NEWSPAPER OF THE LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS STUDENTS' UNION No, 129 MARCH 5th, 1974 HALL QUITS BRITISH LIBRARY OF POLITICAL & ECDNOMIC SQENCE 1 8J11N1990 ^ "I HAVE come to the conclu-son that it is on balance . desirable that I should voluntarily relinquish my duties as Senior Treasurer of the LSE Students' Union, effective March 15th. I have chosen that date because, and only because, it will give me the opportunity to discharge my responsibility in relation to the administration of the Overseas Students' Fund. I extend my thanks, particularly to Alistair Coe (Execu- ¦ tive Committee member for Finance) for the help he has given in this regard. f "The risks of personal academic failure, fatigue, and increasingly unpleasant confrontation situations with both my colleagues and members of the School administration with wliom I am required to liaise, are of so great a magnitude as to render continuation in office -with the degree of dedication required of this office, nothing less than the height of folly. . "Yet I must quickly observe that there exists not one par-.ticle of justification for the ^ existence of any of these risks. r" Candidates for student (or 'other) , political office will always promise, in the language 'of one political ideology or another, a dedication to the going "student struggle". The major attack made against me, both in and out of office, by my 'colleagues on the Executive ' Committee and certain members of Union relates to what I have considered my greatest •asset in effectively discharging ¦ the duties of the Senior Trea-surership : the fact that I cannot be manacled as a student politician, by the rigours of membership in any political splinter group. I can, and shall, continue to challenge, however, any member of Union to show evidence during my term of office, of absence of dedication on my part to the needs of the student body as a whole; and to the will of Union. (Like some, I am forced to distinguish the two.) I further reissue the challenge to show the need for what in my election manifesto I called a "closed delusional system" — a cut and dried political analysis for the resolution of student problems, the majority of which problems bear no relation whatever to the pedantry of ideological infighting, either on the left or as between left and right. "An example taken from the pages of modern Union history which possesses both the subtlety and the palatability of a turd in a punch bowl: "Why did the struggle for higher grants (LSE department, cost: not yet determined) have to be killed by the pedestrian boredom of demagogic speeches distinguishing the Broad Left and the Ultra Left ? Why will the struggle for higher grants (NUS department, cost: £1,300-plus) be killed by the equally pedestrian boredom of the continuation of speeches distinguishing the Broad Left and the Ultra Left ? "The answer to my double-barrelled riddle, cum pre-mor-tem post-mortem, lies in the fact that the primary reasons for distinguishing political perspective is the securing of power. The securing of a better quality of life comes a poor, unqualifying second. "The majority of students here are not completely fooled; they see how insanely Union money is spent. Where they go wrong is in their failure to see how easily they can, by simply attending Union meetings, transform the Baude-laireian daydream we call our debating chamber into a forum for the development of positive ideas, clearly reasoned, and their transformation into viable and workable action programs. It would be foolish for me or anyone else to go on believing that the Union will get any stronger or any the more reasonable given presently dwindling attendance levels; and given the motley assortment of contradictory encyclicals we so glibly call "Union policies". So much bullshit it is that I might just as well be Treasurer of a Young Tory Horticultural Society ! "Dedication to either the student body as a whole, or to the will of Union, are not sufficient in themselves. There must, first, be a consensus as to what needs we, as students, are struggling to meet; second, there must be a clear identification of the forces which come between us and the resolution of our needs. Third, there must be' consistency in formulating the general will so that precious time is not wasted either in prolonged sessions of political masturbation or in justifying the means to the end rather than the end itself. "All three criteria are sadly lacking in Union at ' the moment. And it would be more realistic than modest, more like the captain who shouts "Women and children first" than the rat deserting the sinking ship, to conclude that neither one man, nor even one splinter group (however non - sectarian) can under present conditions, achieve these goals without sacrificing the superficial joys of personal political "power". "Doubtless, my resignation comes as a shock to some; as the inevitable to others; but as a disappointment to very few. There is no false modesty in that. I think, rather, the record of candour and straightforward talking which I can, without hesitation, claim as my hallmark (no relation) ; the blunt, sometimes pungent, observations which I occasionally choose to make, should all embellish my departure from, as they did my entrance into, student politics. I have chosen as my