BRITISH UBIiARy Of POtlllCAL S tCOdOMIC SCIQICE
1 SJDN1990
NEWSPAPER OF THE LSE STUDENTS' UNION
No. 136
JANUARY 7th, 1975
FREE
ARMY rules Does the DPP know?
THE first part of Mr Ingram's campaign to get his own Student Union prosecuted by the Government was revealed on December 24th by the "Daily Telegraph," who having just realised that not everyone loves "The Army" (who's ever it is), published the following article under the headline, "Left-wing students' 'don't join-up' call passed to DPP." Being connected with 'students' it was written by their Education Correspondent—John Izbicki. It would be nice to know which particular Ministers were 'furious.' it would be even better if we knew what the Government's Prosecutor is going to do about it.
"An •advertisement' composed by Left-wing students advising graduates not to join the regular Army, has been forwarded to the Director of Public Prosecutions. It has also been brought to the attention of members of the Cabinet.
The advertisement, based on the genuine recruiting poster for Army officers, has appeared twice in recent issues of "Beaver," the fortnightly journal of the London School of Economics students' union.
Entitled "The long-term benefits of a Short Service Commission" it is claimed to be a "gross misrepresentation" and to contain "implicit encitement."
It states in part; "In the long term, as Keynes (the economist) pointed out, we're all dead. As an 'Army Officer' you will have a good chance of becoming dead a lot sooner.
"Provided you're not too imaginative (and you don't have to be imaginative to become an 'Army Officer' : look at Mark Phillips) this shouldn't worry you at all.
CHILEAN JUNTA
"So if you're under 26 and want to see the world (flattened), join the 'Army' as a Short Service Commissioned Officer.
"Address your letter to Major J. R. Pinochet, Army Officer Entry, Dept. E38, Lansdowne House, Berkeley Square, Santiago, WIX 6AA."
The address given in genuine advertisements is: Major J. R. Drew, Army Officer Entry, Dept. A59, ' Lansdown House, Berkeley Square, London, WIX 6AA. The name given in the student advert refers to the leader of the Chilean junta.
I understand that a copy of the advertisement, together with an article which appeared next to it, have been shown to senior members of both the Cabinet and the Shadow Cabinet. Ministers are said to have been furious at the student action.
Mr Robert Ingram, 23, a third-year LSE student of economics and, until earlier this month vice-chairman of the School's Conservative Association, has referred the matter to Sir Norman Skelhorn, Q.C., Director of Public Prosecutions.
In a letter to "Beaver's" acting editor, Mr Peter Timmins, Mr Ingram wrote: "That you should have deemed it right to publish such a callous and inaccurate account of life in the British Army is utterly beneath contempt and a most irresponsible act."
The letter, which was published in full by the journal and took up its entire front page on November 26th, also referred to the "British soldiers and innocent civilians daily being murdered and maimed by a handful of thugs and louts masquerading as a 'Republican Army'."
The letter appeared over a large caption; "You and whose ¦Army,' Mr Ingram ?" On an inside page, the "advertisement" was repeated. A comment by Mr Timmins states that, although the Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland had been "mainly responsible for the killings in Northern Ireland . . . the British Army does its bit of killing and is strongly suspected of 'helping,' even if it is by not persecuting (sic), the Protestant 'cause'."
LIKE A COWARD
Students belonging to the "broad Left" at LSE are now accusing Mr Ingram of having "acted like a coward" by taking the matter to the DPP. "He should have debated this democratically at a union meeting instead of taking it to the bourgeois law," was how one Left-wing student who refused to give his name put it.
Genuine Army recruiting advertisements have in the past been carried by "Beaver." But last month, a general meeting of LSE students banned all further -advertisements from this source.
The students also banned advertisements from Barclays Bank (because of the bank's South African connections) and, more bewildering, advertisements for Mothercare.
Apparently, this chain-store which supplies babywear and
clothing for pregnant women and mothers is considered by Left-wing women-libbers as a "capitalist company which glorifies the concept of the wife as a mother."
The article, which appeared next to the offending Army "advertisement," announced the continuation of a campaign, including the raising of funds, in support of the withdrawal of British troops from Northern Ireland."
In response to that article we received the following letter and information—obviously n«t the kind of response the 'Daily Telegraph' would have hoped for:—
DEAR MR TIMMINS, — Just who is publishing the really offensive a(dvertisements—the Army or the "Beaver" ? The Army claims, among other things, that it could do some of today's students "a bit of good." It killed my student son.
I find from the national press that the "Beaver" is being accused of "gross misrepresentation" and "implicit encitement." To discredit the Army one needs only to publish the facts : they will then speak for themselves. I enclose copies of documents which I think you will find of considerable interest.
I foresee a further big drop in recruitment to the Reserve Forces and probaWy the collapse of O.T.C. units at Universities.
Upminster, Essex.
Yours sincerely,
WALTER H. COUSINS.
On July 1st, 1971, Malcom John Cousins, while on a 48-hour exercise with Cambridge University Officer Training Corps (O.T.C.) was killed when the driver of the Landrover he was travelling in fell asleep at the wheel. The driver survived.
The action or more appropriately the inaction of the Army following the accident show very well that, in Mr Cousins's words, "The veneer of justice covering the Establishment is unbelievably thin."
The facts of the case were consistently withheld from the Cousins', they were not officially informed of the post-mortem and incjuest, being left to discover the results from their l<x;al newspaper. It took several weeks before they were able to obtain their son's personal belongings.
Lt. Col. Blomfield (C.O. of the U.O.T.C.) did, however, inform them that "He was perturbed at the probings of our local newspapermen. He hoped they would not print anything sensational or silly. He also told me that the Army offered £5 towards funeral expenses—plus another £10 if we chose not to use an Army coffin—and there the financial liability of the Army ended." Mr Cousins adds "Clearly the Army still expects to obtain its fodder very cheaply. I thought such an outlook had ended with World War One."
The Army was certainly very keen that little or no information should reach the Cousins —their son's friends (and in particular the driver) in the U.O.T.C. were "advised" not to contact them. No explanation was given as to why their son's body had been moved from Shepton Mallet to Bath to Bristol.
Mr Cousins did not get much joy from his local M.P., Mr John Loveridge (Conservative). Mr Lover-idge was at first sympathetic, but having obtained the result of a Government enquiry in the form of a letter from Mr Geoffrey Johnson Smith (then Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Defence) "his attitude had entirely changed; he clearly now took the offi-
cial view. He was, after all, a Conservative member of a Conservative Goverament."
Mr Cousins also comments on the report as being 'mainly a conventional expression of loyalty to staff ... "I am personally confident that there is no justification for a chai-ge of irresponsibility . . . "'— what more could he expect when 'The defendant was also judge and jury.'
One point came out very clearly from the report —"The Ministry of Defence made it clear that they intended to withdraw all our rights under Common Law to take legal action against either the Ministry itself, which we had informed them we intended to do, or against the young driver involved, an action we had not considered." This was justified under Section 10 of the Crown Proceedings Act, 1947 ; although Section 11 clearly does not absolve the Army from the duty of paying compensation.
Mr Cousins reacted by asking for an independent public inquiry to look into his own particular case, cadet training in general and the sort of situation where "the Army can do no wrong regardless of the deaths it may cause through the negligence, stupidity or irresponsibility of its officers." There has not been such an enquiry.
A case Was brought by the police against the driver for dangerous driving, he was given an Army solicitor despite the fact it was a civilian action. In relation to the trial, Mr Cousins claims there was a failure to notify witnesses, an erroneous summing-up by the judge and that due to the abrupt closing of the inquest "the court case and the inquest were both completed without one witness being called or anyone being given the opportunity to ask a single question. I have no doubt that the Army is well practised in the procedure."
The driver was fined £20, without disqualification or endorsement, and the judge stated "that his error was in not handing over to the other driver, my son, when he felt too tired." There was, however, a very important point ignored as "Nobody in court told the judge that my son had up till then done the major share of the driving and that they had changed over only a few miles back precisely because he was too tired." Another important point was the lack of seat belts or a hand-rail in the Landrover and the fact that Malcom Cousins was thrown from the vehicle and then trapped beneath it.
Not only was Malcom Cousins a member of U.O.T.C., he was also a member of NUS —not that they seem to have done much about it. The "keen interest" of Mr Charles Clarke and Mr Steve de Bondt, of the Cambridge SU, went as far as mentioning the possibility of bringing "the entire University O.T.C. movement to a halt until justice is done"—and no further. The NUS Welfai'e Officer "stated that he was going on holiday" and "has shown no further interest." Mr Digby Jacks (then President of the NUS) eventually managed "a four-line letter referring us to the International Committee of Jurists."
The cover-up attitude of the Government and the Army becomes more disturbing in the light of a similar case. "I understand that at Crowborough, Sussex, on July 29th, 1971, a young driver was killed in somewhat similar circumstances, even though he had vainly protested that he was too tired to continue."
The final word to Mr Cousins—"We have always thought that in this country the public and Parliament were the final arbiters of justice—not the Army."
UKAVER, Jan. 7th. 1975—Page Two
take IM£ I
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More for Mr. Ingram
DEAR BEAVER,—A few words in reply to Mr Ingram.
Exchanging "IRA" for "British Army" throughout the letter and making a few minor changes in the wording produces an equally acceptable emotive appeal for the "IRA." The difference, of course, lies in whether one starts oft by thinking one is a British patriot and therefore anyone opposed to the British Army is a sub-human traitor or that one is an Irish Republican and therefore anyone opposed to the Irish Republican Army is condoning murderous political oppression. Both attitudes exist. Neither of them are defensible.
The worst thing that can be said about the Irish Republican Army or the UDA or the British Army is that they are armies— that is organisations trained and dedicated to kiUing on order— and nothing Mr Ingram says goes any way to excusing this.
Yours for Peace,
PAUL SEED.
The Brih'sh Withdrawal from Northern Ireland Campaign
The British Withdrawal from Northern Ireland Campaign is distributing to soldiers a leaflet informing them about ways of leaving the army. Why are soldiers looking for this kind of infonn-ation ? For many it is the army's role in Northern Ireland that has brought them to look for ways out. Soldiers have found out at first hand-
That the army's "peace-keeping" role is a myth.
That there cannot be a military solution to the problem.
What peace can there be while armed men and tanks patrol the streets ? Their presence has only shown the power of the gun and encouraged the build-up of the IRA and militarism in Protestant groups. Violence has grown, not diminished, since the army moved in.
1969 • - - NO DEATHS
1972	- - - 129 DEATHS
1973	- - - 250 DEATHS
Many soldiers realise they are not "peace-makers" in this situation. They have enemies on all sides. Every action is interpreted as partial by one side or the other.
The British Government is using the soldiers in an attempt to enforce its own so-called "moderate" solution. This would override the aspirations of both communities by making Northern Ireland a client state of Britain in the EEC. This is a goal that neither Protestants or Catholics share.
Sunningdale brought no agreement to Northern Ireland, only increased violent reaction. The only solution can come by the Northern Irish people building on their common goals and acknowledging their differences. It will not come by British troops trying to suppress these differences by force. The longer British troops remain in military occupation of Northern Ireland the worse the situation grows.
Britain should—
END THE POLITICAL UNION WITHDRAW THE TROOPS
There will be bloodshed : but there is bloodshed now. It has increased sharply sir.ce the troops moved in, and. will continue to increase while they remain there, with no end of it in sight.
Will you help soldiers to leave this war in which you and they are entangled ?
You can help if you wish by giving soldiers information on ways of leaving the army. If you wish to obtain leaflets giving this information or wish to help to distribute it write to British Withdrawal from Northern Ireland Campaign, c/o 5 Caledonian Road, London, Nl.
(Remember possibility of arrest—Ed.)
Hot plates and hot air
.3,J. article on page five, November 26th, 1974, headed : "FOOD'' (by Gaston Gnome).
The writer of the bilge contained in the column, taking the piss out of the Catering Staff, should spend a little time working out a few costings on meals before putting pen to paper. Haven't you read in your Morning Star & Socialist Worker how the wicked Government has allowed food prices to rise since last year ?
Yes, Student fellow Workers, your meals are subsidised by the low wages paid to the people v.-ho dish your 'expensive' meals out, ho sweat their guts out behind hot plates (while all most of you dj is blow out hot air) for a fev/ pence a week more than you get in grants.
T. VENABLES
(Dish Washer).
We are printing all the letters we received in response to the article by Roman Brodsky which appeared in the last issue
SIR, — Your publication of the article equating Zionism with Nazism is beneath contempt. To you the slaughter of some six million Jews might be a macabre joke. For us Jews whose mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and children were gassed, shot and burned to death it is not.
However, I do not seek your sympathy any more than I would expect any spark of human decency from the fascist scum who are also at this very moment maligning the memories of the Jewish martyrs of German fascism.
One wonders which is the more evil, the fascist canard that the slaughter of the Six Million is a Zionist myth to obtain reparations from the Germans, or yours which accuses the "Zionists" of collusion in their own destruction.
And how cunning of you, Mr Editor, to publish an article by a notorious Ukrainian Communist Party hack without revealing its true source.
Your readers might be interested to know that Professor R. Brodskye, of the University of Lvov, is regularly featured in the Soviet press whenever a Judas is needed to betray his own people. The last time we heard from him in the West, this "Last of the Mohicans" was loudly protesting that there were no Jewish quotas at his university. I wonder what quota Professor Brodskve comes under—perhaps it is that of the unrepentant Stalinists.
I have it under excellent authority that the archives from which Brodskye lifted his historical garbage is kept under lock and key by the KBG and that only its agents and the most dedicated party members have access to it. I leave it to your readers to judge the veracity of the author and the truth of his article. 1 leave them, too. to judge your own motives, not only in publishing it but in failing to divulge its true origin.
DR. J. GEWIRTZ
Executive Director
Defence & Group Relations Department,
THE BOARD OF DEPUTIES OF BRITISH JEWS.
DEAR SIR,— Roman Brodskye's article equating Zionism with Nazism is too absurdly ridiculous to merit a reasoned reply. Who the hell is Brodskye anyway ? He's not on the teaching staff and none of the students I have spoken to know him.
Whoever he is, the article reached a new low in fascist anti-semitism. Please don't tell me he's Jewish twice-removed on his mother's side, or that some of his best friends are Jewish.
How did you come to publish such racialist rubbish in the first place "
ADAM J. REESE.
DEAR SIR,—I have read the article "Zionism, another word for Nazism" in your issue of November 26th and if I were to substitute the word "Jew" for "Zionism" its content would equal, if not surpass, some of the Nazi literature about Jews printed before and during the last world war.
What I find most dishonest is that you give the impression that the article was written by a student or someone from the campus and do not indicate that it is selected excerpts from a publication, "The Truth about Zionism," published by the Novosty Press Agency Publishing. House, Moscow in 1974; I have the original. I am surprised you rely on such sources.
I wonder whether in the interests of even-handedness, you would be prepared to receive an article on ''Zionism, a movement of national liberation."
Looking forward to your reply.
S. MARCUS
(Chairman, Mapam, Socialist Zionist Party). ? ? ?
If anyone wants to read a book by this unparalleled genius on Zionism, there's one on the Russian shelf in Collets of Charing Cross Road. Costs 15p.
In extremis
SIR, — I am writing to express my extreme disapproval at Colts' unsavoury advertisement on page 8 in the current issue of "Beaver"'. I am a member of the Staff, and I read every issue of your paper from cover to cover, and my children read it too, and although I think that the "Felicity" column is in need of cleaning up (she seems to
sleep with a different man every night) I take it in the lighthearted vein in which it is intended. But this advertisement is really disgusting.
Although I know "Beaver" is a student newspaper, and as such, anything goes, there must be a certain guideline of standard and quality. There are girl students, roughly in the age group between 18 and 30, and believe it or not, some of these students have never seen a male organ, and those who have, do
SIR, — The article by "Roman Brodsky" is picturesque but disturbing. I do not make the mistake of confusing anti-Zionism, anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism. It is a pity that Brodskye does.
Brodsky has distorted the teachings of Judaism. Unlike Russian communism, Judaism is not a totalitarian bureaucratic religion based on terror and the suppression of opposition. This is, of course, why Jews with any trace of religious belief cannot give allegiance to Tsar, Hitler, Stalin or the rest of that monstrous and perverted brood. It is possible by dredging the writings of Jewish sages to find a few scattered sentences expressing hostility to Gentiles — indeed such dredging was a favourite trick of Nazi propagandists. Given our millions of martyrs-this is surely to be understood. But nobody with any knowledge of Judaism could take seriously Brodskye's perverted picture of elitism and racism. Has Brodsky never heard of vicious and inhumane passages in Christian and Moslem writers ?
Brodsky's "discovery" of the original names of Herzl and Levi Eshkol moves him from anti-Judaism to anti-Semitism. Jewish surnames were often given to them by hostile State officials — there is no reason whatsoever why they should not be changed. What were Stalin and Trotsky's original names ?
It is not up to me to defend the Zionists or Israeli policy. However, there are two points which should be made. The first is on the question of the Palestinian I'efugees. Who keeps them in the camps starving and uneducated ? Leaving aside Brodsky's sick jokes of Alaska and Western Australia, is there no room for them in the vast Arab world sharing the same language, religion and way of life ? If they wish te remain in camps, cannot the rich Arab world provide huts, schools and teachers ? Israel absorbed hundreds of thousands of Jews from Arab countries while Palestinians were left to starve by their fellow Arabs.
As for collaboration with the Nazis. Whatever the truth of those terrible years two facts are clear. Many Arabs collaborated with the Nazis and there was a long period of collaboration between Russian communism and the Nazis.
Enough of this! What Jews and Arabs need to do is to work towards peace and reconstruction in the Middle East. Roman Brodsky's article is unlikely to contribute towards those ends.
Asher Tropp
not relish the idea of having it displayed in this fashion.
Colts are the main culprits, what do they intend to show next week, a couple copulating? Surely there are more tasteful ways of advertising contraceptives than this lewd spectacle. I have written to the advertisers, J. Arnold Ltd., expressing my extreme disapproval of this lewd advertisement.
Yours faithfully,
Mrs J, Williams Sociology Department
BEAVER. Jan. 7th, 1975—Page Three
Felicity's Christmas
MONDAY
DEAR reader, if only you could appreciate the joys of a family Christmas! Now we are all back in London we can sit in a jovial hostelry and swap stories of our Christmas. As you may have noticed, one of my presents was a book of Indian Love Songs. I read some of these beautiful lyricisms to sabbatical officer Chris Hoy-Iftnd the other night; when I had finished I turned to see if
ciircfpf) to
some of my vacation grant, but it was not to be. Dave Evans invited me into that inner sanctum of athletic prowess the AU office. Here I spent an informative couple of hours learning the inside secrets of inter-college sports and who had been raped by who at the last rugby formal dinner. Escaping this amazing fantasy world at the end of the corridor, I was enveloped by Richard Rees who babbled incessantly about how successful his concerts had been this term, and what super bands he had lined up for next

WEDNESDAY
People are at last beginning to drift back to the college with the start of a new term just a few days away. Had a drink at the expense of Greg Curry who seemed to be very interested to know who exactly writes this column — well Greg think back, this is the second time we have met and you haven't sussed yet! Abe Op pel was so busy telling the story of how he had no idea who had broken his finger that Vip never even brought me a
doesn't seem to have worked in a place like this before; must be nice to him to see if I can get a job on the bar, Stuart never gave me one, just an embarrassing complaint! Joyce Pillay had obviously heard a tale that the new term was to be ushered in with a free nosh-up as she hurried into the LSE before noon for the first time on record! She consoled herself with a mere three helpings of "White Horse cheese pie!
