faces, but the same old crud at the back of it.
This time the lesser brethren in our binary higher education system have been inflicted with the inecrable Terence Miller. Not content with observing the balls-up Wally made at LSE, the governors of the new Northern Polytechnic wanted to ensure front-row .stalls in the latest performance of the alliance between higher education and British liberal imperialism. The historical equivalent might have been if the governors of the Sorbonne had appointed Marshal Petain chief administrative officer because he saw his collaboration with the occupation forces as the only way he could help France and achieve reform. (Not that his successors were much cop either.) it is now time that we admit that Rhodesia is a country under armed occupation. by the Smith racists, by South African troops, and by the imperialist corporations who keep the country's economy alive. There can be no compromise or reform agreements with these forces—edu-
cation of a tiny elite, albeit nominally multi-racial, is not the panacea or the agent of change—revolution is the only ttlternative.
Both Miller and the gallant Sir Walter are self-styled "conscientious objectors" to the Rhodesian Government (sic), but both delude them-•selves as to the degree of their implication in that system which is both perpre-trating the deed and which serves to support that perpre-tration:
(a)	by the creation of an educated elite to service the middle and high cchelon needs of the regime and its economy;
(b)	by the propaganda value to the Rhodesians of the existence of Adams' and Miller's so-called alternative .socicty in the University;
(c)	by the perpetuation of a false consciousness of their role as agents of change in Rhodesia in the minds of the students;
(d)	by the very real acts of sell-out to the Rhodesian regime in the form of acquiescence to censorship of university literature, governmenl interference in the appointment of staff, the handing over of staff to the Rhodesian police, the invitation to police to invade the campus, and general mismanagement, high-handed action, and maladmini.stration of the University (c.f. reports by Sir Robert Birley, and Amnesty International unpublished re-
port of 1966 quoted on Agitprop Pamphlet 'Why are they protesting' 1969, and 'Tcr-ence Miller—"Conscientious Objector" published by the Students Union of Northern and North-Westcrn Polytechnics.)
South Africa, the Portuguese colonies, and Zimbabwe are in a state of war. There is no room for reform-ist.s—they are collaborators and must be seen as such. Not content with the class nature of British education we are subject to the indignity of having these agents of oppression—be they well intentioned philanthropic liberals, or right wing fascists—foisted upon us by a system which defends itself with what it calls 'Academic Freedom', l^et us remember that Walter Adams did not feel 'Acadcmic Freedom' had been impinged upon when nine of his staff were arrested by the regime; and Professor Miller felt no qualms in cooperating with the regime in spon,soring research at the University into the extension of "Tribal Trust Lands" (the Rhodesian equivalent of the South Africa Bantustans).
Perhaps the last word should be Miller's shortly after he arrived in Zimbabwe: "The university must function as part of a community and cannot adopt an anarchical posture". This is not surprising from someone who thinks "the Rhodesian Government (sic) consists of reasonable men".
Who are the criminals ?
"Victory for the Vietcong . . . would mean ultimately the destruction of freedom of speech for all men for all time not only in Asia but in the United States as well"—Richard Nixon, from letter to NY Times in 1965.
WHOSE FREEDOM OF SPEECH, DICK — YOURS ? REMEMBER BLACKBURN, REMEMBER BATESON, REMEMBER SENATE HOUSE, REMEMBER DUTSCHKE, REMEMBER THE CHICAGO CONSPIRACY.
February 25, 1971
BEAVER
Page 7
WHAT ARE DANGEROUS DRUGS ?
Parliament Exposed
"The Misuse of Drugs Bill was considered in committee. . .
Lord Foot said there was 'a substantial body of opinion which was not persuaded that the drug (cannabis) was harmful, or that using it carried any moral guilt.'
Is it not appalling (he said) that we should prescribe a maximum penalty of 14 years for supplying a small quantity of cannabis and that the people who openly advertise the sales of cigaretttes and liquor—known killers— should be allowed to do so without any penalty whatever? . . .
Lord Hankey said he was shocked at what had been said. Cannabis was a disastrous drug. Its misuse led to extraordi n a r y illusions. People who consumed too nnich of it went berserk."
The Times, 5/2/71.
Could it be that capitalism has made our rulers in.sane? Either that, or at least 116 members of the Lords have access to a supply of truly dynamite dope that has never reached the masses, for the Lunatics of the Upper House voted down Lord Foot's amendment to create a separate classification for cannabis by 116 to 23.
Don't look now, but your libido is being
exploited
It is always interesting and informative to know what goes on in one of the more hidden-away and lesser known hives of subversive activity within LSE that goes by the name of Higher Education.
I'm speaking now of the Dept. of Psychology on the 3rd floor of St. Clements Building. Although some students have been induced up there as guinea pigs in return for a small remuneration, it is very diflicult to understand what these psychologists are really up to.
The other day, 1 too was inveigled to take part in an experiment. In semi-darkness I put on some earphones and listened to ear splitting noises until 1 could no longer bear it, at which point 1 could switch it olf. f was then required to pull a heavyish lever for 3
minutes without pause, still with an infernal row going on in my ear.
Afterwards, the student p,sychologist explained plea-•santly that he was finding out under what circumstances an industrial worker can work the longest, the fastest and the hardest without actually having a heart attack. I told him that after 3 minutes of what I knew now to be normal working conditions at a machine or an assembly line I would go out on striket.
He thought that quite a witticism on my part. I left with a splitting headache that lasted all day, pondering on the men who work 8 hours a day in similar conditions. Not for themselves by any means, but for the men who glean the fat profits and leave the producer himself with a mere pittance.
Bring the War Home
"A person who takes seriously the repsonsibilities of citizenship will refu.se to be a passive accomplice in crimes against humanity and will undertake and support direct resistance to the lawless violence of the state."—Noam Chomsky.
South Vientnamesc troops invaded Laos with massive American air support on February 8 in the latest outrage of the widening Indo-Chinese war.
The British Foreign and Commonwealth Oflice said:
"The Government support the policy of Vietnamisation and American troop with-
drawals and this operation seems likely to ensure its continued progress."
Apart from the hypocrisy of a country committed to guaranteeing Laotian neutrality (as a signatory of the Geneva Agreement) actually supporting an action condemned even by the 'friendly' Royal Laotian government (all the while murmuring about "legal obligations" under the Simonstown Agreement), it is amazing that the Government thinks the British public so stupid, misinformed or powerless that they justify their position with the word 'Vietnamisation' (a
THE TRUTH ABOUT LSD
For Madmen Only. Price of Admission: Your Mind.