forum "Beaver" because it promises the attention of a larger section of the student community here than the General Secretary, the Executive Committee, or even a Union meeting itself. I shall be happy to answer any questions on Friday, however. "When I was running for office, I was characterised by the Broad Left movement as the sort of person prone to making "verbose and bombastic assaults on all socialists within the Union." Now that it's all over, I can answer by saying that that accusation was tantamount to accusing me of self-flagellation. Socialism stems from the need to do away with the class ethic as the prerequisite to the elimination of social and economic inequity and injustice. All brands of socialism presuppose a respect and love for humankind as a whole. There has not been a modicum of love in evidence at any Union meeting I have thus far attended. "I can recall being laughed to scorn when, at my first Union meeting, I asked whether Walter Adams was the enemy, or whether our real enemy was our need to find an enemy. Negotiations with the school on the per capita grant and the ex-gratia payment, and the outcome of these negotiations have shown that our only enemy is unreasonableness; and that there is guilt to be shared on both sides. Yet at this very moment, certain members of Union are prepared to sacrifice the welfare of the student body as a whole by throwing reasonable negotiation to the wind; and by blindly failing to accept the possible need for Union economic self-restraint. I can also recall the disqualification of a candidate who intentionally broke election regulations which manifestly ensured that the broader mass of students knew nothing of the real issues facing Union. I can recall the hatred and scorn when I exhorted Union members to donate from their own pockets to the cause of the workers at Con-Mech, rather than breaking the law and forcing me into the untenable position of personal liability by authorising the payment to Lindsay Grieg. Only too well, I recall the threat to freeze the Music Society funds as the result of their accidental support for the Library appeal. I recall how the lives and future of seven Chilean students were endangered as the direct result of the pubescent infighting amongst various political groups, all of whom wanted the credit for saving their lives. I recall the ridicule when I suggested that students accept the support of University Vice-Chancellors in relation to the grants struggle. If all of this exemplifies the official student socialist, I content myself with my unofficial, "revisionist", impure, unenlightened socialist position. Whenever I see that sort of behaviour, I shall continue to oppose it with ' characteristic bombast and verbosity. "We all want a strong Union, A strong Union is ideally a secure student body. A strong Union can prevent suicides; can be instrumental in securing grants consistent with human living conditions; can produce active student intercultural exchange ; can be instrumental in abolishing the discriminatory overseas student surcharges which perpetuate elites abroad. ... A strong Union merits the LSE reputation as the vanguard of. the student movement there, and as an example to students abroad. -How we secure these and other goals must involve concerted and reasonable effort. "My successor will be required to chair finance committee meetings ; prepare budgets; attend several other committees ; develop administrative capabilities within the Executive committee framework; administer the Overseas students' fund; liaise with the School authorities on all matters relating to finance; authorise all Union expenditure ; review the financial position of Union's trading activities; fearlessly and objectively advise Union on the prudence of its proposed expenditures; communicate from time to time with legal counsel to ensure that all Union expenditure falls within the purposes outlined in the law relating to educational charities. "At this particular juncture, he must obviously be a man with a great deal of strength and time. I have been placed on record for my opposition to sabbatical officerships. I wish riow to be removed from that list. My stand on sabbatical officers has been based upon two related considerations: (1) it would be unfair to place any person's career, time, and financial security at the will of a capricious body such as represents the present Union attendance ; (2) it would be unfair t® Union to place a non-student in a student-officership position. "I said, however, in my manifesto that 'Hard cases make bad law. And LSE Union is a hard case.' In the light of the need of the student body as a whole, I come to the conclusion that the only person capable of effectively and efficiently dischafg-ing the responsibilities of this office is one who is not shackled by the added burdens of ace-demic activity: in short, a S&llii-batical Officer. "Though my successor is to be elected shortly, he was net to take responsibility until July. He must, in view of this resignation, take office effective March 15th. "I accordingly submit,: with regret, this resignation to Union; and hope that durini; my short term I have merited the support of at least these who put me into office." JULIAN HALL, Senior Treasurer, Union. BEAVER, March 5th, 1974—Page Two LETTERS DEAR BEAVER, While one can