Spent the afternoon in the library in a vain attempt to catch up on the work that I had missed during term. Was very depressed by talking to Ken Muller about exams — he — —more time
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FACTS...YES! LIES.. .fJO!" ARTICLE Il\l GEAUER
lan on picket I. Strange, I enthusiasm is to hurry home up by reading . Went to bed Punishment.
escorted to the opera by Tony Brown, however his tales of the great fun he has had with Imagine and her friends made the whole things seem a bit incestuous, so I raced down to Garr Saunders to see my old friend Ed Kuska who introduced me to the wonderful new catering officer at the Hall, of whom it is said that once you have seen her you will never forget her. Her name escapes me at the moment, but you will all have noticed what a nice shade of red her hair is. Went to bed eut of sheer boredom!
TUESDAY
Decided that I would stay in the library for more than ¦ five minutes today and actually earn
go TO Sieepr au i _____
from the CP who took great delight in showing me his Guinness shirt. Made a mental note not to study him any closer in the future as the shirt obviously hadn't been washed in weeks! I hurried off home to change in order to be ready for the party at Paul Lewis's that night. Paul strikes me as one of the oddest clergymen that I have ever met, not at all like the Rev. Cleeves at home : Paul not only smokes heavily but also seems to drink almost, as much as I do — in fact he seems to be in pubs almost as often as BrII Halsey. The party was full of the usual crowd, so I sauntered on to Rosebery Bar to talk to Colin Hughes, the bar manager there. He does an awfully good job on the bar though personally, I usually prefer a bed I
my proficiency oaager way home I tripped over an inert body in the middle of the Aldvifych. Thinking that it was a person who \vas down and out, I bent down to help. To my horror I recognised the face and swiftly hurried away; I do wish that when the Administration hold New Year parties that they would make arrangements to carry Mary Whitty home afterwards,' because she's not as young as she used to be — I mean she must be nearly as old as Dave Kenvyn. Went to bed and plaj'-ed with — myself (yawn).
THURSDAY
Met the new Bar Steward, whose name is Bruce, who
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"If I ruUi tke
Sat in the White Horse with my Editor and decided on the
Felicity Awards of the year;
Artistic Impression: Mrs J.
Williams — for the cardboard cut-out of disgust in the Sociology Department and for believing I need cleaning up.
Intellectual Endeavour: Ralf Dahrendorf — for trying to be intellectual for which he should get more than a Reith.
Technical Merit: Alastair Coe — a change is as good as a rest.
Political Ineptitude: Ken
Muller — for pointing the finger at NUS conference.
Personal Endeavour: The
Union Staff — in the face of overwhelming Executive stupidity.
Personal Optimism: Slick Robinson — for believing that IMG really exists.
Hack of the Year : We proudly announced Dave Kenvyn, for the seventh year in succession, but we then decided six years was the maximum. So, J. Pike, servant of the LSE, it's yours.
Setting off back home now as I am so bored — thank God there will be lectures to miss next week.
Love and kisses
FELICITY
Warning
WEARERS of contact lenses are risking eye infections or possible blindness when they use some cleaning solutions a team of scientists have warned in the Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology. The team found that many of the 34 solutions currently being sold were ^^inefrective and it calls for
J urgent controls on the manufacture of the solutions.
Graffiti
An in-depth report on the current state of Durex machine graffiti from our loo correspondent, Rudex, Voyeur Supreme.
Perhaps the most pertinent graffitis in the men's loos are those inscribed on the Durex machines. Because a large proportion of our readership is restrained from reading these barbs of wit, women, the shy and the blind, I thort it only -fit that the latest state of this linguistic technology should be revealed (please read this to the blind).
The traditional. This chewing gum tastes bad and Remoulds, are in urgent need of adequate rejoinders. However the, Be prepared to meet thy womb, and. Customers are reminded that if use is made of these products on the premises, there will be a charge for VAT, are still fresh enough to continue without addition.
The employment of all available data that is writ on these machines is to be applauded. Just as "4 SEATS" on London Transport buses has been seen to change into "I FAT" to strike a reminder at those obese unthortful people, "Approved to British Standard BS3704" has been used to point out, not only the dangers of sheaths, but also their liberating effect. After "Aproved to BS3704" comes. And so was the Titanic, which is producing the automatic response, But didn't it go down smoothly. However this is being contradicted by scrawl-ings over "sensitol lubricated". Oil crisis — rough ride.
There are two other notables left, to my knowledge (additions please?). The old. Buy one and stop one followed by. Buy two and be one jump ahead, and the, to some, offensive, My wrife has two cunts and I'm one of them, which, by the way has drawn the adulturous response, And I'm the other one!
The only ending lean think of is one I found in. the "Beaver" office a few days ago. In God we trust; all others pay cash.
THIS "BEAVER" was produced by Peter Timmins and Gill Hibbert with pre-holiday help from Steve Savage, Chris Wells, and Maggie Urry.
ALL opinions in the paper are those of the writers.
DO YOU want to work for, or edit "BEAVER"? Come to the meetings at 1.00 p.m. every Tuesday.
COPYRIGHT (c) London School of Economics and Political Science, Students' Union 1975.
BEAVER, Jan. 7th, 1975—Page Three
Felicity's Christmas
MONDAY
DEAR reader, if only you could appreciate the joys of a family Christmas! Now we are all back in London we can sit in a jovial hostelry and swap stories of our Christmas. As you may have noticed, one of my presents was a book of Indian Love Songs. I read some of these beautiful lyricisms to sabbatical officer Chris Hoy-land the other night; when I had finished I turned to see if the romanticism had surged to his soul — "Whu, me ? Can I go for a crap now?" Oh well, you can't win them all. Alastair Coe does have a romantic soul though, and was completely enraptured by these beautiful lines — or was it that he was watching Crisi^in O'Brien who was sitting next to me ? Abandoning my lyrical thoughts for the minute I allowed myself to be escorted to the opera by Tony Brown, however his tales of the great fun he has had with Imagine and her friends made the whole things seem a bit incestuous, so I raced down to Carr Saunders to see my old friend Ed Kuska who introduced me to the wonderful new catering officer at the Hall, of whom it is said that once you have seen her you will never forget her. Her name escapes me at the moment, but you will all have noticed what a nice shade of red her hair is. Went to bed eut of sheer boredom!
TUESDAY
Decided that I would stay in the library for more than five minutes today and actually earn
some of my vacation grant, but it was not to be. Dave Evans invited me into that inner sanctum of athletic prowess the AU office. Here I spent an informative couple of hours learning the inside secrets of inter-college sports and who had been raped by who at the last rugby formal dinner. Escaping this amazing fantasy world at the end of the corridor, I was enveloped by Richard Rees who babbled incessantly about how successful his concerts had been this term, and what super bands he had lined up for next term, and how I would make a lovely go-go dancer for when he booked Pink Floyd, and how Mike Stubbs had to be carried home after the last Ents party and wasn't Tony Brown just a super guy, etc., etc. Fleeing to Florries, I decided to talk to a nice safe boring politico, so that I could go to sleep so I picked on Nick from the CP who took great delight in showing me his Guinness shirt. Made a mental note not to study him any closer in the future as the shirt obviously hadn't been washed in weeks! I hurried off home to change in order to be ready for the party at PauJ Lewis's that night. Paul strikes me as one of the oddest clergymen that I have ever met, not at all like the Rev. Cleeves at home : Paul not only smokes heavily but also seems to drink almost as much as I do — in fact he seems to be in pubs almost as often as BHI Halsey. The party was full of the usual crowd, so I sauntered on to Rosebery Bar to talk to Colin Hughes, the bar manager there. He does an awfully good job on the bar though personally, I usually prefer a bed I
WEDNESDAY
People are at last beginning to drift back to the college with the start of a new term just a few days away. Had a drink at the expense of Greg Curry who seemed to be very interested to know who exactly vmtes this column — well Greg think back, this is the second time we have met and you haven't sussed ¦ yet! Abe Oppel was so busy telling the story of how he had no idea who had broken his finger that he never even brought me a drink, still at least for the first time that I can remember, he was sober and not trying to maul every female in sight. Good Lord, last time he was drunk even Wanda Goldwag wasn't safe. Talking of Wanda I had dinner with her and a regal friend of hers called Margaret, but Antonio came home early, and prevented me from gaining my proficiency badge. On the way home I tripped over an inert body in the middle of the Aldwych. Thinking that it was a person who was down and out, T bent down to help. To my horror I recognised the face and swiftly hurried away; I do wish that when the Administration hold New Year parties that they would make arrangements to carry Mary Whitty home afterwards,' because she's not as young as she used to be — I mean she must be nearly as old as Dave Kenvyn. Went to bed and plaj'ed with — myself (yawn).
THURSDAY
Met the new Bar Steward, whose name is Bruce, who
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doesn't seem to have worked in a place like this before; must be nice to him to see if I can get a job on the bar, Stuart never gave me one, just an embarrassing complaint! Joyce Pillay had obviously heard a tale that the new term was to be ushered in with a free nosh-up as she hurried into the LSE before noon for the first time on record ! She consoled herself with a mere three helpings of White Horse cheese pie !
Spent the afternoon in the library in a vain attempt to catch up on the work that I had missed during term. Was very depressed by talking to Ken Muller about exams — he seems to have spent more time in the library than on picket lines this holiday. Strange, I wonder if his enthusiasm is waning. Decided to hurry home and cheer myself up by reading a good jolly book. Went to bed with Crime and Punishment.
FRIDAY
Sat in the White Horse with my Editor and decided on the
Felicity Awards of the year:
Artistic Impression: Mrs J.
Williams — for the cardboard cut-out of disgust in the Sociology Department and for believing I need cleaning up.
Intellectual Endeavour: Ralf Dahrendorf — for trying to be intellectual for which he should get more than a Reith.
Technical Merit: Alastair Coe — a change is as good as a rest.
Political Ineptitude: Ken
Muller — for pointing the finger at NUS conference.
Personal Endeavour: The
Union Staff — in the face of overwhelming Executive stupidity.
Personal Optimism: Slick Robinson — for believing that IMG really exists.
Hack of the Year : We proudly announced Dave Kenvyn, for the seventh year in succession, but we then decided six years was the maximum. So, J. Pike, servant of the LSE, it's yours.
Setting off back home now as I am so bored — thank God there will be lectures to miss next week.
Love and kisses
FELICITY
Warning
WEARERS of contact lenses are risking eye infections or possible blindness when they use some cleaning solutions a team of scientists have warned in the Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology. The team found that many of the 34 solutions currently being sold were I, ineffective and it calls for urgent controls on the manufacture of the solutions.
Graffiti
An in-depth report on the current state of Durex machine graffiti from our loo correspondent, Rudex, Voyeur Supreme.
Perhaps the most pertinent graffitis in the men's loos are those inscribed on the Durex machines. Because a large proportion of our readership is restrained from reading these barbs of wit, women, the shy and the blind, I thort it only-fit that the latest state of this linguistic technology should be revealed (please read this to the blind).
The traditional. This chewing gum tastes bad and Remoulds, are in urgent need of adequate rejoinders. However the, Be prepared to meet thy womb, and, Customers are reminded that if use is made of these products on the premises, there will be a charge for VAT, are still fresh enough to continue without addition.
The employment of all available data that is writ on these machines is to be applauded. Just as "4 SEATS" on London Transport buses has been seen to change into "I FAT" to strike a reminder at those obese unthortful people, "Approved to British Standard BS3'704" has been used to point out, not only the dangers of sheaths, but also their liberating effect. After "Aproved to BS3704'' comes, And so was the Titanic, which is producing the automatic response, But didn't it go down smoothly. However this is being contradicted by scrawl-ings over "sensitol lubricated", Oil crisis — rough ride.
There are two other notables left, to my knowledge (additions please ?). The old. Buy one and stop one followed by, Buy two and be one jump ahead, and the, to some, offensive, My wife has two cunts and I'm one of them, which, by the way has drawn the adulturous response. And I'm the other one!
The only ending lean think of is one I found in. the "Beaver" office a few days ago. In God we trust; all others pay cash.
THIS "BEAVER" was produced by Peter Timmins and Gill Hibbert with pre-holiday help from Steve Savage, Chris Wells, and Maggie Urry.
ALL opinions in the paper are those of the writers.
DO YOU want to work for, or edit "BEAVER"? Come to the meetings at 1.00 p.m. every Tuesday.
COPYRIGHT (c) London School of Economics and Political Science, Students' Union 1975.
BKAVER, Jan. 7th, 1975—Page Four
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News
THE MONTH of November proved to be one of resignations in the Students' Union. The first to depart was Rachael Solomons from her Executive Committee Bar jx)sition on Monday, November 25th, because "I cannot reconcile
Ms. Solomons
Executive duties with my work commitment. It is now, I realise, a mistake to have committed myself during this initial period at college. I hope you will understand and accept my apologies for the inconvenience I may have caused." She also resigned from Broad Left.
The second resignation came from Lindsay Lewis on Thursday, November 28th, who laid down her staff as Welfare Officer at the Union meeting of that day.
Ms. Lewis
Tn December, on Thursday, 5th, the Socialist Worker paper seller was attacked by a male, whose battlecry was, "you are a threat to civilisation". With friends like that, civilisation has alL the threats it can manage. The female paper-seller was re.scued by two of her comrades, Mr Muller and Mr Feather.
The Union meeting of that day passed motions on genocide in Brazil (does that tribe really exist?), and the sexist advertisement in that week's "Sennet".
The hunger lunch held the same day, in aid of the Overseas Students Fund, raised £33. Shialesh Adalja, the Executive Officer for Overseas Students, is launching a petition calling for the abolition of the £250 discriminatory fees, work permit requirements and the high financial guarantees. He is also planning a raffle, because he calculates, the OS Fund needs £2,000 more. ^
Of the £1,200 it started with, at the beginning of the '74-75 year, only £420 is left, £780
treasurer, Jim Montgomery will play a full role.
During the vacation a new Bar Manager, Bruce, was ap pointed to replace the excellent Stew Wheetman, who resigned at the end of the autumn term. Stew will be about during the first week of this term showing the new man his customers. Take the appropriate action !
The other appointment, a new Welfare Officer, will be made in the first two weeks of this term.
At the same time, there will be during the first week^ nominations for the vacant position on the Executive, and during the second week, elec-
¦
Mr Wheetman — a departed asset.
being distributed last term. Applications to the fund this term are now open.
On Monday, December 9th. the Executive met and heard Antonio Cortes make excuses about the state of the Shop. In '72-'73 it made a deficit of £280; in '73-'74 a profit of £380, and in the first term of '74-'75, a deficit of £300. This was explained by the shop not being open during the first few weeks, due to the appointed manager not appearing and a replacement taking time to find. Also the new manager was pitched in without any instructions or guidance as to pricing policy. To rectify this Mr Cortes proposed new lines for sale, a drive against theft, more frequent meetings of ' the Shop Committee, and a tour of other Union shops during the vacation to pick up ideas. It is also hoped that the new junior
tions. The Returning Officer for these elections will be Abe Oppel.
Finally, a note from Ents and Mr Brown —• Bristol Revunions are coming. I quote, "Bristol Revunions are the equivalent of the 'Cambridge Footlights' at Bristol University. They do Monty Pythonesque comedy revues which, in the past have been very successful indeed. They performed at the Edinburgh Festival where they were highly praised by the press, as they were when they put on a hilarious show at the Little ' Theatre Club in St. Martin's Lane earlier in the year.
"Bristol Revunions are coming to LSE on Friday, February 28th, 1975. If you want to laugh yourself sick and have a fantastic time . . . make a date with Bristol Revunions. See later copies of "Beaver" for further information."
Snidelines
TO BEGIN with our aging friend and inn-keeper, Ed Kuska, "Warden" of Carr-Saunders Hall. Ed and his palatial seven-room penthouse have been causing the Bursar at the Hall, who wishes to remain just as aging but, slightly more gracefully, anonymous, considerable problems in keeping the Hall supplied with some currently scarce resources. Ed has been consuming toilet rolls at the phenomenal rate of sixteen a week. What on earth is he doing with them all ? perhaps he's saving them up to trade them in for
DAVID KENVYN . . .
. . . who surely by now must be the oldest student in the world, and seems to be in danger of realising his secret ambition. His record of public service, Community Health Councillor. High Altar Server in Church, Broad Left hack (he seems to think it's public service!), CFMAG worker. Students' Union Exec member no less than three times, ULU Students' Representative Council Secretary, member NUS Steering Committee, and Parochial ChurcH Councillor, has been, if not exemplary, certainly publicised in the right quarters. Well now is the time for the Court of Governorsi to act, following the surprise death of its chairman, Sir Morris Finer, and appoint its first student chairman. He has been tested and well prepared—please, please, take him !!!
THE CHILDREN'S PARTY, thrown up by the Director on December 14th, is always well remembered for Professor Wyles blundering about as Godfather Christmas (here is a present you can't refuse—though some tried). Ralfie (the cold war reindeer) looked a little foreign with a streamer and a party hat decked about his Eurofame, but seemed to enjoy Tommy Keefes Punch and Judy show, something which most of the kids studiously ignored. Still I'm told that the days of "sexist" Punch and Judy shows are numbered, and Prof. Wyles had better watch who he says "Ho! Ho !" to, if he wants to keep his tenure. The Liberal Hour has arrived, and anyway, the Professor hasn't even got a glass-topped table!
THE LSE COMMUNIST Party has been leaving its internal documents lying about again, presumably in the hope of yet another free plug. All I can do is quote : "Cost of Morning Stars £32.20. Revenue from Morning Star Sales £48.30." I can therefore only conclude, profit from Morning Star activities £16.10, which is not far removed from a 50 per cent markup! I wonder if that's the sort of publicity they wanted !!