"Tf you go in here, you will die. You and all of your past hang-ups, sins and so forth are going to be laid out in front of you. You're going to have to confront them, strip them off, and be a changed person. Do vou want it?"
The last thing that an institution of education wants to allow you to do is to expand your consciousness, to use the untapped potential in your head, to experience directly.
Education is anaesthetic, a narcotic procedure which is very likely to blunt your sensitivity and to immobili»; your brain and your behaviour for the rest of your lives.
You're a junior academic now with the narcotic security needle hooked in your liberal vein. The narcotic escape is to remain in the system. Everyone is afraid to take LSD, because nobody wants to change. The misuse of the printing pre.ss is one of the greatest catastrophies to happen to the human nervous system. It has forced man to think in linear subject-prcdi-cate fashion.
Ontologically there are an infinite number of realities, each one defined by the particular space-time dimension which you use. From the standpoint of one reality we may think that the other realities are hallucinatory, or psychotic, or far out, or niys-
a
"We like to give people the impression they are always being watched, and always on the brink oj being involved with the police if they experiment with dangerous drugs."
Det. Inspector Brian Warren, Head of Thames Valley Police drug squad.
terious but that is just because we're caught at the level of one space-time perception.
Do your own Research
America is an insane asylum. "1 would say that at present our society is so insane that even if the risks were fifty-fifty that if you took 1.SD you would be in.sane, 1 still think that the risk is worth taking, as long as the person knows that that's the risk."—admirer of A.O.S. As long as the person knows what's involved, whatever he does to his own consciousness is his own business.
Are you ready for the acid test?
by YRAEL MIT.
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euphemism for Thieu taking on-a greater share of the atrocities, which you can read about in At War With Asia or Prevent the Crime of Silence, but I will not repeat here) and the misleading phrase 'American troop withdrawals' (after Nixon's planned 'troop withdrawals', 250,000 American ground troops will remain in South Vietnam and American air power will be, if anything, greater than at present).
Although some believe that America's criminal war against the Vietnamese people is being defeated, we must realise that Nixon repeatedly demonstrates that "victory' is still the American goal—and he is surely better informed than we. The onlv way that
the American imperialists can be defeated in Asia and in other parts of their empire is in our showing solidarity with the exploited people of the Third World by bringing the war home: to America, to Britain, to LSE—to all of the 'free world.'
Nixon has not grown tired. We cannot stop resisting until American imperialism has been smashed. Do not hesitate when a call for action comes: tomorrow is too late.
"America is an octopus with tentacles all over the world. If the tentacles that grip Vietnam, South America and Africa are cut it will be so much easier for ... people in America to rise up and cut off the head."—Stokely Car-michael.
MISUSE OF DRUGS BILL TEACH-IN
stations all over London) to investigate the 'disturbance' (didn't they have any danger-our fires to put out, or were the hysterical articles in the mass media for days before that night simply lies which were part of a 'conspiracy' against the dustmen, then on strike?—see FRIENDS, last issue and next one. for some of the answers).
So far, all of the accused wliose cases have come up have had the charges against them dismissed after a vigorous court-room offensive a la Chicago Conspiracy.
Nor did the Guardian mention the advice given by the meeting's one-man living theatre to those of us who have dropped acid and would like to again but arc afraid of the police: that is, trip yourself out—don't rely on chemicals if you are afraid of prison life/death.
In fact, of all the true information (for those who came to communicate something new) came from the floor, despite the media-inspired 'direction' from the chairwoman, who tried to shout down all participation. Why didn't the Guardian report that?
Rufus Harris of Release made clear that the recent 'closure' of that particular community service (?) was also intencd for the money-men who read their daily 'news'paper: when questioned if it were true that the Release staff refused to give their valuable files to other defence organisations after closing, he replied that:
Release never really intended to close, and that was why the files were not handed over.
Docs Release give a damn about those drug-users who were understandably worried about its 'closure'? Will it tell them the truth next time?
by HEAD
On Wednesday, February 3, representatives of several defence groups (including NCCL, Release, Street Aid, ADVISE, and the Association for the Prevention of Addiction) came to room E0I8 to speak on the Misuse of Drugs Bill now going through Parliament.
Many people came expecting the meeting to evolve from an equal participation of all those present, with the various representatives olfer-ing advice on self-defence and u.seful suggestions for tactics inside and outside of court to defeat the bill and destroy the onus of criminality given to tho.se caught using drugs.
However, the authoritarian chick 'chairing' (read: 'controlling") the meeting had other ideas, and if it was not immediately obvious why she tried to silence participation by the audience', it seemed strange to many when a telephone message was delivered for the "woman from the BBC" to come to the phone (BBC in LSE!); but the mystery was cleared up by the coverage offered in the next day's Guardian (The GUARDIAN TOO!): the meeting was staged for the media, not for those who came along to participate and communicatc.
The Guardian's 'coverage' was limited to representatives of NCCL and APA, who told us nothing we did not already know (us' being the 'drug' users; 'drug' not including alcohol or 'legally prescribed barbiturates, am-phetimines, heroin, etc.). The Guardian did not include a word in reference to the brother who gave valuable information regarding court tactics (i.e., in the trial of those arrested in Powis vSquare on Guy Fawkes night when over 50 police arrived at the community bonfire/ celebration (sent from police
Page 8
BEAVER
February 25, 1971
-:-
Jim Dale (The Architect) and Anthony Hopkins {The Emperor)
theatre
The Architect and the Emperor of Assyria
National Theatre
Some might call it pretentious, I prefer to describe Fernando Arrabal's play as Baroque. Baroque in the wild exuberance and grotesque fun of a play which is essentially traditional.
Two men stranded on a desert island whose playground is the fathoms and intrigues of each others' minds. The Emperor has lived in the civilised world of luxury, beauty, philosophy and literature. The architect is Arrabal's caliban; the human savage of high intelligence with a constant appetite for knowledge. To him, the Emperor can divulge the gifts of civilisation; ethics, Assyria, Shakespeare, Sabine women, Freud and choc ices. All is fantasy based on isolated facts which provide succulent morsels for 'the savage' to chew on and regurgitate in nonsensical images. To die disguised as a choc ice, that is with a stick between his legs and a breast-plate covered in chocolate is an original ambition, feasible and when effected on stage titillating.