certainly admire the concern ol' Mr Jim Stride ("The Piggy Bank Blues." "Beaver," February 6th. 1974), one can only lament his proclivity to hear simply what he wants to hear. Yes, it is quite true that the Union subsidy for MILLENNIUM'S reduced student rate hopefully will be necessary "once only'' but nowhere was it suggested that great profits loom around the corner. As a non-profit organisation MILLENNIUM has certain obligations above and beyond those to the Union which I am sure even ilr Stride must be aware . of—if these commitments were evaded there would be more than a student finance Committee to answer to. Without prejudice to the other points that Mr Stride makes, we suggest that the Union Finaiice Committee is to be commended for the thorough way in which they considered MILLENNIUM'S application. This recommendation was based on the fact that (1) it costs approximately 45p to print each copy; (2) that we would like to maintain a special student price of 20p per copy; (3) therefore we take a loss of 25p for each copy sold • at this price ; (4) with three issues per academic year, we need only sell just over 500 copies per issue at this price (two hours after this issue went on sale outside the library more than 100 student copies were sold) to require the Union's subsidy. In fact, the reason our rapidly increasing circulation figures are not higher is not because we cannot sell enough of what we print but because we cannot afford to print enough to sell. Mr Stride then introduces the novel idea that the Union play "banker" and extend MILLENNIUM an interest-free (thank you, Mr Stride) loan rather than an "outright gift" (sic). His logic is somewhat unclear but the point is made that when at some future date MILLENNIUM is showing a profit (which with respect to the journal's current status is clearly a moot point), the journal should pay back the Union. Is Mr Stride suggesting that allocations foi; the parties and activities of other societies be made loans as well to cover the possibility that they, perhaps in some future millennium, may become profit-making as well ? Lastly, Mr Stride suggests that "MILLENNIUM should keep accounts for the year to end 31st July." Thank you. Mr Stride. Do you really think that a serious journal for long could circulate internationally and maintain ties with professional printers, respectable publishing houses, or academic institutions without keeping accurate records ? But all of ths does not answer the question as to why MILLENNIUM should be supported. As any Board member can attest, the journal has at all times been quite concerned with its raison d'etre. We are not just another International Relations journal nor an aspiring junior Foreign Affairs. It should be stressed that the journal provides an opportunity for the publication of original student research. Other journals say that they will publish good student work, but more often than not there is a kind of Catch-22—no one wants to publish anything by anyone who hasn't already published something, yet no one will provide that first publishing opportunity. MILLENNIUM not only has and will publish student work, but positively solicits it. I'ours faithfully, JEFFERY GOLDEN COLIN HOLLSS DEAR STUDENTS, As part of the Soc. Admin. Department's teach-in on "The Politics of Education" on February 1st. there were four "workshops" intended to discuss "The Ideological Framework of Academic Courses." Having been invited to introduce the discussion on psychology. I did so, though none of the chairwomen (there seemed to be at least two) appeared to have any idea that the discussion was to be introduced as such, let alone how it should continue. Being more or less completely na'ive about student politics, I was quite unprepared for the experience of this "workshop", and to be honest, I thought it was a farce, for the following reasons. Firstly, the discussion had no aim. We just cannot have a free-for-all on a subject as wide and complex as the ideology of psychology; without specifying our problems and our objectives, any such venture is worse than useless. Secondly, the style of discussion was completely irresponsible. The rule was for people to talk at length ofif the top of their heads, either picking on some tangential aspect of the immediately preceding contribution, or in piursuit of their own whims, apropos of nothing that had been said by anyone else. One or two individuals made cogent contributions, but these immediately disappeared from view in the general melee. Thirdly, the great majority of the participants were united in one respect only: a determination not to relate what they said to anything in the real world. You could not have guessed from this self-indulgent squabbling that ideological struggle had anything to do with politics, with the lives of ordinary people. I have been assured that this discussion was not typical of what goes on today in the L.S.E., and my aim in making these comments is not to antagonise. However, I feel that anyone who has participated in this or similar discussions should go in for some pretty stringent self-criticism. We must become very intolerant of any tendency in ourselves to reproduce, albeit in changed form, the elitism and intellectualism which we claim to be struggling against. We have to recognise that society will not be changed by