ONE HOPES THE Home Secretary will not use his newly-acquired "draconian powers" against the law abiding Conservative Society and its former secretary, Mr A. K. Brown. My right-hand sources attended a party on the seventh floor of Rosebery Hall, at which Mr A. K. Brown, also now the Chairman of the all-powerful Ents. Committee, gave a faultless and terroristic recital of IRA songs. Will the Daily Telegraph, who splashed at least three sen-^ tences on his election success, and has also called for the "prosecution and punishment, with appropriate severity" of a "young student" . . . who talked "malicious nonsense about politics" at the recent NUS conference, now call for the dracons to swoop? Unlike the Telegraph, I have a sense of fair play. Swing it, Tony, but keep it out of the mud 1
1 DON'T REGARD people's sex lives as interesting, unless they are using their position to gain sex or even their sex to gain position. However, whilst not wishing to dwell on the darker side of the Sociology Department, it is possible to reveal the fine principles that are contained in one member, a certain Gill Hibbert., the Executive Publications Officer. At the NUS Conference, or so my Ed. told me before he slipped under the table for the third time, she was closely o^bserving the movements of a certain young man, one Vince Mercer. Her vigil was rapidly seen to cease when the "young socialist" was seen in close conference with the organised Conservatives. I was further heartened to hear of her concern for the Academic Affairs and Welfare Officers of the Executive, whom she tucked into bed after a binge of paralytic proportions, ending in a concrete beam heading contest. However, here I muSt refute the Broad Left allegations that she was angered that all these two unconscious gentlemen could perform was a groan, as dreams enfolded them, carrying them away to the self-satisfying Land of Nod.
TALKING OF EDITORS, my friend Mr Timmins, before he slipped beneath the table for the fourth time, told me how well he had "produced" the last ten Beavers and that he didn't care how many law. suits were filed against the Editor of Beaver as' this was still George Fby. As the Union has not got round to appointing a new Beaver Editor, Mr Timmins is eminently suited to hiding behind George Foy's name. George is now busil.y engaged in working on a trawler in the North Sea—but as he says, what else can one do with a Government degree ?
ls.e; s new role—Ralf writes
BEAVER, Jan. 7th, 1975—Page Five
IT is not easy to tell how the Director of the School should organise his relations with students and make sure that there is a free flow of information in both directions: student union meetings in which the Director speaks, have a somewhat theatrical quality about them ; chats at wine and cheese parties are pleasant but probably not representative; and writing in BEAVER is anonymous. So perhaps I should do all three things. In any case I appreciate the offer of BEAVER to write in, it, and I gladly accept it.
When I addressed the Union meeting of November 21st, 1974, my main point related to the financial position of the School. Since then, the ''dual strategy" which I proposed, has proved effective in both respects; government has given the universities some additional • money which will cover roughly half the expected deficit for 1974-75 ; and groups within LSE have made a major effort to agree on savings to close the gap.
All this, is not pleasant, and what is more it will go on ; but a School of Economics and Political Science should be the first place to take a responsible view of a problem that besets many countries in the world.
What I could not say to the Union meeting for reasons of time, and what seemed too sketchy in my BEAVER interview of November 4th to warrant publishing, is that in the meantime LSE will not stand still. Indeed I am convinced that it has a very special role to play in a social landscape which is not only changing' its economic but also its educational complexion. I have argued elsewhere that in my view the educational subject of the next decade is going to be recurrent education. People have to be able, by secondment, sabbaticals and the like, to return to schools and universities; and universities have to consider what they can offer to students with years of experience.
LSE has a tradition to defend in this respect. It is unique in its proportion of graduates and of overseas students, but also of students with some practical experience.
In addition, of course, the School had Evening ' Classes which are still remembered by many, although they have been discontinued some years ago. Perhaps, we should start them
again in a limited and, to begin with, experimental way.
Clearly, we must look at our graduate degree courses, and their usefulness for post-experience students. Possibly, there is a place for refresher courses during the summer months. In any case, thought should be given by all, staff and students, to the ways in which LSE can live up to its history.
In making'this point, I have two general considerations in mind. One concerns universities, and in particular LSE. At a time of enormous academic expansion, a disproprortionate number of LSE students could hope to find academic positions
them.selves, in universities, research institutes, polytechni^cs, in Britain and overseas. '
In some respects, and in some countries, expansion will un doubtedly continue ; but in the medium term LSE can hardly hope to continue as a kind of super-university, a university to educate not academics but teachers of academics. It will have to concentrate on educating for jobs outside the academic world. Could it be that new fashions in the choice of options ah-eady reflect this trend ?
My second point is about uni versifies too, although in another perspective. Nothing is more deadly than an educational institution cut off from the world outside. This is a physical danger for campus universities, but psychologically no institution of higher learning'is immune from such isolationism.
Unless there is a lively interchange between people in education and people at work, edu cation becomes stale and work uninformed.
A growing attention to those who return with some experience to LSE will help the School to avoid that particular danger and thereby help those inside as well as those outside
Voting behavour and American preferences
"THERE is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labour of thinking." — Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Those who genuinely reflect on tlje rationales underlying voting behaviour will find that, in the United States at least, the electorate is responsive to a strange mixture of reality, image and inner conviction. This juxtaposition of standards inevitably inflates certain vsalues and derides others: and while it seems extremely difficult to isolate, and generalise, those specific characteristics which are esteemed, it is possible to examine the parameters of the decision-making process. Accordingly, voter preferences, in our estimation, hinge on the answers to three basic propositions: (1) to what extent does the voter believe his vote is important?: (2) to what degree does the candidate conform to voter expectations?; and (3) to what degree is the voter influenced by his perception of reality itself? The voter's response to these questions is not altogether his own though, for intermingled with the factor of independent human choice are the variables of external conditioning and manipulation.
O) To what extent does the voter believe his vote is important? In other words, does the Wisconsin rancher feel that his vote will be as significant a factor in eliminating the beef price freeze as the Vice-President of Boeing Aircraft Co. in Washington State feels his vote for Henry Jackson will be helpful in obtaining contract awards. In the former case, clearly ranchers felt that a more effective policy to gamer support for their demands was to massacre calves in protest; in the Boeing case, however, voting is definitely advantageous since Jackson's election is beneficial to the firm — it must be remembered that Jackson is interested in bringing federal funds to Washington. Thus, if a person has a realistic belief that his vote will improve his condi-
tion, then, there is a definite incentive to exercise his franchise. It could be argued that This implies a denial of the fact that some people choose candidates on higher, more philosophic considerations.
But, what shapes his beliefs about government? There are two factors: environmenx and past experiences. The milieu in which a man lives exercises some control over behaviour il only to the extent that men often are followers and as such meekly imitate the course of those around them. On the other hand, a man's experience is governed by his past encounters with the political system, both on a group and personal level. It is, of course, possible for the environmental factor to conflict with the experience notion; witness the massive disillusionment of the American populace with governmental morality, and the resultant decrease in voter turnout it precipitated (symbolising an almost tacit resignation to and acceptance of corruptness), as opposed to the actual number of people who have directly encountered this immorality; the environment says "Our votes are meaningless, everj'-one is "immoral ", and the people respond, "Well, that hasn't been my experience, but it's probably true," and then refuse to vote.
Moreover, there are some among us who are just too apathetic to possess any viewijoint on the political process. These people j-estrain themselves from involvement and cannot legitimately protest government malfeasance.
(2) To what degree does the candidate conform to voter expectations? An inquiry into this dimension must take account of the preconceived norms of the voter i.e. his views on what the ideal candidate should be. The stereotyped "American leader" possesses Kennedy charisma. Ford bluntness, Eervin wit, and JefTersonian wisdom. We expect his moral character to be impeccable and his life-style.
modest; in short, one would not think a Rockefeller could be
President.
y
While Watergate has eroded the idealistic image of the super politician, the hope still remains that we will find men worthy of our praise, respect, and confidence. In any event, the closer a candidate's values approach our o\ra, the greater his desirability becomes.
Of equal importance in this notion of conformity, is the question of whether the candidate and the voter view the proper function of government similarly; in other words, does the candidate's idea of what he should do in government align itself with what the voter expects him to do? Important, in this regard, is the political orientation of the candidate and his positions on major issues, e.g. the degree to which government should entertain and assume the responsibility for eradicating poverty and effecting wealth redistribution programmes. Also, intrinsic is a shared view of whether government should take a major role in the control of business and investment, or restrict itself to a purely administrative function.
Hence, liberals exalt Lyndon Johnson whose "Great Society" programme incorporated, among other things, extensive health and medicare programmes, and vastly enlarged social security benefits. Conservatives rally behind the Goldwater bandwagon and are staunch defenders of laissez-faire and governmental aloofness; they glory national defence as necessary for our security, and therefore deserving of national priority.
A candidate must conform to voter expectations in one final area; he must confront the specific issues which alarm his prospective constituents. These vary, of course, from time to time and from place to place; yet, prominent of late have been the fuel allotment issue and the strip mining restrictions.
<3) To what degree is the voter influenced by his perception of reality, rather than by reality itself? American voters have not been alone in their difficulties in distinguishing between images and realities. As has been documented in other fields, a person's reactions are often dictated solely by his perception of what is 'Teal", rather than by what is actually real; that is. he responds to the image which has been thoughtfully, deliberately, and systematically constructed for a politician, by either his election committee or jiis own devices.
These images can be fostered in many ways. John Kennedy was able to utilise his oratorical abilities and natural charm to build a reputation of immense political prowess, while preliminary investigations reveal his real abilities to have been lacking.
A related example, also stressing the critical nature of images, can be found in the November. 1974, elections, wherein morality in government became the prime issue, superceding even our outrageous economic difficulties. Bill Moyers, former Presidential press secretary, characterised the misdirection of the campaign when he claimed, the Democrats having gained control of Congress, will now have to use it to do more than expound on moral leadership.
In short, the "front" presented by the various politicians (that they were honest, forthright, respectable men) overshadowed and inhibited realistic consideration of their governing capabilities. This stress on moral terpitude, while corrective, may in the end prove counterproductive in the realm of effective government. It should not be interpreted as portending a bright prognosis for the future of United States political campaigns, or as initiating a radical reformation, on the part of the voters, in which "true" issues and factors will replace a dependency on images and personahiies.
Food
NOW that the festive season is upon us, we can all look forward to a welcome respite from 1974-style cusine. Not before, however, the chefs have delivered their coup de grace. In common parlance it goes by the name of "Xmas Dinner".
This year has witnessed a soya substitute for the usual slice of turkey. Apparently "Our Ralf", in his economising endeavours, has found that a saving of ten whole stinking pounds sterling has resulted from this change. Since this inspired revelation he has decided to use the library basement as an experimental farm for the cultivation of these all-purpose beans. He is also thinking of food-recycling, which seems to be all the rase these days.
Thanks to the old stalwarts in the Senior Common Room, ordinary fare was served at the annual ex--hibition of gluttony. As per usual, starters offered a wide choice ranging from ' "Prawn a la Cali-foi-nia" to a most delightful "Smoked Salmon". The wine was French and sparkling, an oversight on the part of Herr Dahrendorf. I shall not tempt your gastric juices with a resume of the main co'urse: suffice to say that Bernard- Shaw would have wept with joy at its excellence and would have persuaded Clement Freud to give up dog food forever.
With Father Time dragging his feet towards 1975 I . have taken it upon my shoulders to propose to our chefs a menu appropriate to the times. A few examples will suffice;
SOUP OF THE DAY Consomme Potato Pe-el £io MAIN COURSE
Totter a la Crispin	£25
BEVERAGES	£0.50
Coffee (recycled)	£0.60
Water (receycled)	£0.20
With this, I bid you a happy respite from academia.
January 3rd.
The forebodmgs of the New Year are looming on the horizon. Our washers of dishes (bless their lilly white hands) are putting in a wage claim of £200 per week. Apparently the New Year's supply of food has ^seen exuding all sorts of gases and juices. Worm-like creatures are breeding like rabbits in the mountains of animal flesh acquired for your consumntion. Apparently the Social Services have thought our college t-o be a rest home for the over 65s. Boxes of beef tokens arrived and our chef supreme has spent it all as a hedge against inflation.
Already one fatality has resulted from the gases, juices and "the other". The details are too gruesome to be repeated. Suffice it to say that our mountain of beef has increased in size. I rather fear that a re-enactment of "The Battleship Potemkin" is going to ensue. As I write I can . . . MY GOD! The mountain of flesh is creeping along the floor outside the "Beaver" office ... It is 'devouring everything in its path . . .
"Go away! . . . Shno . . . Get back you beast . . . Help. Hel . . .
Still to be an ever-present corel-late of campaigns will be "mud-slinging" exchanges, laced with indictments and accusations only some of which are true. Those verifiable should be heeded and considered, while those lacking in verisimilitude should be immediately discarded. But who is to judge veracity?
Finally, this is not to deprecate the need to consider the image which a politician projects; it is extremely important from an international point of view and certainly an important ingredient in establishing national confidence and promoting national well-being. However, one's image should be reconciled with reality; this is the truly challenging task for any concerned voter.
The task of choosing our own leaders is integral to our continued survival. It is therefore not one which can be taken lightly.
M.R. & A.F.
BEAVER. Jan. 7Ui. 1975—Page Six
No Christmas for Chile's children
OVER Christmas in Santiago there was very little for the people to cheer about. Children were begging in the streets, trying to sell one cotton reef, an egg or a rotten orange. This could be no Christmas for the people of Chile, when one chicken cost 1,240 escudos (or £2.46 in sterling).
The official minimum wage in Chile at the moment is 48,000 escudos per' month, whereas the November Report in Chile Monitor puts the basic living requirement at around 76.000 escudos per month. In real terms this means that a worker who consumes one kilo oC bread, one-eighth of a liti'e of cooking oil and one litre of milk per day will spend over 49 per cent of his monthly wage on these three items alone. The Junta officiaHy quotes the inflation rate at'^00 per cent, but in point of fact it is nearer 3.000 per cent. For example, on the 31st August, 1973, a litre of paraffin cost 2 escudos, in May, 1974, the cost was 70 escudos, a rise of 3,500 per cent.
The current Chile Solidarity Campaign for women and children held as political prisoners in Chile is intended to act as an additional pressure for their I'elease. It is intended to focus the attention of the world on the lengths-.,to which the military junta is prepared to go in its repression of the Chilean people.
During the Popular Unity government, women played an
the junta have been terrorised, arrested, imprisoned, tortured and raped. On a more subtle level, women have been subjected to intolerable suffering : it is the wives and mothers of those who disappear who are compelled to go from prison to prison looking for their relations. When the man of the family is taken, it is the woman who is left to run the home and rear the children, with no source of income or support of any kind. The fear of informers in the local community often prevents women even from seeking comfort from the neighbours. We know of one case where the husband went to work on the day of the coup and never returned home. In March, 1974, six months later, his wife confided in the doctor as to what had happened, having during the intervening period told all the neighbours that he had gone off with another woman.
Wives of political prisoners who are known to be alone at home, are at the prey of military police and soldiers, who will go to their homes during the hours of curfew and amuse themselves by raping and torturing them. This is especially true of the peasant women at the mercy of the military police in rural areas. They are threatened with death if they report any incidents.
In prisons and detention centres, women are stripped naked during interrogations
m

Santiago stadium prisoner
Create people's power'
important part on both sides of the struggle. It was women from the middle classes who formed a demonstration against Allende and banged saucepan lids outside the Presidential Palace; and it was women from, the working class who organised food distribution centres (JAP's) and neighbourhood .committees (juntas de vecinos). It would be false to say that everything was good under 'Allende's g(^vernment. but at least there was freedom. Now, for the people of Chile there is only repression, fear, and starvation.
Since the coup, women suspected of being in opposition to
and subjected to rape, torture with electricity on all parts of the body, burnings, beatings and other tortures of even more macabre sadism. One woman told a representative of the Human Rights Com.mission of the Organisation of American States, how a rat had been' inserted into her vagina. When this same commission visited one of the women's prisons in Santiago, the prisoners shouted out to them that they would rather be dead than remain where they were.
A girl of sixteen who escaped from Chile at the end of July, was moved to six different detention centres and raped in
each, on one occasion by four soldiers in succession. Pregnant women have been beaten until they aborted. Women have conceived babies as a result of being raped. The first of these children has already been born in jail in Santiago.
Even elderly women are not exempt from persecution. A grandmother of 84 was dragged off blindfold in her nightdress during a raid on the house. In recent weeks Laura Allende. the late president's sister, who has terminal cancer. was arrested with her -daughter. Marianne Pascal Allende, who suffers from a serious nervoas condition. Laura Allende,' who was 62, is accused of having hand grenades in her house and of being linked with the MIR. The whereabouts of these two women since their detention is still unknown.
The Junta have found that the torturing of children is a most effective weapon, for nothing is more difficult to bear than the sight of one's own child being hurt. For example, Lumi Videla Moya (28 years old) was arrested with her husband Segio Alfredo Perez Molina and their four year old son. We know that the little boy was tortured in front of his mother, but exactly what happened after this is unclear. The "Guardian" reported on November 25th, 1974, that the body of a strangled woman had been thrown into the grounds of the Italian Embassy in Santiago. As far as we know the little boy is alive and in a Chilean prison, whilst as yet his father has not been officially reported as dead.
Children are not always detained, howevei^. with such specific intentions. We have a list of 50 children and young people under the age of 17 who are at present being held as political prisoners. Many of these children have been held
for months on end, and as there are no special facilities for their incarceration they are kept in the company of adult prisoners. One child of 13, Ernestina Aguilera, was detained in the camp at Tejas Verdes, notorious as a torture centre, and has gone totally insane as a result. We know of at least three more children who have been held in that camp, and have the names of others who have been tortured in other prisons. There is at present a boy of 3, Angel Zuritas Rojas, who is a prisoner in Santiago.
Children who have been present when their mothers were being raped, tortured, or even merely threatened, are now inevitably suffering from severe emotional disturbances. One mother tells of how her children, aged 5 and 3, scream whenever they see a military policeman, even out in the street.
The Junta are now building on this basic fear within the schools in Chile. Before all lessons begin there are compulsory meetings at which the National Anthem is played and a patriotic speech given. The lessons themselves are all of a
strongly nationalistic flavour, being geared to the glorifica- » tion of the Chilean military -i forces.	^
The ^ release of Carmen Cas- 1 tillo is an encouraging indica- j tion of the effectiveness of '| international pressure on ques- I tions of human rights. Carmen, j who was the companion ot i Miguel Enriquez, founder and | General Secretary of ^the MIR, j who was killed by the Junta in Santiago on October 8th, 1974, -j was seven months pregnant when she was wounded in the battle in which he died. She was taken, under arrest, to the military hospital in Santiago and, if there had been no international campaign, she would undoubtedly still be there. Instead she is now safely in Britain, and her child will have been born before this issue has been printed.
The Chile Solidarity Campaign, as part of its policy for 1975, has decided to highlight the. suffering of women and children, hence the tone of this article. The Chileans in exile in Europe have now asked for a petition to be presented to the General Secretary of the United Nations, asking him to intercede for women and children held prisoner in Chile. They aim to get five million signatures from all over the world.
Representatives of the Chilean Left met recently in Budapest. The following is an extract from their declaration :
"We call on the workers of the world in particular to boycott the manufacturing and shipping of war material to Chile. We do so in response to the urgent demand of our people and as an appeal to help the progress of peace within the world, to stave off the counter-revolutionary, fascism-promoting plans which US imperialism is bent on imposing on Latin American and other parts of the world . .
"The time has come to launch a great offensive. Chile's revolutionary and progressive forces are consolidating their unity and broadening their field of action. The time has come ^ for all the peoples^of the world to redouble their adherence and support by completely isolating the dictatorship, making it the object of constant condemnation, and barring all kinds of help to the forces of reaction."