There are many such amusing scenes, but all the jokes reflect the macabre. — There is in Arrabal both a strong masochistic and sadistic streak. He suffered in Franco's prison and saw his father under sentence of death. Arrabal is Spanish and this characteristic gives the play its individuality. Beckett and Genet do not
portray intense sexual repression, ritual reminiscent of Catholic services, vulgar melodrama which is at the same time tragic and comic. There is more of the ero ticism of Goya, the solemn ritual of Velasquez and the violence of Picasso's Guernica in Arrabal's writing than the conflict between reality and illusion.
The director, Victor Garcia, brandishes Arrabal's ideas with stark light and cold metal. The physical frustrations are wrapped in plastic strips, the sensual elations in silk parachutes. The toy in our cell is a hydraulic fork-lift which serves as rack, ladder and cross for crucifixion; an intriguing contraption. The attention of the audience is magnetized by war screams, strobic lights and all the paraphernalia of Kinetic Art. Rather than distract from the substance of the play this indeed adds verve and vision.
Anthony Hopkins as the Emperor is a formidable actor. The part cannot be easy, yet he makes a ludicrous role appear credible. He is flexible; twisting from the shivering male with a mother complex to the autocratic ruler lurching for power. In neither case does he exaggerate, but tightly controls the energy needed for this outlandish person. Jim Dale has less scope as the Architect, but it was a pity that he compensated for this in the gallivantings of a frustrated ballerina.
Arrabal, the darling of the European theatre has provided a reasonably good play, Victor Garcia makes it a spectacle and Anthony Hopkins provides the quality of great acting which makes the play worth seeing.
After Haggerty Criterion Theatre
David Mercer's play is fun and relevant. The language is gassy, the script provocative.
Haggerty's wife, Claire, played with fiery temperament by Billic Whitelaw crashes home to find a theatre critic in her flat. She tries to bamboozle him with spirit and gut. but to little effect — he absorbs it all and refuses to rise. Bernard Link is a Marxist who sheepishly lectures on the British theatre in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Cuba at critical moments — 1956, August 1968. 1 say sheepishly because he is quite aware of the irrelevance in preaching about British culture to an audience in crisis.
The contrast to international politics is Dad. Mr. Link played with superb determination by Leslie Sands is parochial, stubborn and self-opinionated. He is a dinosaur who ought to be stuffed and exhibited down the Cromwell Road. He bores the audience and irritates the other players. His son Bernard, well acted by Frank Finlay (the first actor to portray Christ on stage) despises and finally breaks his father in a wretched scene. Claire for all her shrill independence — ideal leader of Women's Lib, is stumped by Dad. As for "tinselled" Roger, a homo ("like the soap powder") most convincingly played by David Wood and "sawdust" Chris, played by John White, they are verbally hurled out of the door.
This R.S.C. production, although performed only a year ago at the Aldwych is worth seeing again. The
jokes may be lavatorial, but they are not corny, the plot is varied and there are plenty of surprises.
The Collector King's Head Theatre Club
John Fowlcs' book makes a better play than film since the claustrophobic effect of a basement cell is more oppressive and realistic on a small stage surrounded by a tight-packed audience.
The three Act play about a lepidopterist who imprisons a girl for love in the vain hope that imposed acquaintanceship will entice fondness is straightforward enough. It relies on Ferdinand Clegg, Brian MacDermont, imposing his warped ambition with rulhlessness in the first act, but from the beginning Clegg appears only as the confused winner of the pooils, amazed that he actually did carry out his dream. Had he greater determination in the first scene, the play would have had more variety, for in subsequent acts he appropriately plays the submissive prison guard, abused and over-ridden by an attractive and intelligent woman. Annette Andre as Miranda Grey, initially nervous (but not terrified which seemed astonishing in the circumstances) developed like the surrounding moths. She acts with conviction the trapped butterfly desperately trying to escape. She entices Clegg with reasoning, bluff and sex but the predicament of despising him for his petty bourgeois attitudes and pitying him for his hopeless love cannot be resolved by feminine tricks. She is trapped by his weird dreams.
cinema
Wanda by B. Loden
Wanda is a notable film if only because it has a rare distinction of a woman director. A woman's film about a woman, especiaHy one in which the directress is the featured actress, is, at this historical juncture, almost obligatory viewing.
The film itself is simply and straightforwardly done. It is edited in a slow moving, almost ponderous, chronological style, the camera observing its subject in meticulous detail. The low budget shows through in minor annoyances like two different charactcrs using the same car at different points in the film. However, this is more than offset by both the excellent acting and the effective use of highly filtered and very grainy film. As well, the intrinsic integrity of the film is enhanced by a completely natural soundtrack, uncluttered by intrusions of music.
Tt is in the presentation of its subject, not in its technique, that the film is disappointing. This despite the fact that the subject itself is unusual. Wanda is an unmotivated, uneducated, bored,' boring, useless, failure of a person. She is a waste product of an inhuman .society, and lives by allowing herself to be exploited. Her passive, baseless, scrounging existence is neatly contrasted with the equally baseless and scrounging, but more aggres-
ihen kept by his fear of the repurcussions were she to go free.
With £200,000 prize money, 1 doubt whether you would have trapped the girl you loved in a cellar. It was regrettable that the scenery looked more like a Putney bed-sitter than a country cottage. However the dinginess deflated the bourgeois sentimentality of the play. For if Clegg had a complex about not" speaking "proper-like", Miranda had the complex of a frustrated liberal. Otherwise the play is a straightforward thriller with good plot and suspense.
Tickets are 10/- each and you don't have to be a member to watch the play in the back-room of the Kings Head Pub. You can have dinner there too, or like many of us just take your pint through.
Flash Gordon and the Angels Open Space
The idea is good, but it doesn't take off. It's a skit on the American space programme, mixed with political sport of condemning the U.S. government for their injustice, inhumanity, pollution, defoliation etc.
Preparation for blast off
sive existence of Mr. Dennis, one of her temporary companions. The momentary gleam of interest he provides in her life ends with his death, and leaves her hovering again on the brink of a mindless, apathetic descent into prostitution.
All this is nicely enough presented, but Ihe film still leaves one with a feeling of disappointment. My thought ai the end of it was that it could have been made by a man. As a compctant female director, Barbara Loden should have been able to give us a more unique understanding of the situation of women in society than she did in Wanda.