students and nor by psychologists. Our task, as students or psychologists, is to make sure that we stand firmly in the ranks of the people who will change society—that is the working people. This means developing ideological work from the standpoint of the working class, the leading force amongst the people. It means posing the question "Whose interests are served by what' we are doing ? in all areas of work. I hope that other participants in the psychology workshop will apply this question to that discussion. DEAR BEAVER, DEAR BEAVER,—The capacity of the library to keep up with tiie latest trends is quite amazing. O.K., so the Common Market is on a downer at the moment, but it's not dead and buried yet. Thus the other day, I was somewhat surprised when having climbed all the way up to Room V, to look at some E.E.C, reports which used to be up there on a rather lonely shelf, to find that they had been removed, and on all the surrounding, previously eVnpty shelves are no fewer than 268 very large tomes (tombs? ) of the reports of the Nuremburg War Trials. Perhaps they make thrilling reading, but isn't the library supposed to be short of space ? When so many books with a much larger reading audience are kept in Room R, or at Egham could not these shelves be put to better use ? C.J.H. Footnote : The Library, showing its usual sensitivity to student enquiry, has not replied to 'Beaver's' article (see last issue). But people are asking questions . . . Yours fraternally. BARRY RICHARDS "BEAVER" STAFF who worked on this issue were:— CHRIS TILLEY COLIN MORLEY JULIAN BRUTUS PETER TIMMiNS DEAR STUDENT, Wtiere will you be this time next year? WILL it be Wolverhampton perhaps or Middlesbrough — or maybe Bishops Stortford ? If so, that would mean you could be missing out on Zamboanga, Mzuzu or Prachuap Khiri Khan. Far away places you'd never seriously thought of getting to — even if you know where they are ? Yet each is in a country where VSO sends volunteers every year. Next yeaf. Prospects of galloping price rises, higher ani higher rent^ travel crippled by fuel shortages, strikes, etc..... Next year. The start of all the joys of the nine-to-five job: rush to work, pushing paper around an office, dull routine, minimal responsibility. ... Next year, VSO will send about 900 people abroad to do a wide variety of jobs in more than 60 developing countries. Many different demands will be met; from teachers and librarians t« radiographers and agricultural engineers. What about VSO anyway ? VSO has moved a long way from its image (which was probably unfair even when it started in 1958) of keen school-leavers going to South Sea islands to live in mud huts and "help the natives". The volunteer in the 1970s is far more likely to b® living in a town, in a perfectly adequate flat or bungalow (completft with such luxuries as electricity and running water), working in a local school, college, hospital or government department. Some of course do go to isolated "bush" postings, but these are not really typical. How voluntary is voluntary? While the volunteer is not expected to make a profit out of his two years' service, there is no reason why he should make a loss. VSO pays a volunteer's passage to his project and back, while the country he is serving in provides him with an adequate wage — usually the normal local rate for the job he is doing. You volunteer to go where VSO thinks you can be most useful — nofc to work without pay for two years! Is it really worthwhile ? In many developing countries there is a chronic shortage of middle-level man — (and woman) — power. This shortage caa be partly alleviated by help from overseas ; and this is where VS# meets a real need. Specific requests reach VSO to fill specific jobs; and VSO tries to find someone with the right qualifications for each one. Outside the job itself, other opportunities arise foe getting involved locally. One VSO teacher in Sierra Leone last autumn joined her class in lending a hand to help build a community hospital: "I was amazed to find that 'lending a hand' entailed carrying a 401b. concrete block on your head. Most students were able to do it, but I found it impossible to lift the block more than a few feet." Is it worthwhile from your point of view ? Apart from the experience of eating kenkey or swimming in the Caribbean 'or just being in an Indian village — there can be real attraction# in the jobs themselves. Qualified personnel are in such short supply that the volunteer is often given a degree of responsibility he could not expect for several years in UK. VSO teachers are liable to find themselves acting as heads of departments in their first year. Last September one arrived at his school to be toll "Oh by the way — you're Headmaster. The other one left," , A librarian may go from a situation here where she is merely one of a dozen qualified staff to one involving organising library services for an area the size of Eng^nd and Wales together! What about afterwards ? What happens to volunteers when they come home ? Admittedly no really comprehensive survey has been possible, but there are certain clear trends. Obviously no one can claim that having been on VSO is a guarantee of a good job on your return . . , and your friends who stayed behind will already be two years ahead on the promotion ladder. But they have not had