The declaration ends with a quotation from Salvador Allende :
"I have faith in Chile and its future. Other men will overcome this dark and bitter moment when treason is trying to take over. Continue in the ' knowledge that sooner or later, '¦ new and great roads will be opened along which free men will move forward to build a better society."
Carmen Castillo and child
BEAVER, Jan. 7tli, 1975—Page Seven
Does mention of the NUS bore you? Perhops it's because its never been fully reveoled-—we do that now, starting
with it at its recent Margate Conferences—we present.
The real NUS Conference
"IT'S barbaric," the man from the "Birmingham Post" said.
"The N.U.S. Conference is the most barbaric of ANY of the oon-¦ferences I cover. Get up at eight, start at nine and finish at midnight? That's a 15-hour day! It's just — barbaric!" With that he picked up his typewriter and staggered off in the direction of Birmingham.
By two p.m. on Monday, Decem-'ber 2nd, the railroading jamboree had disappeared back to newspaper ofBces and "Constituent Organisations". The various politicos had received their "fix" and were returning to start the mysterious task of transfusion into reluctant bodies. As these big fish trundled back to ;their small pools, they had one ¦status in common—an egalitarian Zombiness.
So why this masochism? Money. ¦It's as simple as that. To hire a conference hall for 1,300 people involves a massive outlay. To reduce ¦costs you start on Friday at "ISiOO liours", flog on imtil Monday at •noon, packing as much in as possible. When you lay out the timetable you allow two hours for lunch and two hours for tea (dinner), with the evil knowledge that such ¦time will be "eaten" into by guest speakers, emergency items and lOver-runs.
The consequences for any "orga-«ised" political group are disastrous. Whilst the conference is in session they are pumping out their propaganda (line) to sway the undecided ¦and encourage their supporters. After midnight, the real work be-igins. A full analysis of that day's events in terms of what happened «nd where they went wrong is re-•fluired. Then a line is needed to ¦correct any malfunctions in the plan. Then they need a further ¦line to deal with matters arising the next day. All that decided and the internal documents produced, it's toack to pumping out more propa-iganda for the next day which, by then, is some two, three or four hours away.
If you don't belong to such a ¦happy breed of warriors, you still :get it rough. "The party starts at 2 a.m., and it's the other side of town." That for the energetic. For the tired, it's drinking in the hotel 1)ar until, say, four in the morning. "I say, I've found someone from an agricultural college—and he's a iiberal.'
But that is near the end. Before the Conference began, students' ¦unions were busy passing N.U.S. motions, that got sent to the N.U.S. ¦and appeared somewhere in the two ¦inch deep pile of documents that livas returned to all those marked •flown for Margate. They fell into three categories: delegates, who have Voting and speaking rights; observers, who don't; and Press, who likewise don't have any speaking ¦and voting rights.
At the Conference itself, out of the bitter cutting wind, the Mayor vi Margat.e .staggered to h\s .
feet and committed a faux-pas. "I'd like to welcome you to the N.S.U. Conference. Well—you can't win them all. The N.U.S. Conference then!" One suspected this was deliberate.
Because of the increasing size of the N.U.S. and its Conference. Margate is no longer big enough. The next December Conference is booked for Scarborough. It was the name / of this resort that was chanted at the Margate Mayor as he rose so unevenly. The trade of one "N.S.U." for a few "Scarboroughs" must have appealed to him.
That jolly fellow gone, with a commemorative silver shield from the students to mark the end of their 15 years of partial occupation, Mr .John Randall surfaced to read his speech. As he thra'shed around, one of the N:U.S. Press ofiBcers dashed along the Press desks chanting, "Don't write; here you are." And there we wei'e, able to check John's reading ability against the eight pages of "Press release". He was managing so well that we joined in mouthing along with him, "I believe the basis . .
After John, the Steering Comit-tee introduced itself. Without them the Conference would not function. It is they who arrange and rearrange the timetable. It is they who help the chairperson out. They who deal with all problems; and, most importantly, it is they who organise the individual motions from the Students' Unions into intelligible documents containing a main motion and the various amendments.
These compositing sessions run parallel to the main conference, the completed documents popping out a few hours before the debate on the subject. In effect one has a sub-conference servicing the "real" Conference, a necessary procedure that makes the whole experience even more "barbaric". To deal with this, other deficiencies and the criticism that it is impossible to fully comprehend a complicated document in two hours whilst doing other things, a Commission was set up (December 1973) to look into the structure of the N.U.S.
The Steering Committee dealt with the objections to the order of business and sat back to learn how many guest speakers it would have to fit in. It turned out to be six, the seventh being rejected after a classic tussle between Steve PaiTy (Communist Party and N.U.S. National Secretary) and Terry Povey (International Socialist and N.U.S. Executive). Mr Parry emphasised the international nature of the N.U.S.'s work and the need to listen to a speaker from the International Union of Students (from Czecho-' Slovakia). Mr Povey chose to emphasise the undemocratic nature of: the I.U.S. which he claimed was a Russian puppet forced upon the Czech students in place of their own forcibly disbanded students' union (the SVS), Mr Povey won the day and Broad Left devotees looked hard at the audience.
Just as General Election pundits slobber over the first few voting results in the hope or dread of an aberration of history. Conference eggspurts search for the "line" it will adopt. Would it be an anti-Broad Left line? What had happened at the Colleges—had their supporters been routed? I know you can't bear the suspense, so I'll reveal the political trend of the Conference.
After a decidedly shaky start, to which Mr Parry's Stalinism, I.S.'s popularism and a dubious Structure Commission report early on Saturday contributed. Broad Left's standing gradually became more secure as the Conference progressed. They had to work hard at whipping their renegade divisions into line and converting political babes to their cause, but they succeeded. As an example, the L.S.E. Broad Left (B.L. from now on) contingent turned a couple of neo-Trots from an education college, who sat next to them, into B.L./L.S.E. followers by the end of the Conference,
B.L. blamed their early lack of poise on insufficient homework by their supporters, so they did not fully comprehend what B.L. wanted them to comprehend. The Press Officer favoured the reason that 60 per cent of those attending were there for the first time. I would
like to advance the fact that more small educational establishments are being represented as the N.U.S. grows, as a major factor but not the overriding one. On top of this are the shifts that take place inside colleges as to who is sent as a delegate. Take your pick!
One desire that did remain the same as at the preceding Liverpool Conference, was a move to turn the Executive Vice-President without Portfolio into a V.-P. Welfare. The Liverpool decision was ratified despite a rousing speech (against) of self-interest by the V.-P. without, one John Carr (L.S.E. and U.L.U.). Although his "everyone on this Exec, is concerned with welfare" was rejected in favour of a more formal arrangement, we won't be hearing John's sultry voice on Niteline until there are elections for this brand new post. Will his election slogan at Cardiff at Easter be "Vote Carr for Nitelines, Nurseries and lower petrol taxes?"
The two other ratifiable decisions were also ratified, these being a 10 per cent surcharge on the 1975 subscriptions to the N.U.S., and the treatment of polytechnics and colleges of further education as separate areas within the Union, instead of as a conglomerate. The resignation of an Executive member (Neil Robinson (Strathclyde University and V.-P. Services) due
to ill-health was announced, which some devious minds took as an omen for the Executive Report whose approval was the next item to be embarked upon. Was it in wholly good shape?
Apparently not. In the first parts to be voted upon, the section on industrial students was immediately referred back. For the Exec-bashers this may have been a vacarious delight, but in a report that ran to 986 sections, any of which could be referred back, some casualties were to be expected. After all, the Exec, aren't perfect. This theme is usually fully explored, for the Exec, report dominates any December Conference. Every spare minute was filled by Conference Document 8.
After the referral back of other sections (297-315, Technical Colleges and Colleges of F.E.), the fii'St of the guest speakers appeared. Unfortunately he did not do justice to his case, the victimisation of two philosophy students at Swansea University by a professor who overrides even the democratic decisions of his own staff departmental meetings. But as it was nearly midnight, an excuse can be made. And back we went to our hotel bars to discuss, inform and agitate, as some poster, somewhere, approximately said.
To some extent the impact a con-(continued on Page Eight)
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BEAVER, Jan. 7th, 1975—Page Light
The real NUS Conference (Continued)
ference will make depends upon the JuKuiy of the accommodation one is subjected to. A few cold showers and a dripping tap can torture the hardiest of Vulgar Marxists. Let it be known that the L.S.E. delegation were in the same hotel as the Executive, and there wasn't much suffering there! The quiet waiter-waitress service at breakfast assured you all was well with the agitated world, and students had assumed their rightful place in it. The N.U.S. had arrived!
Getting down to the Conference Hall was another question. How the Vulgar Marxists would manage it as their spoons waded through the congealed bacon, egg and cornflakes. while they considered the cold drizzle floating in from the sea towards them, was not a relevant problem to a brain hurt by an excess of alcohol and a deficiency of sleep in the Exec, hotel breakfast-room.
This was for each "constituent organisation" to solve as it saw unfit.
Places taken, seatbelts strapped on, Conference automatically passed sections of the Exec, report which included a whitewash part on Press and Publicity. As far as "Press thinking" in the N.U.S. goes it is to the detriment of the student Press, being too orientated to the national papers, of which only "The Guardian" and "The Morning Star" report fully, and those two plus the "Daily Mirror", accurately. Three days after a special Press conference on Northern Ireland at which the President said, "The N.U.S. does not give, has not given and will not give any support whatever to the I.R.A.", the "Daily Express" was saying one of the N.U.S.'s policies was support for the I.R.A. It would seem that much effort is wasted in fostering such "friends".
An example of the bias came that afternoon and later that night. In the afternoon the Senior Press Officer, Francis Beckett, attempted to shift some of the student Press who had been there since Friday, in order that the national Press, who had just arrived, should not feel crowded on the tables allocated to them. As at last year's Conference. the L.S.E. led the opposition and he was defeated. That night a Press conference was called about the "pot fracas" which none of the student Press were told about. As the Civil Liberties motion reminded us, one has to fight constantly for one's rights.
And this is something Hugh Lan-ning (Bii-mingham Poly, Exec, and I.S.) had to battle for against some
perverse chairing in the Structure Report debate. This report was effectively in two sections, the majority and minority (Hugh Lanning) reports. The "report" was declared adopted by the Broad Left/Plaid Cymru chairman, Sion Pyrs, on an obvious show of hands against. On the count there was a 299-299 tie, and so the first card vote (the number of students each college represented) was indulged in. After the "report" was declared lost by 255,000 to 194,000 votes, B.L. argued that all the repoi-t and not just the majority section had been defeated. However, a vote was forced on this, and the minority report was accepted by 216,400, to 137,773 votes.
Whilst the first vote was being counted, the status of the non-policy-making conferences that meet throughout the year (Women and Entertainments especially) was amply revealed. The Social Sees.' Conference had produced a set of

¦5 J?
THE PARRY POSITION
proposals that they wanted adopted by the Margate Conference. Those proposals were rejected in favour of a B.L. proposal, many of the delegates not fully comprehending the difficulties that Soc. Sees. face, and the reasons for their proposals.
That reversal provided the lunch-time speculation on how the Women's debate would fare, speculation that was quickly forgotten when Mr Parry spoke on the part of the Exec, report dealing with racism and Fascism. The atmosphere changed from being sloppy and carefree to one of brilliance and expectation. And Stephen did not disappoint; his tour de force swung the mass behind him. "It is unfortunate that he used all the emotional tricks of a fascist," said an Aston University reporter.
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If the readily available cliche is one of those tricks, the second guest speaker, who incorporated a large number of them into an otherwise sensible grievance, was similarly guilty.
"British monopoly capitalism is exploiting the oppressed workers of Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia". True, but the glazed looks revealed that these representatives had heard that one before, and they weren't going to be moved to anything except polite applause. So off we went to the first real motion —Civil Liberties.
It is only correct to say the debate got lost when Hugh Bayley found himself saying, "People using it (cannabis) should be treated in an identical manner to anybody else suffering from any other social disease." Conference hit the roof and the attempt to hedge bets over the safety of cannabis by having the section relating to its legalisation voted on separately, was lost irrevocably. What consumed the time was Bayley's phrasing, "We the Exec, believe". Did they? They didn't, as a paper passed down from the Exec, to the student Press showed—of those present four of the Exec, were for having the motion voted on separately, five were against and two for abstaining and accepting the majority decision.
Randall made a masterly impromptu statement on the Exec.'s position that left little room for the national. Press to gloat over. And the reporter from the student radio at Loughborough had his microphone kicked off the stage yet again by a restless Exec member stretching out his legs—he cursed into the mike, hit the offending foot, and put his instrument back where it belonged. That done, the Civil Liberties motion was passed by a resounding margin, the clock struck five-thirty and the decks were cleared for the Women's debate, with dinner (tea) fast approaching at six.
The advantage of taking two reporters is that while one is writing down what is happening, the other can be researching, noting how positions are being distorted, and seeing that the delegation are voting according to mandate. Then there is the vital task of feeding and watering. Or one reporter covering something of special interest while the other goes away and paddles in the sewery brine. The special advantage of taking a man and a women's lib. become apparent when debates of special interest to the one occur during dinner (tea) time.
Gill tells me that not many of the Exec, were preseiit during the Women's debate, the chairperson was a man, and how he survived two attempts to remove him from that chair she cannot understand. Upon rushing back to the Conference the "debate" seemed to have degenerated into one of ill-temper and frustration. Down came the guillotine and the women suffered in the same way as the Ents' people did.
The bare argument is; Should the central policy body delegate any of its functions to the specialist conferences? The prevailing opinion is "No", but the special expertise that is present at these policy conferences is not adequately represented at the major events. The arguments are endless but the dangers are clear; specialist and briefing conferences could regard themselves as irrelevant and deteriorate in standing and importance to those involved in particular issues.
One issue we were involved in, the N.U.S. Conference, retreated into private session to discuss money during its night period. We held a private comparisoij meeting during
the Pi-ess expulsion but our spy (which illustrates the ridiculousness of the banishment) tells us that the most significant factor in the ensuing debate was the lack of 50 per cent of the delegates. What is also apparent is that the N.U.S. is going to rebuild its headquarters to result in it being "approximately five times the current market value" and spend £363,140 during 1975.
While this heady wheeling and dealing was entrancing all those student grant holders, witty conversation, the likes of which a political N.U.S.-er would not dream of, was bouncing round the walls of the bar and neighbouring crevices. These were the very crevices the early-to-bed, early-to-catapult-down-to-brekky, the scribes bolted to, in th hope of smiling sweetly at the haggard men of power as they tiptoed in to grind at sustenance. Not to be—the supermen strode loudly in; thi^ Conference, like every other, is their rebirth.
It was Sunday and we were back in the Mecca of the faithful with money still the issue. This time it was the subscriptions colleges pay to keep the N.U.S. in business and the National Treasurer, Mr Charles Clark, found it impossible to make a quiet speech. Arms behind his back, the Prince Philip of the student movement, positively blew the motion through. These vulgar tactics were in direct contrast with tlie tense emotional urgency of the guest Czech speaker, Jan Kavan.
He praised the anti-imperialistic stand of the N.U.S., who regarded with distaste Mr Parry's description of the half-million '68 invasion as "changes". These were the "changes" that resulted in thousands of students and lecturers being expelled from their universities; thousands of socialists and communists being arrested and sent to long terms of imprisonment; hundreds of thousands losing jobs. The student-worker action unity, created by the S.V.S. and the trade unions,' was smashed, which has resulted in continued socialist opposition, with the concomitant arrests and trials.
He called for solidarity, but was not interested in the support of the Conservatives and other reactionaries. The support he obtained from the Executive was five in rapturous favour (Randall, Male, Gates, Povey and Lanning), and six in glum disgust (Carr, Pyrs, Bailey, De Graaf, Harrison and Elliott), with Parry having already walked off the platform as Kavan started speaking. For his sojourn, Mr P. got censured in the afternoon, at the first available opportunity.
Back from lunch we fraternally received the student leader from Portugal, who told us of the dangers of fascism, the necessity to fight it and the role students have in the work for progress. Mr Gonzalez was then replaced by Comrade Vie, Who told us of North Vietnam's production levels and the repulsiveness of all people who did not pursue an inscrutable Communist course. What the productive achievements of V.N. mean, no-one knew—we weren't told of last year's output which was possibly just a little less boring than our clipped comrade. He did, however, leave behind a gaudy flag with N.U.S.U.K. embroidered on it in rather Moscow lettering.
The N.U.S. Pi'ess Officer then proceeded to "plant" the story amongst the national Press that the Special Branch were at the Conference, presumably falling asleep. It was a nice piece of work, Monday (the next day), always being a slack day for the nationals—^but why he has not done it for all the N.U.S. Conferences, for the Special Branch are essential delegates, I don't know. Anyway, all this pseudo-spy excitement did not stop Mr Parry moving a telegram in support of Mr Vie, and the international section of the Executive report, during which he got his censure.
Then we were intl i dents (CD21 for tUosa the documents), whicil but, unlike housing, ii the welfare of the mass Even the B.L. solid to! save the main part ol ment, which suffered i next to Appendix 6. socialist indictment of.
The Povey 6 per? passed, whilst the infctni fered in the substaatii ferred back.
Mr Muller (L.S.E. and the rest of the (B.L.) excessively reliK# him a speaker's card, I could participate ii f "Beaver" had to arbitral Muller got the card.
So, with repressioim ears and dinner saf(|f the next two guest se us of dirty work at It President of the Natioii School Students pointed: of democratic rights, * sion, without reason, ad
1
PRESIDENT RU)
timisation, and no saiito for those who wisl),i poor, to continue tliec Then the representatiiif. a small teachers' tn4g in Northumberland, lant case opposing the clos^et cut) of their college.
The reasons given liihe were T;oo-small toi*s: 'A'-level intake, had ins failed to fulfil quotaijfcy be an appendage to aifa: were 120 miles fraJJe' Against this they saj.th' diversified, because 1 B.Ed, course their should be low, but iifct cent of the entrantilsfi B.Ed, requirements, tlihi filled their quotas, ti^s their success was tli^c ence and being lifHes Newcastle allowed ajfcr women to attend.
They then added tliipy large proportion of mlf st and those were theajrhi high motivation, malfod ers. The North pressed area and thejl for 125 in a town of they were a progri no desks, no lecti teaching methods, the test case; once it other colleges wouldl Labour Governmenti concern for educati( ing the working-ignorant, they were Like the N.U.S.S. Alnwick representati^ei standing ovation,
ml
These emotional porarily quietened throng, whilst the was being prepared, 1 port was passed, fi sections (116 and ll'l to Colleges of F.EJ passing Mr RandaHl
its ie: c
foi G i:
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BEAVER, Jan. 7th, 1915—Page Nine
basis on which the Grants claim, discussion on which was to follow, had been formulated.
The object was to get in front of inflation, have freedom to raise anything and use the present method of calculating the student cost of living, there being no relevant indices. In the Grants Claim debate, I.M.G. and I.S. duly lost their amendments, which made the people who got their Cash Grants amendment through look rather clever.