Myra Beckinbridge Rialto
VTyra Breckinbridge. A discredit to the film industry. a shame for its director, and specially for the actors who took part in it. If ever a film must be censored, please let it be this one. I believe that the screening of this film in a west end cinema is a sadistic move by the British censors to win us to their cause. Well from now onwards I'm one of their strongest supporters.
This film is bad, revolting, unpleasant, and could one say a probable image of American intellectual standards? If so they are pretty low, and the cinema industry should better close the shop. On several occasions 1 felt like taking my shoe off and throwing it at the screen, but on second thoughts my shoe was worth more than this film.
required twenty minutes of 1950s "Dr. Who" a goon film which put you in the picture of a Martian invasion and the magnificent exploits of Flash Gordon, Dr. Zarkov and Dale Arden to save planet earth. Once in orbit, the space-ship, mission control and their instructions to carry out electrograms, bible readings and cauliflower ejections all make sense. Flash Gordon's reliance on ground control, his hopelessness in a terminating situation and the total lack of purpose is well developed. But in order to provide more variety, or was it more confusion, a sinister plot is machinated by the ghost of Zarkov. Gordon (Manning Redwood) has sold his con-.science to the despotic administration and betrayed his three companions who know the truth. Who now rules earth?
The one amusing scene is the interview with the U.S. President. William S. Burroughs is superb as the cynic, reading out prepared texts with biting flattery and rasping damnation.
The play lacks coherence and wit. After Norman Mailer's "The Fire on the Moon" David Zane Mairo-witz should napalm his script.
i
February 25, 1971
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Page 9
music
Principle Edwards Magic Theatre
Principal Edwards Magic Theatre are a group of people who are making an attempt to provide something a little different from the rest of contemporary rock bands. To this end they employ a number of theatrical techniques that are perhaps closer to George Chisolm than to more usual presentation techniques, being both visually and aurally sophisticated.
The group originated in Exeter University where the majority of them were studying English. Suffering, as they were, from the "University Blues" to which Eng-
lish students seem particularly prone, they wished to find a channel of expression linked niore realistically to their interests. Consequently they, over a period of time, began to formulate their ideas, which resulted in the beginnings of the present group. They wished to combine both the sort of music with which they were familiar with a more complex and relevant type of presentation. Consequently to the basic line up of acoustic and electric guitars, percussion, and girl singers they added a lightshow and dancers. Both of these ideas were novel in Britain at that time, although the integrated lightshow had been part of the American scene for some time.
Initially, and not surprisingly, they were not very impressive and might well not have been noticed nationally had it not been for the evangelical zeal of John Peel who
gave them a van and sufficient money to get equipment. This opportunity was enhanced by Exeter University giving them all a sabbatical year to pursue the "bright lights of rock stardom." Being a talented and intelligent group of people they rapidly improved becoming a tightly knit and well integrated performing group. Their effect as a totality was greater than the parts and much of the credit was probably due to the Lights who provided an integrating influence.
The band continued successfully until the summer term last year when some of the members felt that they wanted to return to Exeter or have a change of life in some other way. To this situation was added a desire to change the act a little so that the dancers were not featured all the time but given equal weight with the
other parts of the act. This, combined with a number of personnel changes, has led to a different act than before, which is more varied and perhaps a little more 'theatrical' in parts, insofar as they present more thematic material with some link work. As previously it took some time before the band managed to sort out the act again although it is now reaching a level they are satisfied with.
A new L.P. has just been released of theirs, and although it cannot represent their stage act it gives them a chance to demonstrate their musical ability. The L.P. is called The Asmoto Running Band, and is on Dandelion records.
If you are now tired by enthusiasm to go and see them one should rush to the Union office and buy tickets for their appearance at L.S.E. on the 27th of February.
1
#
4
Anyone who calls himself a Socialist ought to take a visit within the next few weeks to the LeFevre Galleries in Bruton Street to see an exhibition of sixty of L. S. Lowrey's drawings.
L. S. Lowrey was born in the late 19th Century amidst the industrial smog of Sal-ford. He was part of the lumpen proletariat who witnessed the decay of the city and the degradation of human life.
His drawings contain row
upon row of terraced houses, factories bulging with workers. smoke rising over the roof tops, match-stick figures, children and cats playing in the streets, the fairgrounds, the seaside, the leisure-time activities of the working-class.
Lowrey is possibly the finest social historian of his age for his drawings and paintings are about life in the North of England. He paints the people and scenes that he sees, knows and understands.
Lowrey was unknown for many years and never received the acclamation that was due to him until after
the war. He lived and painted in poverty, rarely leaving the fireside of his beloved Salford and even today he lives alone on the outskirts of Manchester with his paintings and clocks. He is now 85 and hasn't painted for two years, yet his works are worth a fortune.
He epitomises the disgraceful situation that currently exists amongst world art dealers. Thirty years ago you could have picked up a Lowrey for a couple of pounds in Manchester market but the drawings in the LeFevre Gallery are on sale at £400 each and the paintings at £5,000. Even Lowrey
would admit that some of them aren't worth that much.
Had fortune and acclaim come to Lowrey at an early age he might well have been corrupted by it aH. But for fifty years he painted without encouragement, without money, whhout acknowledgment—a man who knew what he wanted and did it. He remained a part of the proletariat.
Go and see this exhibition for it reveals the real characters of life and the stark realities of capitalism. But before you go, read Engels 'Working Conditions in Manchester 1844). Engels and Lowrey go well together.
books
Parliament and Conscience by P. G. Richards George Allen and Unwin, 1971
This book by the professor of British Government in the University of Southampton (who also wrote about back benchers in Honourable Members) is about private Members' bills during the last Parliament on capital punishment, homosexuality, abortion, censorship of the theatre, divorce, and Sunday entertainment. Here are six matters on any one of which it is possible to raise the temperature in a middle-class gathering; and the first two are good for a row anywhere anytime so long as the average age is not less than thirty. I cannot imagine an argument between any students I know about any of these matters but this may be because I don't meet students who would defend capital punishment, condemn homosexuality, disapprove of abortion, support censorship, regard divorce laws as not in need of reform or have heard about not being entertained on Sunday. (I should exclude some Catholics who might take a minority view on abortion and divorce).
I cannot myself get worked up about any of these issues because to me they are not issues I worry about. This is not to say that it does not worry me if, for example, friends of mine (or enemies for that matter) get divorced when they have young children. But that is not the same as being worried about major abstractions like What Are the Admissible Grounds for Divorce. But then I've always been frightened of CAPITAL LETTERS as I've always sought to avoid those Impossibly Busy People who write them and speak in them and who employ secretaries to tell humble enquirers that they can manage 10 minutes next Friday week.
Still this book is well enough done because it tells us the background to these bills and what went wrong or right and why. It has 4 other chapters. One is called conscience, law and morality; another on the legislative process; a third is an analysis of the voting; and the fourth is called legislation without party. So the book is informative on its six topics and tells us more about that curious institution beyond Westminster bridge on this side of the river—not to be confused with that curious insti-with that curious institution before Westminster bridge on the other side.
There are some statements I find difficult to agree with
or to understand. Like: the Conservative party does not accept the mandate theory to the same extent as does the Labour party (pp. 26-7); can capital punishment be a deterrent when only 1 murderer in 12 is hanged? (p. 55) (author clearly thinks not; but if it is a deterrent at all, 12 to 1 is short odds for death); also on capital punishment, "People with valuable property also feared robbery and objected to anything that seemed to make the law softer for criminals" (p. 51); "But for Christian opinion it is undoubtedly the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah that has had the greatest influence in promoting condemnation of homosexual behaviour" (p. 63); religious bodies "had all stressed that homosexual acts were sinful if not necessarily blameworthy" (p. 74)—blameless sin is a new one; "if homosexuality becomes rife in any group or community, that society is destined for destruction" (p. 82).
But if you want to be reminded what all the fuss was about as your legislative elders wrestled manfully with their consciences and even more manfully with other people's consciences in the late sixties, here are six such topics chronicled for you. And let us all give thanks to whatever Gods there be for Sir Cyril Black (Con. Wimbledon), well known Baptist property owner (for whom my father—^^ho was a better Baptist and no property owner at all?had such a profound dislike for so many years) who, with his merry mates, preserved us once again from the licentious ribaldry of the continental Sunday.
J. A. G. Griffith
LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS
MUSIC SOCIETY CONCERT—
Shaw Library Thursday, 11 March, 7.0 p.m.
Mozart
Don Giovanni Overture Mozart Missa Brevis K275 .soloists Pamela Brooks Sally Langford Tony Bould Paul Danaher Godfrey Over Hill and Under Hill,
Orchestral Suite First Performance
Britten
Rejoice in the Lamb Mozart Concerto for Three Pianos and Orchestra The LSE Choir and Orchestra conductors
Gordon Kirkwood Julian Hodgson Admission at Door 20p
Page 10
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February 25, 1971
The common market — in the balance
by Stephen Kelly
The Tory Government are pushing even harder than their predecessors in the Labour Government for entry into the European Economic Cmnmunitj. Talks on our entry into the Common Market began as fL back as 1960 when the Conservatives were last in power. Our chief negotiator then was Edward Heath; now he is Prime Minister and has even grea er ncenti ™s to see his oriiinal groundwork completed and our entry into the EEC achieved at any price despite the rebuffs we have received Only further rebuffs can stop our entry now-oroutright condeiLation of the Government's policies by the trade unions and workers of the country. I specifically put the onus on the working-classes because they more than
anv other class or group wiU lose out by our entry. The Common Market has little or nothing to offer the workers and trade unions. It is designed specially to develop and encourage sm. The chief beneficiaries of such motivations will be industry and finance with the larger compames already visualising even greater profits.
There are many arguments against the Common Market and they fall generally into two groupings—economics and politics. Let us examine in more detail the economic arguments
European capitalism.
against entry into the European Economic Community;—
Economic Aspects
Rate of Growth. The EEC
has a higher rate of growth than the United Kingdom.
We have a planned growth rate of between 3-5% between now and mid-1971.
The growth rate of the EEC does however show a decline,
falling from the 6% of 1968 and 1967 to 4.5% in 1969.
With present economic trends one can expect this decline to continue, or at the v§ry best to maintain its present level. The Labour Government's White Paper "Britain and the European Communities— An Economic Assessment" (Cmd. 4289) stated that the growth rate for EFTA (excluding the U.K.)
between 1958-1967 was the same as that of the EEC at 4%.
Pro-Marketters point out that the rate of growth in Italy, Germany and France is much higher than ours.
Nevertheless, the rate of growth in those countries was much higher than ours long before the Treaty of Rome was signed. The rate of growth in Japan and Portugal is higher than ours, yet they are not EEC members.
Advantages to Industry. A paper issu^ by the Confederation of British Industries on the subject lists the benefits as follows:—
(i)	An enlarged European market undis-torted by tariffs would provide for economies of scale and marketing and would be important to the future growth and prosperity of large sectors of British industry.
(ii)	Access would provide not only increased competition but also the possibility of companies achieving economies scale without approaching anything like a dominant position in the market.
(iii)	Rationalisation and reconstructing of industry on a European basis is likely to produce units more profitable and viable in third markets than
would be possible if done purely on a national basis.
If there are advantages to industry, they will not become apparent for many years. Entry now would not give benefits until 1980.
Industry however will be provided with a much wider field for expansion and competition. The larger industries, already orientated to exporting will become involved in supra-national mergers in order to strengthen their positions and profits. Examples of this are Citroen/ Fiat, and Dunlop/Pirelli. The smaller industries, not orientated to exporting will be forced to do one of three things:—
(a)	Increase prices considerably.
(b)	Cause redundancies.
(c)	Close down.
Both conditions will have an adverse effect upon the working class population of this country. An increase in wages will be related to an increase in prices. Prices will have to soar in order to keep certain firms in business; any comparable increase in wages would only negate the position. Any government therefore contemplating entry, must also contemplate introducing legislation against wage increases. It is worth noting that Unilever (profits for 1969—£97 m.) are supporting entry with the potential of doubling their margarine prices in order to maintain the competitiveness of the Market. This should ensure that Unilever's profits top £150 m. in the near future. ICI also supports entry with a view to increasing their prices.
The Cost
The main real cost of our entry into the Market is involved in the agricultural programme; the costs of the Common Agricultural Policy are as follows;—
(i) The transfer of funds to Brussels to finance the policy. Whether these transfers consist of food import levies, or other forms of contribution.
(ii) The shift from low-cost imports in the Commonwealth and elsewhere to high-cost European supplies.
The cost of all this, according to the White Paper will be between £100 m. to £1,000 m., which leaves plenty of room for error! The very fact that a government cannot be as exact as that makes a mockery of our entry and the costs. The Financial Times of 4th August, 1969, reported that the Mansholt Report estimated the figure for entry as being somewhere between £500 m.-£1,000 m.