Part of another amendment tying the Exec, to certain deadlines was passed, as was a censure on the whole of the Exec, for their lack of handling of the Birmingham national demonstration, which was taken against the cutbacks.
Down came the guillotine and the other 14 amendments were lost (including one that read, "The tactics should include arson, murder, looting, hari-kari and a ritual suicide by the President"). The main motion, with its £845 demand, was passed, and Mr Parry, whose chairing of the debate was the best of the whole Conference, tried to fix the vote on whether the Northern Ireland debate, which was to take up the final Monday morning session, was to be in private or public. The vote, which Mr P. declared in favour of open session, revealed 354 wanting private session and 178 against the Idea when it was counted, And so ended Sunday's marathon.
As far as we are concerned, nothing happened on Monday, except a Press conference on the debate we were debarred from. The B.B.C. lady reporter complained about her filming facilities; her camera crew gazed past her at the sea. Back at the hotel practically everyone had gone, except some delegates from Northern Ireland and the odd Exec, member.
That's how we missed the fun and games at Sittingbourne where hundreds of delegates were stranded due to a derailment. Apparently "Conference was convened on an ad hoc basis and demanded no platform for British Rail" (Brig). The I.S. went one directly further, and voted to occupy the railway lines. We travelled back with Mr Randall, watched his son pour cherry pop over his sleeping father and listened to some of the N.U.S. staff trying to teach Randall Junr. rude slogans about Conservatives.
Oh, we counted 23 L.S.E. students at the Conference. Didn't they do well? They got Mr Kenvyn elected to the Steering Committee!
PETER TIMMINS
Exciting reports on the major issues at the Conference
Civil Liberties
THE debate on Civil Liberties was marred by a diversion on drugs, but the document passed at the end of it transcended the "discussion". Divided into 12 topic areas it kicked off with Private Armies. The Exec were told to prepare a report on them as the colleges "work actively ... In cooperation with working class organisations to oppose" and "stop the growing strength of private armies". The Police State followed hotfoot, with Conference believing "the quickest way of producing" it "would be to make the disobedience of a policeman, as proposed by Sir Robert Mai'k, a crime."
The proposals Sir Robert has made about public processions are that no one can hold one unless they have informed the police of the route, control and expected numbers, seven clear days before it happens. When holding one. or a public meeting, it would be an offence to disobey the directions of a constable who would be able to direct that any article he thinks likely to cause a breach of the peace should not be carried or worn. The Exec and colleges were told to campaign against these changes.
They were also told to campaign for the introduction, of an independently supervised system for the investigation of complaints against the police, something the police are opposed to. This would stop the ridiculous situation where Chief Supt. Greenwood of Kent, is being investigated by the Chief Constable of Essex, Charles Kelly, whose own CID are being investigated by the Yorkshire CID over the Ince case (info UP AD. Publicity is also to be given to the fact that there is no legal obligation "to help the police with their enquiries". Also there is the call
to disband the Special Patrol Group, with the Exec alone being told to compile a dossier on "underhand police activities with the view to building up a substantial case against some police methods".
There were no instinctions put forward to anybody on three points Conference believed should be enacted — "that a 'suspect' should be advised of his rights to leave the police station at any time up until being charged"; "that a breach of the Judges' Rules should be actionable": and "that anj^ evidence illegally obtained by the police should not be admissable".
On Drugs, the third item, the Exec were ordered to investigate how many students are charged with drug offences and discover any variation from area to area. They were also told to provide legal aid for students arrested on drug possession offences, but again there are no instructions put forward as to how the NUS is to "press for the legalisation of cannabis".
The fourth item, the proposed Criminal Trespass Laws, which will make trespass a criminal and arrestable offence rather than a civil matter between the trespasser and the owner, which it is at present, received a more positive treatment. Amongst other things, a one-day briefing conference for colleges on the implications of the proposals, with ' speakers from tenants' associations, squatters' groups and the Campaign Against a Criminal Trespass Law, is to be organised.
Law and Legal Services has the Exec instituting a campaign for "adequate free legal services for all", "preparing and presenting a report on Law Centres and Legal Advice Groups" and "establishing the availability of Welfare Rights Courses available at different colleges and circulating their findings". What has again been left out. is any instruction to get Legal Advice Centres financed by the Government. Minority Rights, the sixth issue, has the Exec lobbying
MPs to promote statutory recognition of MRS and producing a briefing, detailing current minority issues for colleges.
Under the Maladministration of Justice the Exec is ordered to "provide financial assistance to any NUS member charged under the Incitement to Disaffection Act if the Criminal Legal Fund does not provide adequate finance". The section on Prisons, starts with the call for the Exec to "investigate and publicise Special Control Units" and for them and colleges to "work with and actively support prison abolition and the reform organisations".
Privacy, the next topic, had no instructions, but Conference believed that the recommendations of the Younger Committee should be fully implemented and extended where necessary. The tenth issue. Trade Union Rights centred around the right to picket, with the Exec and Colleges instructed to "call on the TGWU and UCATT to call for an all-out official strike action by all members to foi'ce the release of Des Warren and Ricky Tomlinson."
The final two motions, the Armed Forces and General, instructed the Exec and Colleges to "lobby and support demands for full democratic rights for members of the armed forces" and for the Exec to "make itself aware of, report on and publicise the state of civil liberties in this country, both under present and under proposed legislation and to develop contacts between the NUS and the NCCL, Trade Union legal departments and other bodies to expediate the fight against the erosion of civil liberties".
There is little in the document's observations to object to, one just wishes the instructions could have been made comprehensive and the Exec were told who to report to. Not a great- start, but not a bad one either.
PT
Women in Society
IN SUE Slipman's terms, this motion was some kind of "great leap forward", or perhaps more appropriately for the C.P./B.L./Exec., a foundation on which to go forward for the next five years—abased no doubt on the startlingly high at-
Grants and .
THE Grants and Education Cuts did not concern itself with the amount, or what were the objectives, but how to achieve them. The objectives were equal priority for cash grants ,the abolition of discretionary awards, the implementation of full grants for all full-time students, the abolition of the parental and spouses means test, a non-discriminiatory married women's grant and the restoration of all education cuts.
The basis of the claim is £845 and the Exec, in an amendment to the main motion, were instructed to mobilise for a national week of action in spring term '75, to take part in the national campaign, lobby local councils on discretionary awards and education cutbacks, and publicise our case to the public and TUs, pointing out the elitest nature of discretionary awards. This amendment was included because many delegates though the tactics contained in the BL main motion vague.
Terms like "pursue", "campaign".
"encourage direct action" (which particular direct action — molotov cocktails?), and "push" left a lot to chance and the energy of a few who haven't displayed it up to now, some thought. That's why the IMG called for pickets, a national Rent Strike, occupations and refectory boycotts. The IS set a deadline of February 14th by which the Government were to have replied, or else "mass direct action" would be unleashed on them. Also a National Rent Strike from January 1st, '75, was to be ordained. Both these two organisations saw their proposals defeated.
What these organisations have achieved, is that the following analysis, ' 'the Grants Campaign can no longer be separated from the whole questional of educational financing, because the grants increase is being offset by cutbacks on expansion, and on existing educational provision", has been accepted. Now it is up to you to fight for your grant.
PT

tendance at the debate, despite its inopportune timing and abominable chairing from Mr Elliot. However, for the majority of active women in the N.U.S., it was a great disappointment.
As with the Ents. motion, decisions taken by a non-policy-making conference, in this case the Women's Campaign Briefing Conference ^(W.C.B.C.) held at Leicester, were totally disregarded by Margate. This was largely due to B.L. opposition and the majority of delegates being left in ignorance of the issues involved. The fact that the Women's debate was considered one of the best of Margate, doesn't say much for the general standard of debates there.
Contained in the main motion were the demands from Leicester that Women's Groups should have the right to be closed whilst retaining the right to use Union funds. That the W.C.B.C. should play a greater role In the implementation of N.U.S. policy on Women, by making the Ad Hoc Committee it elects accountable to that W.C.B.C.
That the W.C.B.C. should be given sufficient funds to provide leadership and co-ordination for the Women's Groups, which as the motion noted, form the basic force ¦behind the campaign. All these demands were calmly rejected by Margate in a welter of cliches about N.U.S. democracy, unity and autonomy, viz.: the W.C.B.C. must not be given a back-door method of
forming N.U.S. policy; The N.U.S. is not a Women's Liberation Movement and must therefore do things the N.U.S. way.
Women active in the N.U.S. have long been discontented with the running of the Women's Campaign ^nd the Exec, attitude to it (e.g., 'Chairman Elliot), and were certainly very angry at what could be considered as their defeat by Sue Slipman BL. There was an immediate reaction from the London Student Women's Action Group and other groups of radical women at Margate. However, Sue Slipman did not seem to think this very important despite the fact that these are the very people who worked to get the motion prioritised, and who are vital to the success of the N.U.S. Women's Campaign.
Things were not all bad — the motion is not by any means useless. containing some very specific demands, e.g., nursery provision, maternity leave for students, women's courses and, in no way of minor importance, the need for greatly increased funds for the campaign.
Thankfully it was hamipered home to delegates that the Women's Campaign cannot be seen in isolation, but that it should be closely linked with the Grants and Education Cuts Campaign over such things as discriminatory awards and equality of opportunity in education. Whether anything comes of it all, remains to be seen.
G.H.
Subs
THE debate on subscriptions to the NUS hinged around whether the large Student Unions wanted to pay substantially more in the immediate years. At present some large colleges with incomes of £22 per student pay only 2.6 per cent of that to finance the NUS, whilst small colleges with an income of £1.50 per student, pay 18.3 per cent of their limited resources over to the NUS.
This is obviously inequitable, but for the small college the situation is worse. If it improves its income to £2.50 per head, it is caught in a "poverty trap". At that level the NUS subscription rises from 27Jp to 52p per head, resulting in the percentage amount going to the NUS rising from 18.3 per cent to 20.8 per cent. A far cry from the rich unions who's percentage drops from its low level of (say) 2.6 per cent because the amount payable to the NUS remains the same (572p) as income rises.
The proposal was to move from a fixed amount per head to a percentage of the Student Union's income, with the long term aim of narrowing the differential between the "poor" and "rich" Unions. What this means for the LSE is that if student numbers (3220) and income per head (£5.40) stay the same over the next three years, the amount payable to the NUS will be for '74-'75 £1851 (basis 57Jp per head), for '75-'76, £2254 (basis 70p per head), and for '76-'77, £1739 (basis 10 per cent).
Behind the proposal is also the attempt to raise the NUS's income considerably. This is to strengthen its three areas of activity, cam-
TREASURER CLARKE
paigning, support for local SUs, and services to individual students. All these are threatened by inflation and the increase in policy goals students want achieved. The issues include, grants and education cuts, welfare, racism, postgraduate students, part-time education, health students. Northern Ireland, South Africa, industrial students, disabled students, civil liberties, women, entertainments, PE development, nursery facilities and victimisation. The following pi'ojects are in hand or are awaiting a start: ten field officers (6 are appointed), a training- scheme for staff and electe officers, establishment of local offices (Edinburgh and Swansea are working. NI is planned), develop the legal aid service, provide a case work advice service, better research and entertainments service, apnoint two fieldwoi'k financial advisors, start an annual survey and establish a national self-financing student newspaper in conjimction with help for the student pi'ess.
The proposal was passed overwhelmingly, with some of the "richer" Unions muttering about disaffiliation.
PT
BEAVER, Jan. 7th, IS'a—Page Ten
HN November, 1974 an article appeared in 'Beaver' by Roman Brodsky entitled "Zionism — another word for—Nazism."
Many students at LSE were ijJiCsgusted by its contents, and a mnmber undertook to prepare a 4lletaiFed and sober response.
The original article, by a professional Soviet propagandist, ¦rests on the following allegations :
(1) The idea that the Jews are a nation is reactionary; however
•(2) Zionist leaders have attempted to convince the Jews that they are in fact a nation, 'their reason being that
(3) Zionism exists for the benefit of the Jewish bourgeoisie, and the Zionist leaders have ;been prepared to co-operate with reactionaries, fascists and, above all, Nazis to this end — even to the point of exterminat-¦v.tig other Jews.
We wish to reply on three levels ;
(1)	A factual refutation of Brodsky's allegations of con-spiracy ;
(2)	An expose of who Brodsky really is, whom he serves, and the type of tactics and thinking this article represents;
(3)	An explanation of the true nature of Zionism.
Disguise
and rule the world. (See Norman Cohn, "Warrant for Genocide," 1967, Pelican edition, 1970). According to Brodsky, the very notion that the Jews constitute a nation is a reactionary, Zionist myth. Citing Lenin himself, he assures us that total assimilation is the best thing that could happen to the Jews. The intentions of someone who suggests that the "liberation" of a people requires their disappearance as a people can hardly be in doubt.
Facts
Lenin
Early in the text Brodsky asserts that the ideology of Zionism is identical with that of Judaism, and this assertion enables him to launch a direct attack on the Jewish religion, aimed at working up the hostility of the reader. It is alleged that Judaism teaches—as it certainly does not—that Jews are a pure race, that they are man-hind's elite, that they claim to 'be the world's herrenvolk. and •so forth. None of it is true, but if you throw enough mud some •©f it inevitably sticks. Yet this ¦mud is not thrown at Zionists and Zionism. It is thrown at Jews and the Jewish religion.
Aside from its utter absurdity, "there is something familiar in the charge. It recalls that famous, pogrom - provoking, ¦Czarist forgery—Tf^e Protocols ®f the Elders of Zion—containing all the inside dope on the international Jewish conspiracy to subvert Christian civilisation

Germany—1937
Furthermore, Lenin's own practice when in power was not consistent with this unrealistic theory. Russian-Jewish national feeling and culture was a fact which the Bolsheviks could not ignore, no matter what they felt about it. A separate Jewish section of the party ("the Evsek-tsiia") was organised within a few months of the Revolution, and it became in the 1920s the focus of Yiddish language cultural, literary and journalistic activities, schools, and even courts and soviets. Two left-wing Zionist movements operated openly until 1927-28. (See Z.y. Gitelman, "Jewish Nationality & Soviet Politics," Princeton U. Press, 1972). In 1928 the ill-fated attempt to create an agriculture-based, Jewish autonomous region in southern Siberia (Biro-Bidzhan) was inaugurated. Jews are today still officially regarded as of Soviet "nationality," and are so designated in their internal passports.
One central theme of Brodsky's is that Zionists thrive on anti-semitism, and, where it doesn't exist, invent it themselves. Ben Gurion is quoted as saying he would like to despatch agents to stage anti-semitic provocations which would frighten Jews into emigrating to Israel.
Historically. Zionism related to anti-semitism in much the same way that socialism related to poverty and social injustice. Both objected vehemently to the precipitating conditions which had sparked them into existence, and proposed radical solutions. The quote attributed to Ben Gurion is simply a hoax. The words were said ^ by a minor Zionist journalist, as quoted in a New York Yiddish periodical in 1952 (see Jonathan Frankel, "The Anti-Zionist Press Campaigns in the USSR 1969-71 ; an Internal Dialogue?" Soviet Jewish Affairs (London). No. 3, May 1972, p.l8).
Frustration
But the heart of Brodsky's argument lies in his assertion that Zionists actively collaborated with the Nazis in wiping out European Jewry in order to stimulate the growth of the Jewish community in Palestine. On this subject, he outdoes himself with a thin tissue of falsified quotations, partial truths and outright lies.
We are told, for example, that Zionist leaders conspired to frustrate an American proposal to allow Jewish refugees to settle in Alaska, and opposed President Roo.sevelt's plan to grant asylum to half a million Jews in the United States. Furthermore, they undermined programmes to admit Jewish refugees in the 1930s and 40s to anywhere but Palestine.
The Alaska scheme was never more than a dream and was exploded by isolationists in the territory. State Department opposition and Roosevelt's concern at being identified too closely with the American Jewish community. In fact, Zionists worked furiously to find sanctuary for their persecuted brothers and sisters anywhere on the face of the earth, but to little avail. The brutal truth of the 1930s and 40s—not unnoticed by the Nazis—was that no country would HAVE the Jews in any numbers. (See Arthur D. Morse, 'While Six Million Died,' Seeker & Warburg, 1968, and Henry L. Feingold, "The Politics of Rescue," Rutgers U. Press, 1970).
Socialists
Before the war, Zionists had argued heatedly with Jewish Socialists and Communists that Jews ought to get out of Europe while they could. To their horror, they were proved devastat-ingly right. Even so committed an anti-Zionist as Isaac Deuts-cher was to muse regretfully in 1954: "If, instead of arguing against Zionism in the 1920s and 1930s 1 had urged European Jews to go to Palestine, I might have helped to save some of the lives that were later extinguished in Hitler's gas chambers." ("The Non-Jewish Jew. OUP, 1968, p.112).
In Nazi - occupied Europe, Brodsky would have us believe, Zionists on the Jewish community councils assisted in the destruction of their fellow-Jews in order to save themselves, Jewish capitalists and Zionist activists.
Aside from the monstrous obscenity of passing facile judgments on defenceless individuals face-to-face with a totalitarian, homicidal power, and surrounded by predominantly hostile local populations, the charges are simply false.
German State Security Service's propaganda department. His chief claim to fame is the editorship of a "Who's Who in the CIA," revealing that the entire American Senate—not excluding Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern—was part of the operation.
To continue exposing the shoddiness of Brodsky's arguments and sources would be to accord them a respect they patently do not deserve. It is time to take a step back, and ask; who is Roman Brodsky and whv has he contributed so incredible a Diece to 'Beaver' ?
Big lie
Yes!
Ukrainian SSR. Russian fear and suppression of Ukrainian nationalism predates the 1917 revolution by hundreds of years. A favourite Czarist tac-. tic to divert Ukrainian energies and attention away from political separatism was the incitement o.r horrendous pogroms against Jews.
During the past live years, numerous Ukrainian government and party officials—from Petr Shelest. foiTner First Secretary of the Republic's C.P. on down—and including over 100 members of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, have been purged and/or arrested. The charge; "bourgeois Ukrainian nationalism."
Brodsky has nothing to do with the LSE, 'he University
At the same time, the local anti-semitic campaign in the media and against individual
London or Brita'n. He turns out Jews has been stepped up. On
Resistance
Throughout the war, Jewish communal leaders could do little more than play for time, hoping that military reverses would overtake the Nazi obsession with the "Final Solution." Zionists led armed resistance in many ghettoes, most famously in Warsaw, went on suicide rescue missions, and strained every inch of their ingenuity to save any lives they could. (See Jacob Robinson. "And the Crooked Shall be Made Straight," Collier - Macmillan, 1965; Isaiah Trunk, "Judenrat." Collier-Mac-millan. 1972 ; Yuri Suhl, "They Fought Back." Macgibbon and Kee. 1968; and Gerald Reitlin-ger, "The Final Solution," Val-lentine - Mitchell, 1953, rev. 1968).