The cost to our balance of payments could be crippling, leading to further unemployment on what is already the highest figure for thirty years. The housewife may not appreciate the economics of our balance of payments, but she will certainly 'appreciate' the rise in food prices which will be inevitable if we enter the EEC. Table 3 shows the comparative costs of food items in the U.K. and EEC countries. In every case but one, Britain offers the cheaper food but if we enter the Market our food prices will have to rise in order to maintain competitiveness in the Market. Some raw materials are also likely to be dearer. Where U.K. tariffs are nil there is a 3% CET (Common External Tariffs) on woodpulp, 7% on newsprint, 8% on aluminimum, 8% on lead and 6.5% on zinc. This implies that not just food prices will rise but manufactured items also.
Economic Conclusions
Two things are generally accepted by all parties involved:—
(i)	No benefit will be felt until 1980. The EEC must be regarded as long term policy.
(ii)	The economic advantages and disadvantages cancel each other out.
If we join the EEC, it will involve ending our present trading agreements outside of the EEC. On third of our trade is done with the Com-
monwealth and its underdeveloped nations who will suffer a serious blow if the trading agreements are concluded. The encouraging growth rate of EFTA and the declining growth rate of the EEC would suggest that there are many valuable trading grounds still to be explored outside of Europe. Africa, Latin America and Australasia are potential developing areas which in time will offer far greater incentives than Europe.
John Da vies, speaking at a OBI dinner on 17th November, 1969, underlined the difficult decision facing British industrialists when he said:—
"The short-term factors have undoubtedly become less favourable. The effect of adoption of the common agricultural policy, cracking and creaking, as it is, looks inevitably more onerous than before".
In the economic aspects therefore, one is able to see many contradictions. Large industries favour entry and will no doubt benefit handsomely from it, whilst the smaller industries face disaster and the many workers involved in them. The housewife also will soon become aware of the meaning of entry. Although the economic factors cancel each other out, one fact is apparent — the industrialists will gain and the workers will lose.
Political Aspects
The Treaty of Rome calls for a united Europe under one Parliament in Strasbourg. Although to date this has not been wholly achieved, it is on the agenda. The Strasbourg Parliament will override our own British Parliament thus making it impotent. This means that Britain will lose its independence both politically and economically and will be dictated to by a Strasbourg parliament which is appointed, rather than elected.
The EEC is envisaged as a third force in world politics and our entry has been supported by the United States who visualise the EEC as a
possible ally against the Soviet Union, to hardening East/West relationships. In February of this year. President Nixon said:—
"We consider that the possible economic price of a truly unified Europe is outweighed by the gain in the political vitality of the West as a whole."
It can be argued that the combination of so many social-democratic parties in the EEC will help to bring about a socialist Europe. There is, however, no evidence to date that the social-democratic parties, already within the EEC, have encouraged a European brand of socialism and I doubt very much that the entrance of the British Labour Party to the Common Market will bring about a sudden revolution!
The control of location for industry is dictated by the Treaty of Rome. The Regional Employment Premium and the Industrial Development Certificates are in direct contravention to the Treaty. This means that such underdeveloped areas as Scotland and North Wales would suffer with there being a return of employment to the large industrial areas and the South. If one is refused an IDC in London then one would in the EEC be free to set up anywhere in Europe, and if one was seeking cheap labour, then one would be more inclined to go to Italy rather than Scotland.
If agreement is reached the Government will lose its present power to give aid to Scotland and will have to conform to Common Market regional policy.
The Treaty of Rome allows for the free movement of labour within the EEC which gives industry the advantage of acquiring cheaper labour. Large numbers of Italians have emigrated, particularly to Germany who now employ over 1,000,000 foreign workers. 20% of Luxembourg's working population is foreign. Any community which depends on a fluid force of labour willing to move from country to
country after employment is an anti-working class community. The trade unions will be besieged with problems.
The Barre plan calls for the unification of monetary and economic policies. One visualises yet another 'D-Day' looming on the distant horizon! The Barre plan also provides for increasingly more collaboration in three stages extending over the next ten years. In the third and final stage the EEC's exchange rates would be irrevocably fixed in relation to each other, and a European reserve fund would be set up. This is not yet a common currency but it is a long stride towards one. Company taxation as well as excise taxes would be harmonised. There would be a free movement of capital and the member states would have to coordinate their credit policies, and the rates of growth of their economies. If all these aims were achieved, the six would have gone a long way towards merging their economies into a single economy and transferring all the key decisions on economic matters to Brussels.
Membership of the community will require the United Kingdom to adopt Value Added Tax in replacement of purchase tax and Selective Employment Tax. The adoption of VAT will reduce the overall effect of our present taxation system, replacing it with a taxation .system aimed only at hurting the working classes.
Conclusion
The political aspects of our entry into the Market spell out our loss of independence. Democracy will become even more bureaucratic. The ordinary worker or shop steward will lose his present ability to be able to find a voice in the power structure and instead will face a maze of corridors of power leading to Strasbourg. The trade union movement will find itself facing the same problems that it has been facing throughout its history—only on a far greater scale and >vith some additional problems.
ITEM
Butter Beef .. Pork .. Sugar Tea Cheese
COMPARATIVE FOOD PRICES — SUMMER 1969
FRANCE	GERMANY	ITALY	NETHERLANDS
17/2	15/-	22/2	15/9
28/6	?7/3	32/8	23/8 19/6
WT.
Kilo Kilo Kilo Kilo 0.5 Kilo Kilo
BELGIUM
18/4 35/-22/6 2/8 30/-4/2
2/2 32/6 13/6
GERMANY
15/-27/3 22/6 2/4 29/8 22/-
ITALY
22/2 32/8 18/8 6/6 23/6 19/-
20/-3/2 10/4 13/8
U.K.
8/-15/-12/10 21-7/-9/6
Survey by salary research unit of Associated Industrial Consultants.
February 25, 1971
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Page 11
SPORT
WOMEN OF THE LSE UNITE!
To be perfectly blunt about it, the Women's Hockey Team at 1/SE did not make Ihe shattering impact it had initially planned on the University of London at the beginning of this season. Getting together eleven hearty women in a place where we are gloriously outnumbered by a ratio of 3 to 1, proved an arduous task, requiring eventually the use of forceful coercion and random recruiting of anybody who had even heard of hockey, let alone played.