One of the only sources Brodsky ever bothers to cite is Julius Mader. a "German journalist" whose list of Zionist collaborators "consists of 16 close-typed pages." (One may be forgiven for recalling Sen. Joseph McCarthy holding in his hand the list of "Communist subversives" in the U.S. State Department).
A brief check revealed Mader to be an employee of the East
Poland —1943
to be a lecturer at the University of Lvov in Russian-occupied Poland. It should be clear that many of Brodsky's readers lost blood relatives in the Nazi holocaust, and that canards about Zionist-Nazi collusion in themselves provoke outrage and disgust in us. But when, in addition, they emanate from that country whose infamous pact and co-operation with Nazi Germany between August 1939 and June 1941 contributed decisively to Hitler's launching of World War two, the aulhor has utterly transcended the bounds of minimal decency. (See A. Rossi, "The Russo-German Alliance, 1939-41," Chapman & Hall. 1950. and the evaluation of the Soviet historian, A. M. Mekreich, in Vladimir Petrov, ed., "Soviet Historians and the German Invasion," U. of S. Carolina Press, 1968).
Oppression
To ascertain Brodsky's reasons for writing such an article, it is nece.s.sary to view him in the context of political and propaganda trends within the
November 19th, 1973, Alexander Feldman was sentenced by a Kiev judge to three-and-a-half years' imprisonment <strict regime) on ludicrousliy trumped-up charges, after refusing to withdraw his applicaCNon to emigrate to Israel.
Targets
This year's show-target is Dr. Mikhail Shtern, a respected, 56-year-old endocrinologist in Vinnitsa, who first ran afoul of the authorities when he refused to veto his son's emigration application. Since May he has been held incommunicado and in failing health, while local security police interviewed some 2,000 of his former patients, in an attempt to discover witnesses willing to incriminate him. Parallels to the iniquitous "doctors' plot" case of 1952 have been drawn, and one woman has apparently been found who claims Dr. Shtern poisoned children. (See report in "Tlie Guardian," December 2nd, 1974).
A vociferous campaign in the local Press charges Ukrainian
BEAVER, Jan. 7th, 1975—I'age Eleven
Lies
bourgeois nationalists and Zionists with conspiring to subvert public order (the Zionists naturally provide the money). Sometimes Zionist conspiracies are more ambitious, and include American monopolies, South African fascists and Maoists — as alleged in the March 1973 issue of "Kommunist Ukrainy," the theoretical and political journal of the Ukrainian C.P.'s Centraf Committee.
Lest nationalist Ukrainians and Zionist Jews get any ideas about acting together, a counter-stream in the propaganda emphasises the historical enmity between the two groups, and their collaboration with the Nazis. It is hoped to discredit both groups by their supposed actions during the war, and by their association with each other. And it, is on the Jewish end of this task that Brodsky fits in.
In 1973, the Publishing House of Political Literature of the Ukraine issued -21,000 copies in Kiev of his Ukrainian-language pamphlet, "Zionism and its Class Essence." (See Izrail Kleiner, "The Soviet-Ukrainian Press on Israel and Zionism." "Soviet Jewish Affairs", iv : 2 1974).
No!
Fear
Examples of this type of literature" do occasionally filter through to the west, though one might have thought they were mainly for internal consumption.
A recent case in France saw the successful prosecution under the anti-incitement to racial antagonism law of the high-ranking French Communist who edits "URSS," the official jour-tial of the Soviet Embassy in France. He had printed an article about the Jews which turned out to have been copied word for word from a 1906 pamphlet of the murderous Czarist pogromists known as the Black Hundreds. (See Emanuel Litvi-noff, "Soviet Anti-Semitism; The Paris Trial," Wildwood Hou.se. 1974).
The Jews of Russia had until recently every reason to be grateful to the Soviet regime and to be loyal citizens. The Revolution ended the reign of terror and pogroms engineered by the Czarist police, and made Jews, for the first time since Catherine the Great, equal citizens before the law. The Red Army gave them an opportunity to fight against Nazi Germany, it rescued their survivors from the holocaust and enabled them to rebuild their shattered lives. But since 1967 the Soviet Government has adopted the Czarist technique of deliberately fomenting hostility towards the Jews for reasons which should now be clear.
At least Roman Brodsky's article in "Beaver" makes the discerning reader realise why Jews living in Russia feel that they are in danger and must get their families out.
A crucial point to remember is that one cannot talk of "Zionism" or "the Zionists" as if they were a homogeneous entity. All Zionists share one basic aim —• 'concentration of large numbers of Jews within some vague geographical entity called "the ancient homeland" in Palestine. This is, of course, fundamental; without it there woilld be no Zionism. But similarity between Zionism's many variations ends there.
So, for example, we have religious and chauvinist- Zionists, who, having defined the ancient homeland to their satisfaction, claim that that should be the entire area of Jewish sovereignty ; others settle for a limited sector of that area as sufficient for the aim of Jewish autonomy. Some demand that the Jewish homeland should be a theocratic state; others would see it as totally secular, and still others as a mixture of both. Some envisage a liberal, bourgeois state, others a model of socialism, and others a version of the welfare state. Some see the need for a purely Jewish state ; others prefer a state with only a Jewish majointy, and still others call for a bi-national Jewish-Arab state.
Finally, some see the existence of Israel as imposing a moral obligation on all Jews to claim and emphasise the free moral choice of Jews all over the world, and yet others look to a fruitful and positive mutual cultural influence between Israel and the Jewish diaspora (communities outside of Israel).
To refer to all these as "the Zionists" is, of course, correct, but to generalise about them, except in the nebulous premise mentioned earlier, is well-nigh impossible.
In this context it is well to remember some relevant facts of Jewish history, for it is historically nonsensical to suggest that Zionism was born in the 19th century.
It is reasonable to assert that before the Haskala (Enlightenment) individual Jewish identity expressed itself through religion alone. Central to the religion was the love of Zion. The Bible (Numbers 33:43) commands Jews to live in the land of Israel. The Talmud has a completely different set of laws of observance for Israel.
In the Middle Ages the Bibli-
cal laws of living in Israel were interpreted as being valid even during the Exile. In the 18th century Elijah Gaon, the leader of Lithuanian Jews sent a group of his pupils to Israel to establish a settlement. Their descendants who now number thousands, still live in Israel.
Despite the cultural gaps now appearing between Eastern and Western Jews, they were linked not only by observance but by the same realisation that their collective destiny could only be fulfilled in Zion.
urgent, it is only from a position of monumental ignorance that one could ever suggest that Jewish nationalism, of which Zionism is the modei'n political expression, is a myth.
If this is not in itself sufficient proof, we should look at the SOLIDARITY that exists among Jews—note the welfare organisations within the Jewish communities, support for Jewry in Soviet Russia and Arab countries and, of course, the tremendous material, cultural and spiritual identification with the State of Israel. All these points, when taken as a whole, point to a somewhat anomalous version of nationality, but one so real that its existence cannot be denied.
One people Impetus
The second major point to note refers to the problems of alleged Jewish nationhood. Once again, no homogeneity exists. The various answers find their expression within Zionism in. the various forms mentioned above; others would reject Zionism on this basis. The problem of Jewish nationality is, of course, highly complex, since none of the conventional criteria—language, territory, race, religion, culture, history—seem to apply in any common way to the Jews. But this is to overlook some deep-rooted elements in Jewish life. For the vast majority of Jews all over the world the fact that makes them Jews is a FEELING OF IDENTITY with an ancient tradition, an ancient homeland, an ancient language and, above all, an ancient people.
Zionism
But let us now look at our third main point—what is the true nature of Zionism ?
4
Conciousness
History can once again help us. We remember that the Enlightenment had changed much. Influenced by the rationalists, German Bible critics, nationalists and the general intellectual climate prevalent in Europe at the start of the 19th century, it became possible to express Jew-ishness outside the context of the Jewish faith. Jewishness became manifest in terms of a Jewish culture and also a Jewish nation. Its credentials in terms of religion, homeland, language and tradition were plenty. Now—while it is patently true that most Jews are highly ignorant of their tradition, are only minimally religious, do not understand Hebrew and do not live in Israel, this is not the operative point. What IS operative is that these things exist in the CONSCIOUSNESS of Jews and through their vicarious identification with them they identify with other Jews, and this constitutes the Jewish nation.
Political Zionism became the expression of this nationalism, as a direct extension of the religious Zionism which had been implicit for centuries in Jewish life.
The individual Jew had found a way to express his affinity with his people outside the vicinity of his beliefs. It is, however, the same love for Zion as prompted Nachmanides, at the age of 70, to set out for Jerusalem, as brought the exiles back from Babylon two centuries before Christ. The emergence of the nation state in Europe had added a new political face to the old ideas, and v.^hile anti-semitism had made the need to move seem more
Then there is the problem of Zionism as a bourgeois phenomenon. While, as we have seen above, "bourgeois" Zionism is one form of Zionism, like all the others, to claim that it is the dominant form or, more absurdly, the only form, is to ignore the realities. In one sense "bourgeois" is an appropriate term, one which Mr Brodsky strangely overlooks'. Virtually,., anything springing from Jews will be bourgeois because of the highly middle-class nature of Jewish society, especially outside of Israel. Even when the Jews became workers after emigrating to the West from Eastern Europe at the beginning of the century, their consciousness was still of the middle class and the ghetto, and as soon as possible they "moved up" into the middle classes again. But, and here once again is the operative point, which Bi'odsky, as a socialist, so glibly ignores : the main impetus to effecting Zionism while Herzl was meeting princes and prime ministers was the Jewish youth of Eastern Europe who, having imbibed socialist ideology, revolted against this permanent bourgeois character of the Jews and sought to create in Palestine a socialist society, where the Jew would become worker (i.e. actually work with his hands), and where self-labour (i.e. non-exploitation of others) was dominant. It was this group and successive generations which gave the impetus, the leadership and the ethos to the emerging Jewish society, such that the political power and moral leadership of the socialist Zionist movement dominated and continues to dominate.
Many people in Israel who identify with these values recognise that not all is as it should be, but to ignore this basic fact is to distort history to an incredible degree.
lit?


Israel
1974
Socialism
Israel, the idea of which is the apotheosis of Zionism, has countless internal problems, many of them highly problematic for a socialist—domination in religious matters by religious elements even though they form a minority, the depressed situation of Sephardi (of oriental origin) Jews, corruption in the civil service, the ambivalent status of the Arab minority, these are things all Israeli socialists must set their minds and energies to. But to deny the existence of socialism entirely would be self-defeating.
Why ignore the fact that
more than a third of all Israelis (Arab and Jew alike) belong to the Histadrut trade union which, in correct socialist thinking, itself provides employment, education, health services ? And why not acknowledge that afteir 65 years of successful existence there are now over 280 kibbutzim in Israel and over 500 other collective settlements in a population of just over three million ? And why not mention that among workers Israel has one of the lowest wage differentials in the world ? And politically, even if many of the socialist parties are not all that we would like to see, they still form nearly half the seats in the Knesset (Parliament), by far the largest faction.
The future
Brodsky begins his artide with an attack on Israel and modern Zionism. It is true that the situation in the Zionist movement and in Israel is far from perfect. Many young Zionists, socialists and non--socialists ¦ alike, both within Israel and beyond, have rejected their parents' ways of thinking, life-styles and bourgeois ambitions. They need to reconsider their ideals and values and the ways of implementing them. For anyone wishing to contribute to Israeli and Jewish life from a specifically socialist viewpoint, articles like Mr Brodsky's do not help the situation, they only exacerbate it. What socialist Zionists need is help, guidance and encouragement from other socialists.
Zionist socialists will effect their aims far better and quicker—both to create a socialist society within Israel and a genuine and equal peace in the Middle East—if other socialists help to bring together Israeli and Arab socialists, to encourage them along the road they have in common, and to assist them in implementing socialism within their own countries.
Question
In this response we have shown what Brodsky's article both really contains and what it so wilfully ignores.
In the end we are left with one question; what was this sort of cheap propaganda doing in "Beaver"?
I E. HOFFMAN MICHAEL POLAK BARRY SHENKER
BEAVER. Jan. 7tli. 1975—Page Twelve
Dent —part three Politics for what?
"The traditions of all the dead generations weigh like a nightmare on the brain of the living" —Karl Marx: "Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte"
Year 1: Living in the past
"HOW many students supported taking down the gates?" "How could Blackburn and Bateson be dismissed so easily?" "What made the Vietnam occupation so successful?" "Who vins Paul Hoch?" These were the sort of questions which aboun-, ded on the left at L.S.E. during my first year. They reflected the issues and crises of the previous year. This is hardly surprising. 1968-69 had ¦been a year combining more crises, confrontation, and direct action than any other, at L.S.E. or elsewhere: occupations, sit-ins, a three-week lockout, sackings, strikes, destruction of property.
The events' have been well documented elsewhere and need not be repeated. What was significant, however, was that the after-effects of these events dominated the left for a whole year afterwards. Naturally, two-thirds of the student population had been through the experience, an experience which had been, in the short term, one of failure. After all, Adams was still here, two lecturers had been sacked, the distribution of power was unchanged. Of course, the long-term effects of "politicisation" and increased awareness were positive but what counted immediately was the amount of disillusionment and gloom.
Many first-year students who were catapulted into the events of that fateful October, and who became heavily involved for the rest of the year, completely lost interest in political activity for the remainder of their stay at L.S.E. Others who remained provided the' main influences in SocSoc and consistently looked at the situation in terms of the previous year, consistently posed the old questions in the new situation.
SocSoc had previously been dominated by the I.S. group. Many of the I.S. leading figures today received their political baptism in the heady days of the "troubles"—Chris Harman, Martin Tomkinson, John Rose, Hazel French, Martin Shaw, Andreas Nagliatti—the 'left heavies' as they were called. This I.S. faction had its own policy which, although I myself think this is inadequate, gave a certain amount of coherence to the left. With the new year, however, most of these I.S. figures had departed leaving an assortment of different ideas and some with none.
The issues which had galvanised L;S.E. in the past: Vietnam, Rho-
desia, the failure of the Labour government, had now died down externally and, because they were essentially external issues, left nothing in their place. Of course, there were some "actions" in my first year—disruption of the Oration Day speech, protests at the selection of the Vice-Chairman of the Court of Governors (Morris Finer), a half-hearted attempt at occupation in solidarity with Warwick students over the "files" issue, and in protest over the treatment of Hoch. But nothing was achieved because they were isolated activities unconnected by any coherent strategy.
Significantly, no-one in SocSoc, except a few first-year students, took any part, or indeed any interest, in the Examination Statement Campaign. The politics of the left bore absolutely no relation to the day-to-day experience of student life. Our politics and our education were separate compartments. We were still living in the past.
The most tragic expression of this divorce between politics and education had been in 1969 when, after three weeks of struggle to reopen the L.S.E., and the doors were eventually unlocked, students walked inside and continued to study the same things in the old way. This divorce was a result of the way in which the British student movement had evolved. Unlike Continental movements, the British wing had been a response dominated almost entirely by international events, specifically American imperialism. (Tom Fawthrop's destruction of examination papers at Hull, and the six-week occupation of Hornsey College of Art in 1968 were two notable exceptions. Though, generally speaking, orthodox politicos looked down on both these actions as "unpolitical"!)
Hence there had been no initial critique of the structure of education as had appeared in Germany and Pi-ance. This is not to say that the underlying causes of the movement did not lie in dissatisfaction with the education process. However, in the early days, the ways in which this was expressed were more "political" in the traditional sense of the word, i.e., over big issues.
Year 2: Bringing the war home
My second year opened with a factional debate on the role and purpose of student politics. Two contending groups rapidly formed, those who were called 'Althusserians' (the individuals concerned are now centred round the journal "Theoretical Practice") and those called 'libertarians'. The issues were many and varied; the nature of revolutionary organisation, the role of leadership, the relation between theory and practice. The form in which the disagreement expressed itself was over the role of "Agitator", SocSoc's magazine, which was being revived. One side claimed that there should be an editorial board, separate from those who produced the paper, laying down a strict editorial policy and using the magazine as a propaganda weapon. The rest stuck to the view that there should be no division of labour between those who wrote and those who produced the paper, and that as many people as possible should be encouraged to write
articles, thus making the magazine more of a forum for debate.
The issue was not settled by agreement but, because the 'libertarian' view was more popular and eventually the ' Althusserians' withdrew from SocSoc. activities. Perhaps the only significance of this skirmish was that a theoretically liberterarian tendency was in a majority in SocSoc for the first time.
In the middle of the debate, several of us wrote and published •positional statements' to clarify the different tendencies. I suddenly discovered how different it was to state my political views coherently on paper, and relate them to my activity. Consciousness develops fragmentarily, and at any time is partial. Contradictions in our own thinking, lack of underetanding, and traces of bourgeois ideology are present in all of us. Sorting out our own ideas is difficult, but nevertheless is a precondition for all revolutionary activity.
Apart from this initial dispute, the two main events of my second year were the 'Houghton Street Affair' and the Senior ^ Comm6n Room campaign. Late one Wednesday afternoon in early December, after a teach-in on anarchism, about twelve students, moving from theory to practice, decided to block the street to traffic as our 'urban environment' protest. A few cars, including Robert McKenzie's taxi, were held up for about half-an-hour. The following day at 1 p.m., at a given signal, about twenty of us began building a barricade of chairs, ladders, bricks and stone. Spontaneously, and within about ten minutes, about four hundred people were blocking the street behind the barricades.
The police began to arrive in large numbers. The then President of the Union, Gareth Pryce, appealed through a police loudspeaker for the barricade to be removed. The police charged twice and dismantled the barricade. Twice it was reassembled. Hundreds of students worked like beavers(!) excitedly securing material from anywhere they could lay their hands on it. At 5 p.m. we dismantled the barricade and opened the street ourselves.
The following day, both police and students were massed in large numbers. It was impossible to construct a barricade. However, traffic and police were hassled throughout the day. Ents' P.A. system was rigged up from a window in Clare Market building playing music and passing information along about police manoeuvres. Students with cars drove slowly through the street or pretended a breakdown. Some said that even secretaries from Connaught House threw water at the police. The police themselves overacted and were very vicious. Over the two days they arrested more than twenty of us, mostly on the usual trumped-up charges.
On the Fi'iday afternoon at a general assembly, I myself made a bad tactical blunder. I attempted to draw in a wider perspective by refeiTing to recent actions against the building of Westway and to community action in general. It was certainly the wrong way of going about it. I was shouted down: many people obviously feared that the issue would be taken over by SocSoc when, and this was true, the people heavily involved in building the barricade, fighting the police, were, by and large, not members of SocSoc.
The issue died down as fast as it had flared up. It had certainly made an impact. It had certainly mobilised both action and support. Even Walter Adams could not deny
that direct action had been effective in this case. Yet the 'spontaneous' nature of the affair and its sudden demise seemed to defy all analysis, although it is true that dissatisfaction with the amount of traffic in the street had always been widespread.