Probably the "jolly hock-eysticks" image does not go down at all well at LSE and prospective players may have been put off by the thought of having to smug^e boots and sticks ignominl-ously into the school the night before, in order to avoid the sneering taunts of those who find the si^t of eleven micro-skirted females Hashing up and down a pseudo-football pitch hilariously funny.
Or is the masculine image associated with field and ice hockey considered undignified and therefore acts as a discouraging phenomenon? By rights then, this sport should appeal to all Women's Lib. supporters. Well, if so, where the hell arc they?
Of course we had to turn down various genuine male offers of support as our views on fairness were definitely inflexible. We wonder, however, whether other colleges share our feelings on this— serious doubts over the physique and appearance of one particular team's goalee have been strongly voiced.
But enough of this pessimism; having revived the
Club (it lapsed last year), the LSE Women's Hockey en-thsuiasts were not to be daunted by lack of numbers. Problems aside we have always had enough players to present a strong challenge, as Bedford College found to iheir cost last week. We turned out in full force to Headstone Lane and even after depriving our courageous goalee of her stick (we lack equipment as well as players), she let only one ball slip past her robust frame— all 4ft. 9in. of it! LSE, on the other hand,—thanks to brilliant performances by the centre forward and left inner—shot three breathtaking goals, and scored a shattering blow to Bedford's overconfidence.
Our team spirit was admirable and standard of play quite remarkable. Spurred on by a new incentive, a knowledge of tactics was even displayed. The enthusiasm on the field was only topp^ by that shown afterwards in the rather hasty return to the Three Tuns for the more enjoyable aspects of celebrating our victory.
The moral of this story is that facing the opposition on equal terms with equal numbers is the key to success in all sporting activities, and we urge all L^E female hockey players to lay down their books and take up their sticks, so that we may continue to uphold the fighting reputation which the School enjoys in all fields of dynamic action.
DIANA COLLINS
P.S. Please will all enthusiastic players contact myself or Sue Baijent (Captain) through the U/G pigeon-holes. We need you!
Mr. Spectator
On either side the Aldwych lie.
Long lines of cars and people bye.
That clothe the world and meet the sky;
To many towered Camelett;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the pansies blow
Round an island there below. To eulogise your choice, your lot!
There he weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
He has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on him if he stay. Aye that be him, yon Camelett.
He knows not why the curse may be.
And so he weaveth steadily.
And little other care hath he.
There he goes that Camelett.
And when the moon was overhead.
Came to young lovers lately wed;
"I am half sick of gay lib.", said
Our steadfast Camelett.
But when he reached upon the tide
The first floor of St. Clement's side.
Singing us his song, he died. The outsider. Camelett. (Pace Tennyson)
Election time came and went. A multitude of candidates each equally unknown to all but a handful of the electorate and a preference voting system! Philosophy is the only sentiment appropriate, and more Tennyson for the greater moments of our Enghsh history:
"The old order changeth,
yielding place to new. And God fulfils Himself in
many ways.
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world."
The prominent front page article of Sennet on Professor Miller's appointment at the N. Polytechnic is not particularly interesting to readers except for historical associations with the establishment. This column is not interested in defending or attacking Professor Miller or the article, but is quite un-equivocable in its assertion that if Professor Miller was the fool that rushed in where angels fear to tread, his misfortunes only indicate a fraction of the problems facing the creative Columbi who
attempt to civilize the world through education. No amount of criticism can ever erase the genuine achievements of those who acccpt these obstacles, and conquer, and create, in spite of them. Perhaps these sentiments may be recalled the next time adverse comments are passed up and upon the Board of the Company.
Mr. Spectator is also a misogynist. The reason for his complaints about the fairer sex—too little and too late. What is left to tickle the appetite of man? Dresses are down to the ankles, boots are up to you-know-where, long hair and moonstones for glasses complete the ravishment. It's no wonder they have had to be bailed out by men two fashion cycles running. First there were trousers, and now there come shorts. What next! It is rumoured they will shortly be seen with hair on legs, hair under the arms, spotty faces, smeilly breath and pipe smoking. Men defend your every odour! They will steal and deprive us of all individuality to satiate their impossible appetites for style. As Satyrs they will devour us whilst we wait like innocent liarpies upon itheir infatuation. Or is this liberation!
FINIS
The Working Class at Play
GET FIT . . . AND KEEP FIT LADIES ONLY
TUESDAY: 5.45 p.m. in the Gymnasium
Sally Alexander's great-great-grandfather was John Pert, an itinerant violinist, who travelled around to play at Wakes and feasts and fairs and who, according to family tradition died of pneumonia on his way to Oxford Fair. Miss Alexander was herself an actress before winning a scholarship to Ruskin College, Oxford—a place which George Bernard Shaw called 'a working class institution in a gentleman's city'!
It is fitting therefore that Miss Alexander should undertake to write a history of the St. Giles Fair which appeared in Oxford every September.* This annual event, the origin of which can be traced back to 1622, was regularly greeted with mixed feelings amongst the inhabitants of the city of Oxford. The Dons and the upper crust of the university whose homes spanned the length of St. Giles did their best to be absent from the city during that week. The police and local ofllcials groaned at the extra volume of work coming their way for fairs tended to *"St. Girls Fair 1830-1914" by Sally Alexander, published by Ruskin College, Oxford.
attract those whom the law did not wish to attract . . . pickpockets. drunkards, brawlers, etc.. etc. The townsfolk on the other hand looked forward to the event months in advance for they were often too poor to go on holiday. The fair therefore took the place of an annual holiday and represented a week of boisterous and enjoyable activities.
The St. Giles Fair came into its own right in the 19th century when it incerased in size, nature and appeal and survived through to the First World War when events overtook it. For this reason it represents a kaleidoscope of social history and patterns of change.
Miss Alexander illustrates her book with vivid descriptions of the booths and stalls and people who inhabited them. In the early 19th ccn-tury, linen and textile wares dominated the stalls whilst by the early 20th century it was the mechanised roundabouts, boxing booths, zoos, kinema-tographs, and 'friendly Zulus'. Fashion also was important, not just as an indication to working class life but as an excuse by the young to exhibit their latest fashions
and attract the men or women of their choice.
Working class culture is an important aspect of history which has for too long been ignored by the historians and only with the emergence of E. P. Thompson and Eric Hobsbawn has an interest been kindled. Ruskin College was founded in 1899 as an institution to educate native working class people in Britain who had been deprived of an adequate education but who had developed their talents through the British Labour movement and trade unions.
Today, it demonstrates its progressive attitude by em. phasising the importance of developing a working class culture. It has just held its fifth annual History Workshop weekend—an event as eagerly awaited by students of social history as the St. Giles Fair was by the working class of Oxford.
In undertaking the publication of these pamphlets, all of which are written by students of Ruskin college, the college is making a significant contribution to our understanding of history.
Stephen F. Kelly
Shaw Library
Starting near at home with libraries, Anthony Hobson's Great Libraries is a superb cofl'ee-table book, giving notes about thirty-two of the world's most famous libraries from the ancient Vatican Library to the fabulously wealthy University Library at Austin, Texas, whicli seems to have cornered the market in modern manuscripts. Superb colour and black and white photographs illustrate buildings, bindings and some of the most precious manuscripts and incunabula in the world.
Fine printing and binding are also represented by books from the Folio Society, to which the Shaw Library now belongs. The Folio Society edition of two Pushkin tales (Queen of Spades and The Captain's daughter) is interesting because this is the first book not published in a limited edition in which the illustrations are printed directly from the artist's plates; each illustration is therefore an 'original'.
Those who know of Heath-Robinson as the designer of crazy machines with tenuous mechanical ability will be interested in a reprint of the 1900 edition of Edgar Allen Poe's poems with illustrations by the same Heath-Robinson in the best Beardsley/Art Nouveau tradition. In that tradition, though slightly academised, was John Singer Sargent, a lavishly illustrated account of w^hose work by Richard Ormond is now in the Shaw Library.
New novels of interest include Anatoli's Babi Yar, Siniavskii's The trial begins, Dannie Abse's O. Jones, O. Jone.s, and the last in C. P. Snow's Strangers and brothers sequence, appropriately titled Last things.
Loudon note
For those interested in the locality round L.S.E., a new history of Holborn by the poet John Lehmann is available. A topographical book now of historical interest is Thome's Handbook to the environs of London, long unavailable now reprinted; fascinating facts about many areas now totally suburban: Clapham, Wimbledon then on the outskirts of London. You may not believe it, but the GLC actually cares about historic buildings; read their recent pamphlet and find out what they have done to save (among other things) the Embankment facade of the Tate Gallery (GLC, Historic buildings board. Do you care about liistoric buildings?) One of the houses in their care is Marble Hill House in Twickenham, an interesting history of which has been written by Marie Draper. A town house of special interest to London University because it houses the Courtauld Institute, is Home House in Portman Square, a short history of which is now available.
JH
Page 12
BEAVER
February 25,
1971
BEAVER:
ISSUE IN NON-ELECTION
"Beaver's" staff have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams in creating issues to be placed before Union. "Beaver"^—its function, content and contributors — was in the forefront of the non-issues presented by the candidates for the Deputy Presidency, no doubt partly because our former political correspondent, John Statha-tos, was one of those running and also because "Beaver's" exact role has not been properly defined — with the appointment of the new editor. Except for this one topic, the electorate was not confronted by any earth-shaking, awe-inspiring policy proposals— one wonders even more what is in store for us all over the next year.
However, faced with the emergence of the certain of the corrupt and incompetent gang on whom we passed judgement in both the Union and in the Presidential elec-
tions, Union decided, as usual to ignore the whole proceedings. There were exceptions —Daddy Trevor attracted the teeny-bopper vote and the famous Persians (who appear to have superseded the political societies as a power base for aspiring Union politicians) turned out with a welter of registration cards. Certain candidates for the various vice-presidencies appear to have won on potential merit—one can mention especially John Fisk's walkover for the Welfare Vice-Presidency. Ian Morley was the victor of a close run thing in the election of the Academic affairs V.P. Chris Chesworth and Clive Atten-borough were returned unopposed when they stood for their old posts of Gen. Sec. and Social V.P. respectively —but whether more because of apathy and general disillusion who can say?
Trevor celebrated his
newly acquired status by ringing up the Director and being politely rebuffed.
If anyone is still interested, here are the results you have all been waiting for (1 got them off the notice board in St. Clement's building where they've been hanging for the last week).
DEPUTY PRESIDENT
1st Count
Steve Barber........................97
Lee Boocker ..................24
Trevor Jones ..................174
John Stathatos ............75
2nd Count
Steve Barber ..................102
Trevor Jones ..................180
John Stathatos ............80
3rd Count
Steve Barber ......... 122
Trevor Jones ......... 204
TOTAL VOTES CAST 370 (plus 57 spoilt)
ACADEMIC AFFAIRS V.P. 1st Count
Charles Butcher ...... 128
Ian Morley ............ 149
John Morton ......... 103
2nd Count
C. Butcher ............ 128
I. Morley ............... 185
TOTAL VOTES CAST 380 (plus 47 spoilt)
WELFARE V.P.
John Fisk ............... 250
Colin Lewis ............ 86
The last question is why didn't Gareth Pryce stand? God bless us everyone!
Money for
Freedom Fighters?
It seems unlikely that the post office workers and the African freedom fighters will be getting the money Union voted them at the last Union meeting. The School is custodian of the Union's funds and as such is liable to a court action (as is the Union itself) if it breaks any of the laws concerning charitable organisations such as university colleges. The allotting of the School's funds for political purposes is one such breach, and in the present climate especially the School is very concerned. As you may have read, more than one Tory M.P. and the Tory press (latest the Times Educational Supplement) are examining the whole question of students' unions' finances, intending to place even more restrictions on our freedom of action.
BEAVER
EDITOR:
Elisabeth Faulkner
SUB-EDITORS:
Norman Bergel Barry Buzan, J. Sydner
FEATURES:
Joseph Sydner,
John Mair,
David Kenvyn,
John Andrews,
Stephen Kelly our President.
ARTS:
Diana Villiers,
Norman Bergel,
Barry Buzan,
Steve Kelly,
Clive Attenborough.
BUSINESS MANAGER;
Martha Greenyer.
SALES MANAGER:
John Andrews.
ADVERTISING AGENTS:
JEP and Associates, 107/111 Fleet Street, EC4.
BEAVER ADDRESS:
LSE Students' Union,
Clare Market, London, WC2 2AE.
Tel. 01-405 4872.
PRINTER:
F. Bailey & Son Ltd., Dursley, Glos.
NEXT TIME:
A special supplement on Racialism (and we're not being given a Union Grant!)
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THE ADMINISTRATORS


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