A few months later, in an "Agitator" article on an entirely different topic, an anonymous author provided what, for me, has been the only real explanation:
"The fact that such a large crowd of previously 'unpolitical' people could be drawn to participate in the closing of Houghton Street would also seem to indicate that alienated students will grab at the opportunity to work collectively. _ Those who sneered at the incident as "just a game" raised an important point. Deprived of real enjoyment in their lives at college, students who took part found pleasure in behaving as part of a community."
Where the Houghton Street affair by-passed all official channels and involved the direct participation of the mass of students, the campaign to democratise the Senior Common Room followed all the normal channels and did not involve any direct action at all (unless we regard the takeover of the S.C.R. during the constitution occupation a year later as a kind of delayed action). On February 12th. Union passed a motion requesting the S.C.R. facilities to be made available to all. Two weeks later, five students, including myself, were elected to discuss the issue with the S.C.R. committee. It was the first time I had been elected to any Union post.
The meeting with the S.C.R. committee was totally unfruitful^ Their arguments in favour of staff privileges ranged from the crude (human nature/necessity of elites/ inevitability of hierarchy, etc.) to the more sophisticated: the S.C.R. is a place where informal contacts are made and maintained between staff and also with infiuential people outside (examiners, businessmen, government officials, etc.)
What is discussed is by nature confidential, and must be kept secret from students, particularly when what was discussed concerned students! We pointed out that the staff had plenty of space for genuine privacy if need be. But the real difference lay in our assumptions. Theirs was the ideology of exclusiveness, hierarchy and secrecy; ours of openness and ega-litarianism.
The Committee — Olive Stone (Law), Alan Stuart (Statistics), E. A. French (Admin.), Harrison Church (Geography), C. G. Allen (Library)—had refused to call a staff meeting to discuss the issue,
so we were driven to obtaining 12 staff signatures which obliged the Committee to call a general meeting of the S.C.R. This meeting, on May 5th, was the largest in living memory—over 180 present—which shows just how seriously the academics take a threat to their privileges.
Jonathan Rosenhead and Hilary Rose proposed the notion which would make all students members of the S.C.R. They found little support.
Professor Lakatos (Philosophy)
said food in the refectory was good and cheap. Peter Wiles (Econ.) thought that staff and students found close proximity 'unnatural'. Terence Morris (Sociology) maintained that students were uncivilised and would turn the S.C.R. into a pigsty. Professor Grunfeld (Law) asked that the names of the staff who had requested the meeting to be published! Ex-Tory candidate John Barnes (Government) suggested a secret ballot among all staff would be better than a vote of those who had bothered to turn up. This proposal, the equivalent of a cooling-off period, was carried by 125 votes to 52, just getting the two-thirds majority necessary.
The S.C.R. Committee, obviously afraid that an adverse result might spark off direct action, dragged out the issue so that polling didn't take place until late in the summer. The motion was then overwhelmingly defeated by over 200 votes to 70.
Where the 'Street Affair' had revealed much about students, it was the staff who were exposed during the S.C.R. campaign. Let nobody deny that the L.S.E. staff are a reactionary bunch. Their resistanpe to the most 'liberal' attack on their privileges shows that when it comes to a more serious challenge to their authority in the classroom, lecture hall, or examination room, we can expect wholesale reaction to emerge. The idea that students "who go to L.S.E. are subject to left-wing influence is a complete illusion.
The S.C.R. campaign also revealed the inadequacies of a 'de-rhand' campaign, especially when conducted through 'nonnal' channels. 'Normal channels' is a synonym for backroom negotiations and horse-trading which leaves the mass of students uninvolved. It rules out direct action which is generally the only way to bring issues out into the open and prevent the authorities from using delaying tactics and underhand manoeuvres.
The Senior Common Room and the 'Street' campaign both reflected the changing nature of left politics at L.S.E. Essentially local campaigns, they aimed to highlight the contradictions as we experienced them. This shift in practice was linked in an overall shift in theory throughout the year. It was reflected -also in the contents of "Agitator", which had been revived and published in a new printed form. Articles centred on such issues as 'Education and Privilege', 'Students and Apathy', 'Community Power', and examinations. This new thinking was crystallised after Easter in what became known as the 'May Group Statement'. Originally the product of 12 students, it was later adopted as the SocSoc programme.
The 'May Group Statement' was based upon the idea that the most effective place for students to engage in political activity was in their own colleges, at the point of mental production, as it were. Thus theory had turned a full 180 degrees from the earlier/traditional Marxist' position which had always tended to slant student activity away from educational and local issues to the 'reality' outside— —especially 'working-class struggle'.
The May Group programme combined socialist education with specific aims for political activity. These were divided into four areas: union, machinery of government, academic affairs, and environment and community. The basic theme was the democratisation of all aspects of college life.
The programme also contained organisational proposals for SocSoc, which has always been a thorny problem as there has never been any overall political unity of the left. However, the production of the May Group Statement was an achievement in itself and, to my mind, is still the most relevant programme for left activity at L.S.E., although further discussion and development is always necessary.
OF coucse, lU not T«f PftArv\ THATS BOU«<^cou
beaver, Jan. 7th. 1975—Page Thirteen!
A lovely holiday—an essay for my tutor
I HAD a lovely holiday. My original plan was to go up to Edinburgh by bus (a fearsome experience, the overnight bus,, but it can be fun). Unfortunately, the Scottish bus drivers were out on strike, a detail I had overlooked, largely through reading the parochial English press. Since I couldn't go by bus, I was left with two alternatives: hitch or go by train. The chilliness of advancing winter made me decide on the latter. While the bus fare would have been £3.75, the train costs £8.90 (or £4.45 + £4.32 = £8.77 using BR's student card scheme, a saving of 13p !) and that meant I had to scrounge around borrowing money ofE all and sundry.
In between fund-raising and amorous dalliance, I made a linocut New Year's card. Being a Scot and an atheist, I never send Christmas cards. "A guid New Year tae ane an' a'," I wrote.
"Is it Gaelic ?" asked my Icelandic flatmates. I felt obliged to disillusion them, believing the Gaelic equivalent to be something like, Bliadhna mhath ur!" Since neither I nor any of my friends is a Gaelophone, however, it seemed rather pointless to put it on my card.
Finally I went off North. Once again I froze to the biting, almost-fresh air of the Athens of the North (or Reykjavik of the South, as you like). For a holiday job, I put cigarettes in vending machines. It's quite a nice job, not very well paid, but you don't have to do much. It's a little upsetting to find that the much-vaunted political consciousness of the Fife minefields (a Communist MP for 35 years) is expressed by complaints about a •|p rise in the price of Embassy.
"Oor members dinnae think these cigarettes are worth whit ye're askin for them."
What can you say ? Especially if you agree that they're not worth the going price.
Yes, I had a family Christmas. As usual I was hard pressed to afford presents for my five siblings. If only Prince Albert had never brought Christmas over from Germany, we could just have an inebriated Hogmanay and not have to worry about in finding money for silly gifts, and sickening goodwill towards men.
Some of my not-so-distant ancestors used to give a tenth of their income to charity. I suspect that that is not a widespread habit in Britain today, hence my dislike of the season of good cheer. My kind of good cheer is whisky, uisge beatha, water of life, especially at Hogmanay. To commemorate the end of 1974 (Labour returned to precarious power, end to dictatorships in Portugal and Greece, withdrawal of Greece from NATO, Nixon's resignation, and, one should recall, the invasion of Cyprus) I bought a bottle of Glenfiddich, which is a very palatable malt whisky, and consumed it at quite a high speed. It's the one night of the year I see all my neighbours in Edinburgh. Roll on 1976.
I even did a bit of studying, in between bouts of painting the walls of my room white. My room used to be a meat cellar plus a corridor, and quite an eccentric colour scheme emerged when we knocked down the dividing wall. It's all gone now: the hideous green and dirty brown and yellow firmly covered by a layer of brilliant white emulsion. Three layers to be accurate.
As our contribution to conservation, we collect wood from the beach. It's cheaper than the oil-fired central heating, and we are also being very altruistic. Also the family car is now a 2CV, one of about ten in Edinburgh.
When I finally sobered up for 1975 (I had just got around to writing 1974 instead of 1973!) it was time to trek South again, which I did, arriving in London almost in time for the beginning of term. Once again I surveyed the uplifting aspect of the LSE buildings. Home again. A happy new year.
Steve
'YEAH, BUT IF you POhS'T STUt>y, YOU R£
WASTING TAXPAVE-RS' ^ - MONl^y ^
that's a matter op. opinion.... one th/n^ /vf- lbaknt
at l£e is that
it's possible to 3^ ST try Af^^VTHlNC, !y
'Where will all the money go?' The Unions weasel squeals!
The more important aspects of the Student Unions 1974-75 budgeted outgoings and incomings are listed below, with the 1973-74 actual expenditure in column three for comparison purposes.
£(Col. 1) 1974-75
1 Central Administratioti Expenses-
Salaries ................................................................................................................................................11,000
other ......................................................................................................................................................5260
i Welfare Expenses
Salaries ................................................................................................................................................2,600
Overseas Students' Fund ..........................................................................................i,200
Other ......................................................................................................................................................760
3	External Affairs
National Union of Students subscription ....................................1,735
Other ......................................................................................................................................................i'oi5
4	Publications
..........................................................................................................................................4800
Other ......................................................................................................................................................820
5	Receptions and Hospitality
Entertainments ....................................i nno
Other .....................................se?
6	Societies—
Africa ...........................................................................
Afro-Asian ...................................................145
Anthropology .....................................................
Arab .......................................135
Art ............................................................................................................................................................48
Asian ...................................................................
Bangladesh ...................................80
Bridge .....................................................95
Celtic Cultural .................................!................146
Chess Club .......................................................................46
Chinese ...............................................................................155
Cinematics ......................................!.!!!!!"!!!!	125
Drama ..............................................80
Gay Culture ............................................................._	50
Geography Association ........................................................................120
Grimshaw ....................... ............................................11s
Hellenic ................................................................
History ................................................;........i;;;;;;;;;;"	105
India ............................................................................................................I97i-
Industrial Relations ...............................140'
Islamic .........................................................50
^.............................................................................................................................................100
Latin America ........................................................................................................................]^g5
Law ............................................................................................................................................................25Q
Legal Services .........................................'	50
Millenium ................................................200
Monetary Economics .......................... ...... ..................70
Music ...............................................................140
Pakistan ........................................................................................90
People's Music ............................................50
Philosophy ..................................^...............................................50
Photography ..................................... ........ ..................j^20
Poetry .....................................50
Psychology ....................................................................................................................................130
Radical Economics ................................................................................153
Sociology .........................................200
Social Science ............................................................................................................................270
Snooker Club ..............................!!!!!!.. 7"..................................loO
Tawney .................................................275
Third World First ..........................................................................................................50
Turds ...................................................7........1
Turkish ..................................................109
Urban and Regional Planning ..............................................................................215
Welfare Appeals ...................................................50
Wine and Food .............................................130
Women's Group ........................................160
Societies awaiting approval—
Darts Club ............................................................................................................................20
Economics Graduate Group ........................................................................20
Graduate Sociology ..........................................................115
Horticultural ........................................125
Management Economics ....................................................................................go
Real Ale .........................................................................................go
Sci Fi and Fantasy ................................................150
Theatre Group .....................................................95
United National Youth .......................... '	80
Reserve .....................................................300
7	Other ...........................................................................
8	TOTAL EXPENDITURE ...........................................
9	Less INCOME
Grant from School (1973-74 amount) ..........................
Other ...........................................................................
10 LOSS FOR YEAR 1974-75 ......................................
£(Col. 2) 1974-75
16,260
4,560
2,750 5,620 1,367
£(Col.3) 1973-74:
11,262
1,797
1.821 2,121 1,596
6,486
37,043
17,391
19,652
3,265 639
22,503
19,891 1,677
935

1.	This budget has not been passed by the Finance Committee of the Students' Union yet, but they are most likely to agree to it.
2.	The reason the income for 1974-75 drops £4,177 on 1973-44 is that included in the Grant from the School last year was a once only ex gratia payment of £2,500, and the section, "other" relates to income from reserves which, if they are being used to keep the Union afloat, will result in there being no income from that source.
3.	The Trading Enterprises are not included because they are treated as separate accounts and the Union cannot depend upon that income to finance its activities for two reasons. The income comes in gradually during the year and more importantly, if any accident happened (a fire) thei'e would be no income.
4.	The figure used for the Grant from the School (£17.391), is the same as last year, which was based on a calculation of £5.40 x 3,220 (approx.) students. Because the Senior Treasurer has not entered into negotiations with the School over the 1974-75 grant level, the final amount (given the number of students remaining the same) should be higher.
5.	If this expenditure (£37,043) were to take place, the per capita amount from the School, assuming the number of students remains the" same, needed to cover that expenditure, will be £11.50 (approx.).
6.	The School still owes the Union £4,000, the balance of £6,500 less £2,500 received, relating to the 1971-72 dispute. (See article on back cage).
PETER TIMMINS.
BEAVER. Jan. 7th. 1975—I'agc Fourteen
Book Reviews
Sleep has his House Anna Kavan-Picador 60p
EVEN though junkies became one of our most pressing social problems, some of them also provided us with very stimulating literature; ask Graham Greene, Norman Mailer and Anthony Burgess, etc., who greeted William Burroughs as a genius.
Anna Kavan, French, was a junkie for thirty years. She died in 1968 with a syringe full of heroin beside her. Her books do not indicate that she would have liked to have been anything but a junkie, for how else would she have gained such vivid insights and visions of the wonders of the human mind ? How else would she have discovered that everyone has the imagination that only a few seem to be born with ? She at least was able to Owrite descriptions that rival Rimbaud's. And there are few writers who would not like to do the same.
Like other literary giants, her writing speaks for itself. The following is the preface to the first chapter: "It is not easy to describe my mother. . Remote and starry, her sad stranger's face did not concern the landscape of the day. Should I say that she was beautiful or that she did not love me ? Have' shadows beauty? Does the night love her child?"
The work of William Burroughs, his son, Bob Dylan and the others who have tried to convey through literature what they discovered through drugs are not easy to appreciate. However, such works will become increasingly commonplace and a good way to start reading them would be with Anna Kavan.
The Lion of Jachin-Boaz Jachin Boaz
Russel Hoban-Picador 50p
YOU have never read a book like this because there has never been a book like this before.
Russel Hoban has been writing children's books for many years and has produced some classics so it is good news indeed that he is writing for adults too. He has had plenty of experience of telling stories and writing with clarity, and in this book he incorporates a great many more techniques which are totally new to me. It would be pointless to list them because, as with a chick's vital statistics, they convey a formula for success and nothing else.
The story could be set in the recent past or near future, there is nothing to decide the issue. It concerns a father's hunt for lions at a time when there are no lions left in the land. At the instigation of his son he goes out in search of the now mythical creatures only to be followed by his son who in turn is searching for him. To give away more than that would spoil the plot.
I recommend this very strongly as a fantasy, an allegory, a sociological comment, a psycho-analysis of humans in general, a funny book or whatever other kind of book you regard as your favourite. The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz cannot fail to please.
Law & Order
Dorothy Uhnak Pan 75p
Judgement Barry Collins Faber Paperback 95p
A REAL gem turned up to be reviewed recently: a play that is a monologue. It's bril-Mant.
Andrei Vukhov, a Russian
WRITTEN by someone who has been in the New York Police Force, this is supposed to cover the careers of three generations of policemen in the city. And it is absolute shit.
"This riveting blockbuster has everything," says the blurb. Sure. Everything that Is sickening, cheap, filthy, twisted,
captain, faces the audience, his judges. He had been imprisoned for eight weeks with six other Russian officers by their German captors in a dungeon with no food, water or clothes. He and another were alive when liberated, but the other survivor is totally insane. The five others had been eaten. Some agreed to die that their comrades might live, one committed suicide, one's spirit was crushed by the circumstances they were in and two were murdered.
Vukhov, obviously sane and
warped, perverted and abortive, put into one book. Example: in the first chapter a cop tries to rape a woman still bleeding from an abortion, has his prick cut off. His assailant stumbles backwards and falls to her death through the window. Then, yes, there's more; the rest of the force pretend that
rational, gives an unemotional and factual (as far as he is able) account of their ordeal. He evidences no guilt and, in a gruelling speech, challenges his judges to tell him what he is guilty of. He claims that his experiences were merely a part of the war and leaves the listener/reader tO' draw his own conclusions.
The play is based on an event of the Second World War. Two Russian captains had survived such an ordeal only to be shot when liberated by the Russian army.
the officer died saving the life of a friend.
At that point i stopped reading. Since then my fantasies have been concerned with imagining Dorothy Uggh experiencing all the scenes she has conjured up from the depths of her frustration.
Picador 75p
IF you don't like gloomy prognostications of doom, stay away from the Mountain People. It is an anthropological study of the slow genocide of a formerly nomadic tribe called the Ik who live in Central Africa.
A government decree has made these nomadic herders into farmers overnight. They would have had enough trouble scraping together a living with their limited knowledge of farming, but the drought that has plagued Central Africa for the last three years has virtually sealed their fate. Because survival is a matter of grubbing around for what little food there is, nobody shares with
The reconstruction is obviously ail Collins' own work, and a fine achievement it is. He has totally captured the Russian penchant for moral dialectics on a grand scale, complete with pages of commas and not a full stop in sight.
I don't envy Barry Collins his imagination: he must have terrible nightmares. But I would urge you very strongly to read Judgement. It makes for gripping (you get knots in your stomach) entertainment even if you are not interested in human reactions to extraordinary circumstances.
Exit
Mathus
CAN there be anything more interesting at the moment than the relationship between population and wealth ? This is what Professor Cipolls is trying to establish in "The Economic History of World Population" (Pelican).
The critic was encouraged that the name of Malthus did not appear in the bibliography. But the reader is not to be deceived. Instead of the "intellectual" who engineered the Poorhouse in the previous century, we have the even greater "intellect" of Julian Huxley and our Spanish "friend" Ortega y Gasset (the prophet of Spanish Fascism;.
The book is now in its sixth edition—a great tribute to the author—but does not' impress quality v. quantity seekers. However, geographers would be pleased to leam that the book has five maps, one for every 30 pages; there are also nine graphs and 19 tables. Statisticians and such like folk are invited to fiddle through, but economists are unlikely to learn anything new—well, anything except that Malthus is no longer to be mentioned even by Establishment Idealoques.
People
anybody else and stealing from each other is quite permissible. Thus you have a vicious but at the same time severely sad example of a dog-eat-dog world, or, put another way, a rather extreme example of man's inhumanity to man.
. Colin Trunbull goes to great pains to point out that the collapse of the religion, family and other social institutions of the Ik are a natural result of the disaster that has befallen them. He points out that the virtues we regard as intrinsically human (e.g., love, charity, compassion) are merely luxuries that humans can afford when they are living comfortably. He demonstrates in a chilling fashion that when humans have no desire to help each other, the line separating man from animals is virtually non-existent.
I'm not looking forward to the day when our " economic system collapses and everyone starts making sure that they at least can live in the manner to which they were accustomed in the long gone days when there was enough for everyone.
BANNER BOOKS CRAFTS
for Progressive Literature— Marx, Engels, Stalin, Lenin and Mao with books from Vietnam and Albania—and stationery
and crafts. 90 CAMDEN HIGH ST., NWl. Tel. 387-5488.
is fopi^aLJ
Libraru ~ ujhere udents (|)moke or (gleep
01- lisren
To nice f\
unds. '
_ ome of thew even
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The Mountain
Colin Turnbull
BEAVliK. Jan. 7th, 1975—Page Fifteen
Reviews of the rest...
Two from RSC — Cinderlines &____
Keith
i

Harper trips
ROY HARPER is indubitably one of our, most talented musicians. Unfortunately he is quite aware of this and can be exas-peratingly egocentric at times.
This album (Flashes from the Archives of Oblivion-Island), recorded at different venues up and down the country, is an unqualified success if judged as a representative selection of this man's music and mood. The gentle love-songs, the satirical social comment songs and some fine acoustic guitar solos all testify to Roy Harper being a very accomplished folk artist. And all of it is exceptionally well produced for a live album.
However, much of Roy Harper's stoned ramblings are captured too. Although they are often wildly funny at the first few hearings and guaranteed to send you into helpless fits of laughter if you are in the right mood, none of it will stand up to repeated listening. This is a real pity because jokes wear thin faster than music and would- really spoil this for a listener who wanted to hear just Harper's music. Someone should point out to Roy Harper that even though it sounds as though you are playing better when you are stoned, it has been proved that it is usually only
your ability to appreciate music and not. your ability, to play that is improved^ (This criticism applies exclusively to sides 2 and 3. If the album had only sides 1 and 4 it would be excellent).
If you can put up with hearing some stoned guys messing around- over and over again, you'll probably really like the album. Roy Harper can definitely weave spells when doing acoustic numbers and can rock you just as well when he gets into some electric, numbers. The fact that he has the like of Keith Moon and' Jimmy Page to help with the latter should be an indication of how well the rock songs come across. It is their presence (plus large amounts of dope) that inspire the final version of "Home" to reach classic heights.
Harper's talents are equally evident in his lyrics. The following- is the opening to "Kangaroo Blues" :—
"Confusion reigns down on us all
From the blistering heights of reason.
A shame we have no balls at at!
On which to scratch our fleas on ..
That's just the beginning. If you like it,.this album's for you.
phone :01-7;{4 0795
i
KECOKDS
18 NeNVport CrI.(Basement) London V\.C2 traders in Records & Tapes Q/s
DISCO EQUIPMENT
Ents. has a lot of Disco Equipment which is available for hire. If anyone is interested, he( or she) can find out how much it costs, etc., from Richard Rees
(Ents. Room is S.118).
TOWARDS the end of Cymbeline, Ian Richardson (lachimo) falls about to convince disbelievers of his star-rating, and that the RSC have a pantomime. It's that sort of play—the baddies stand out and get theirs; the goodies suffer but, in a riotous last scene, receive their adequate compensation whilst declaring true identity, mag-naminity and love, lust not being at all profitable in Jesus' time.
King Cymbeline recognises the worth of daughter Imogen's marriage to Posthumus, who had been banished by the monarch for that offence. That noble gent takes with ridiculous calm, the well-timed, completely unexpected offstage death of his wife (and stepmother of Imogen), whose son Cloten, by a previous marriage, also has his casual demise announced to stepdaddy. The King's two sons by his first marriage, stolen from him in their infancy, are restored, not only as "dead branches brought alive," but as heroes of the rout of the Roman invasion. The other half of this first-ever Dads' Army, the banished duo Posthumus and Belarius, his censure dating from an ancient "wrong," receive their VCs and glower with true British distaste at the humbled nasty Latin ignoble, lachimo, who caused the near tragic misunderstanding between Imogen and Posthumos that provides the play with what little excuse it has for its being.
With the full attention of the audience finally upon him, Mr Richardson, who seemed to have forgot he does not head the castlist of every play, gained a new height in overacting and upstaging, which itself only just compensated for his lavish use of makeup. Why he tried to compete with some glorious costumes and a fantastic golden pumpkin for the inaudible Jupiter, only the superstar can say.
The real joy of this "work," is in the sometimes high-flown language, which is the outcome of weaving romance, fairy-tale and magic into characters that are as entertaining as they are crude. Unfortunately, nothing can save such an uneven set of contradictions.
Even the supercilious atmosphere that the t4iree producers decided to adopt, which was set by the excellent narrating physician and soothsayer (Jeffery Dench), failed, leaving one with something that was interesting to be reminded of, but not, dear RSC, very often.
Curzon Bergman
WELL, after bolting down a large plateful of Gaston Gnome's latest New Year resolution recipe—Curried artichoke a la bientot—I thought I'd sleep off the worst of it in the Curzon Cinema. Unfortunately there was a film showing that afternoon which somewhat impinged on my siesta. After gazing at the opening scenes I felt sure
Ents news
THIS is not the ideal play for a person wanting to escape from the present preoccupation with inflation. The play philosophises about people's different attitudes towards money. It is-a translation from a German play written by Wedekind in 1899.
The playwright's own life was full of dramatic events. For example, he experienced unexpected inheritance, then a period of indulgence followed by one of imprisonment. He thus seems to use the charactes-of the Marquis as a pendulum upon which to swing similar events and as a framework in which to pose questions which, must have been relevant to himself at the time of writing the play.
But alas ! The Marquis is not an inspiring character to spend the evening with although the Baroness von Rosenkron may have been. Not only is she more intelligent and inspiring than most women portrayed in plays of this nature; she is also humorous and feminine.
Perhaps the excess of monetary talk will assist its present revival as modern audiences will be able to identify with it. It does also contain some worthwhile moments, and I think it deserves attending if only for the acting, which was a joy to watch.
K. OPPEL
it must be a news documentary from Sweden and prepared myself for a good long snooze. What a blow, then, when my neighbour nudges me in the ear and whispers in a gutteral South Kensington accent, "Wake up boyo! This is Bergman revealing himself."
I started up in my seat, all thoughts of sleep banished from
WE are glad to report that last term was by far the most successful for Ents for well over a year. On the evening concerts we only lost money once, that was for STEFAN GROSSMAN when Melody Maker lost the advert. Due to our rather lavish expenditure on the Entertainments Day and other free events it is unlikely that there is any profit to be shown from the term. The coming term looks very promising and we have an interesting set of concerts lined up. One of the major events of the term will undoubtedly be the appearance of "THE BRISTOL REVUNIONS ("better than the Cambridge Footlights" —^ Tony Brown) who'll be presenting their new revue show in the Old Theatre on February 28th. Next term will also see the return of ALBERTO Y LOST TRIOS PARANOIAS and hopefully LEO KOTTKE as well.
The evening events begin on January 18th with a joint LSE Ents-Revolver Records presentation of GT MOORE & THE REGGAE GUITARS plus some record company promotional films "of major groups (watch for the poster). GT MOORE & THE REGGAE GUITARS are an all white reggae band- who play a mixture of soul and reggae material and include some reggae interpretations of well known songs like Bob Dylan's Knocking on Heaven's Door. NME said "GT Moore and Co. come the closest I've heard to an authentic reggae sound coming from non-West Indian musicians . . . Wings' C. Moon is maybe the best white reggae on plastic, but I doubt if anyone can touch GT Moore live".
Tickets are available from the Union Shop at 70p. Other bands lined up for the term include ISOTOPE, plus JOHN GOLDING (February 8th), SPLINTER, plus NICOLL AND MARSH'S EASY STREET (February 16th) and MIKE HERON'S REPUTATION (March 8th).
my mind. Whatever had I stumbled on to ? Yes, it was Bergman's latest film. Yes, it was excessively long. Yes, it was boring in parts. Yes,, it was a film of parts. Originally a TV serial in Sweden, it seemed to have maintained both the length of the original and its episodic character. Granted, there is an underlying continuity throughout, but it is easy to- lose sight of this after two hours forty minutes.
The neuroses of Bergman's bourgeois intellect left me cold, but then, when you've got stomach pains, you haven't got time to be esoteric.
However, the camera-work and acting were excellent and certainly compensated for the subject-matter. It's worth seeing if you're a fan or if you appreciate good acting and technique. But if you want to enjoy yourself, stick to Kung Fu.
Ron Harris, at "Scenes from a Marriage".


BEAVER, Jan. 7th, 1975—Page Sixteen
Please sir, can I have more}
THE Senior Treasurer estimates the Students' Union will spend £37,043 this year, which will result in a loss of £19,652 (see page 13). This will be the biggest loss in the S.U.'s life, and bears out the calculations made and reported in the
October 29th "Beaver."
y'
If the loss is to be avoided, the per capita grant from the School will have to be raised from £5.40 to £11.50, a move that on the School's past track record (highest rise £1.60 in 1973/4), appears unlikely. The Senior Treasurer in private conversation, has been heard to say that if an extra £3,000 can 'oe obtained, he will be pleased. This will result in the per capita grant moving from £5.40 to £6.30, hardly enough. A rise of £3,000 would only just keep pace with past inflation and would not compensate for present and future inflation. (Assume 20 per cent of 1973/4 grant, i.e., £3,478. Deduct £3,000 and there is a negative "increase" in the Union's grant of £478). At the very least a repeat of the £1.60, to raise the per capita from £5.40 to £7.00, would not be sufficient to avoid losses. ¦ and would still leave the LSE with the lowest per capita grant of any University in the UK (national average 1973/74 £14.25).
One hopes that the Executive will treat this report with greater respect than the October 29th article received. Tony Brown spoke of "the misrepresentation of the facts as produced
in "Beaver" regarding the deficit of the SU . as far as he could ascertain . . . the loss would be £5,000 rather than (the) £20,000 quoted in "Beaver." Chris Hoyland (Sen. Treasurer) said he would personally write a letter to "Beaver" correcting the error. He approximated the total loss (as) being less than £3,000." (Quotes from Exec. Minutes).
Whilst it is understandable that no letter was ever written, given the tremendous backlog of work left over from the summer that had to be cleared away, there has been demonstrated an obvious need for long-term planning within the Union. The Senior Treasurer will be making the first tentative steps towards this when he starts framing a budget for the 1975/76 year, later this month.
However the possibilities of him getting very far, whilst conducting a vigorous campaign to secure a higher grant, point to the need for some planning body, with powers to request long-term plans (say three years) from the services, and question them about those projections. Such a planning document would provide the rationale for budget calculations, and not leave the Executive open-mouthed when inflation comes home to roost, they already having an accurate idea of the range in which final expenditure will fall.
PETER TIMMINS.
Kelly's Heroes
A CAUTIONARY tale Of Hall of Residence politics (or how to make enemies in one easy lesson).
Those of you who live in the lap of Hall of Residence hixury may have noticed a strange phenomenon in recent months: being acute and chronically disabling staff shortage. Part of the reason for this is the low hourly wage paid for the job by the School; a more worrying thought to most of the students within the Halls is that the staff situation, like many other internal issues within the Halls is aggravated by that heroic demagogue of administrative organisational and method technique Mr J. G. Kelly. A few examples of what I mean. At Carr-Saunders last year one of the most popular figures among both students and staff was Mac, the porter at the desk. Alas Mac is now working in Victoria, where
his friendly talents are more appreciated . . . why? JC the hero of our tale, decided that the phone at Carr-Saunders was not being answered enough when JC wished to communicate his regal wishes to anyone at the Hall. He wrote a letter of stinging complaint about the work of the desk porter at the Hall (which incidentally involves a lot more than just answering the phone). The telephone engineers were called in to examine the switchboard, at Mac's request, and discovered that two of the three lines were faulty. No apology was received from JC and Mac left soon afterwards, to the great regret of all students and staff at the Hall, But then WHAT DOES JC care for students? Indeed one of his favourite hobbies seems to be being as nasty as is possible to students. Like the day he agreed to meet representatives of all three Halls
about the price of refectory meal vouchers. He kept them standing outside his office for over an hour after the apnointment was due and then refused to see them without even giving them an apology.
Of course JC isn't all machine. At a famous cheese and wine party at one of the Halls (incidentally JC regards these parties as work rather than entertainment: I suppose that getting dnmk in the company of students must be taxing to a failed whizz kid), he spent the whole evening trying to touch up one of the attractive female students present. All anybody seems to remember he got was a sore cheek! JC has been jokingly compared to a smooth running battery operated machine — if this is so, then when the batteries run down then nobody in any of the Halls of Residence is going to be in any hurry to wind them up again. So, Kelly, go stick that in your pocket calculator, and make yourself ill for a change!
EARTHWORM
Knowledge for what and for whom?
THE guide that was handed out to the students on the MSc Sociology stated as one of the course's objectives,
"To increase the number of students with post-graduate qualifications in Sociology so as to meet the expanding demand for teachers in this subject in Universities. Colleges of Technology and other educational institutions."
It is about time for the Graduate School and the Sociology Department to recognise that this expanding demand does no longer exist and that the objectives of the course have to be restated in the light of the present situation. Furthermore, it was written that during this year the student could deepen and extend his knowledge in those subjects that had aroused his interest.
It was very soon in the Michaelmas term when the students were confronted with harsh realities and realised that their expectations of
the MSc and the LSE did not at all correspond with what was being offered. It was obvious that'the highly structured course does not allow for any initiative on the part of the students and that specific interests can barely develop.
On November 14th, the Sociology students called a meeting with Professor Martin discussing a number of proposals which had been drafted and handed to him before.
The following proposals and demands were made:
1.	that the Department states the main objectives of the MSc course;
2.	that there has to be fundamental change in the Social Structure of Industrial Societies course which is non-developmental and non-theoretical;
3.	that the theory course be subject to students' control;
4.	that the compulsorj' methods course be made optional;
5.	that the assignment of tutors has to be linked to students' specific interests;
SSC Scoreboard
THE final reckoning has emerged for last term, as to which depts have more studious inmates, which depts have students who read notices, care about how and what they learn, and aren't too frightened of using "bureaucratic" methods to channel ideas and get things changed. Sui-prise, surprise! It's almost possible to be optimistic — 13 out of 16 depts actually have SSCs of some description.
However, the 3 depts still out of the running cannot be ignored, especially with the blame being laid at the door of student apathy or inability to read and comprehend notices. It must be concluded that Accounting and Econ Hist students are perfectly satisfied with their Univ education (lucky bastards) or that they don't care (unfortunately a much more likely supposition). The Ind Relations Dept is in a slightly different situation, having no U/G within their dept, though why post grad students should be any less concerned with their education is more than a little mystifying (considering the recent events in the Sociology Dept).
A quick perusal of some recent Committee minutes reveals no burning issues apart from the perennial complaints about the machinations of the library and consequent difficulties for the foolhardy who actually expect to be able to get hold of books. At present the lack of communication between staff and the library as to what books are going to be in demand, is being aggravated by staff shortages in the library.
For those who might still be considering the whole exercise as utterly futile, they should try finding another way to really get through to academics that lecture and class co-ordination is non-existent, and general problems over exams.
If your dept looks as though it has an SSC, find out who, what, and where (departmental Sees can be very helpful) — on the other hand, if there obviously isn't one present, rumour has it that it's not unconnected with you.
Department Sociology Soc Admin Anthropology Int History Int Relations Geog Law
Soc Psych Govt
Lang Studies Stats
Economics Phil
Econ Hist
Ind Relations Accounting
Last Term
Oct. 8, Nov. 5, Nov. 26 Oct. 16, Dec. 4 Oct. 10, Nov. 14 Oct. 29, Dec. 5 Nov. 7, Nov 28 Oct. 18, Nov. 29 Nov. 13, Dec. 4 Oct 31, Nov. 2a Nov. 21 Nov. 20 Dec. 5 None Oct. 15
attempt to form SSC failed —
only 4 students turned up to
a meeting
None
None
This term Jan. 21
Jan. 15, Feb. 26 Jan. 9 Feb. 11 Jan. 23 or 30 to be arranged to be arranged to be arranged lst/2nd week of term to be arranged probably none Jan. 15
probably none
probably none probably none probably none
Lonely Hearts Club
UP till now, as you will probably all know, the Government Department can be a very lonely place, especially if you are a first year. One of the main problems for this is the lack of publicity about what is going on and also the fact that the Department buildings are a not very inspiring place (sic). Well We hope that this is all going to change now!
This term we're hoping to have a meeting of students every two or three weeks to raise problems, plan future social events and generally get to know other people in the Department. We'll make efforts to publicise the Student-
Staff meetings in a better way. We're also hoping to get a hot drinks machine or a kettle in L109, the Department common-room.
We'll be having a wine and cheese party early this term and I'll be circulating a letter to you all about the possibility of a restaurant evening soon. You should also be getting a newsletter this week telling you more about what we're hoping to do. In the meantime if you've got any problems, please contact Nisha Alvares Meneses or me, Keith Boyfield, your student secretaries on the Student-Staff Committee.
6.	that students be able to see the reports written by their tutors;
7.	that as an alternative to examinations students should be allowed to write an extended essay in all cases.
Further demands concerning the length of reading lists, re-sits and part-time students were submitted.
During the meeting Professor Martin was on the defensive, claiming that most of the proposals were beyond his control and were entirely dependent upon the rules and regulations of Senate House. However, he claimed to be prepared to raise the proposals at a staff meeting; so far no answer has been received.
The students have now decided to bring their grievances to the ¦^attention of the Director, Herr Ralph Dahrendorf, who claims to be an open- and liberal-minded person prepared to make changes within the LSE. A meeting with him has been arranged for the beginning of Lent term. After talks with the staff on the Social
SHructura of Industrial Societies course, no attempts towards any changes were apparent. The course remains totally empirical, only reflecting too well the empiricist tradition that is so firmly rooted in British sociology.
On December 3rd, the students on this course decided to boycott the seminar which resulted in a complete success. Many grievances similar to our own have been expressed by students of previous years, and the extremely high failure rate of last year's MSc Sociology (7 failures out of 18) certainly reflects the faulty structure of the course. We emphasise that our grievances stand despite this fact and demand that more control is given to the students in the running of the course.
We believe that we are not standing alone with our problems and therefore, ask other MSc and BSc students to contact us through "Beaver" or the Union. If the School does not realise that it is time to rethink the nature of the courses, it is up to us to do so. "
End of Jan?
THE time is still at last drawing nigh when death will no longer lurk in certain parts of dearly beloved Houghton Street — petrol driven monsters are to be experimentally excluded — hopefully by the end of January.
One can never have things all ways but at least Clare Market will have it both ways — traffic that is. The surmise being that any vehicles venturing up will have had the sense beforehand to check that they are of a reasonable size and so can turn round and get back out again. Similarly with a short section of Houghton Street at the Aldwych end. At any rate LSE people will no longer have to witness the nerve racking spectacle of a Hackney cab race track.
Everything is still at the Experimental/Temporary stage but those with imagination are invited to consider the development possibilities of this soon to be created pedestrian haven.
Printed by Ripley Printers Ltd., Ripley, Derby. Published by London School of Economics and Political Science, Students' Union, St. Clement's Buildings, Claremarket, London, WC2A 2AE.
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