your experience [¦ and many employers appreciate the breadth and maturity whidt usually results from a spell overseas, and are very willing to take on ex-VSOs. In particular, returned volunteers are in special demand as teachers in areas with a high proportion of immigrants (and VSO service anyhow counts for increments on the Burnhan* scale). Yes, but . . . ? Can you choose the country you go to ? Anyone applying to VSO is expected to undertake to serve wherever asked to. However any preferences for specific countries are taken into account and met wherever possible. What about training ? VSO provides a short briefing course for each country and courses in basic professional skills for those who need them. Foe countries where a knowledge of a non-European language is important an intensive language course is also arranged. How do you apply ? Application forms (and basic information) available from VSO, 14 Bishops Bridge Road, London, W2 6AA. Applicants wiH usually be interviewed by a board of selectors, and should know within a week or ten days whether they have been accepted. plications to go overseas this autumn should reach VSO by the end of this term, or as soon afterwards as possible. How about it ? Eleven of last year's LSE graduates are now overseas on VSO; one is a radio engineer with Laos National Radio, the others ars teaching in countries as far-flung as Papua/New Guinea, Nigeria, the West Indies and the Sudan. Next year . ... 7 BEAVER, March 5th, 1974—Page Three THE ROBERT P.R.O.P. needs you McKENZIE INTERVIEW TO the accompaniment of stirring theme music, and making Icist-minute touches to our make-up, two ace "Beaver" reporters fumbled with a borrowed cassette recorder, and forgot their carefuly prepared questions. Completing a cosy circle, L.S.E. academic and superstar of the swingometer, Robert McKenzie beamed and smoked a cigar. He asked us to record the interview date : 19.2.74. We swung into action by asking him what he saw as the purpose of B.B.C. election coverage. He said that as the election had been called at short notice, and as only a tiny fraction «f the population attend political meetings, it is imperative that the media give maximum coverage, and expose people to the arguments. The choice does, after all, bind the country for five years. Mary Whitehouse's charges that there has been too much election coverage are a type of political indifference that the B.B.C. would be wrong to pander to. Each channel only has about two hours' political coverage a night, and people can always turn over, listen to records, drink beer or talk amongst themselves. He thinks election coverage has HTtproved. The media this time are showing more courage and enlightenment in breaking out of the straight transmission erf party political stuff into discussion of issues, and not necessarily the issues the parties are most anxious to talk about. We asJied if the media and interviewers should then take the role of critics of the politicians. He thought that was not the way to put it. They should play two roles—firstly be a platform for the party men to say what they want, like advertisements; and secondly do consumer research, like "^hich ?", investigating performance. We asked if he thought it was turning out to be a dirty e4ection, or if Heath had hoped to gain from the "law and order" issue. He said that with so much at stake, elections always had a hothouse atmosphere, and debate can never be very cool and dispassionate. The Conservatives knew they could only get a certain amount of mileage out of the unions, and could not hope to avoid inflation, North Sea oil and so •n. Swinging to the issue of bias in the media, we mentioned the belief of the head of B.B.C. Radio, Ian Trethowan, that radio coverage had been too left wing ; and the accusations many on the left that the media coverage is generally too right wing. He had not seen the Trethowan statement, but thought that any accidental bias on the part of the presenters Is evened up pretty effectively, although in other countries, politicians' complaints might have some foundation. The more coverage the better anyway, because the importance of particular items declines if there are many items, so possible Kias on any of them gets cancelled out. OPINION POLLS On opinion polls, which were discredited by the results •f the 1970 election, he said that many political commentators had experienced a feeling of schadenfreude (finding pleasure in the misery of friends) over this, because many poll producers had not stressed the limitations of polls. With a sampling error of 4 to 6 per cent on either side, polls are not reliable enough to be used in the way that editors use them, namely to sell newspapers. Polls can only be a blurred photograph of opinion, but they are sold as predictions of €rtection results. In America Dr Gallup has always insisted that people buy his whole package, with a headline and one or two thousand words, all of which must be printed. Thus, you could not have "Sensational Swing To Ted," when the poll has only changed 2 or 3 per cent. Polls in this country Have allowed themselves to be written up in a misleading way, and their loss of credibility is thus their own fault. The parties will not be deluded again, and as Harry Truman said : "The only poll that matters is the one on election day." We gave him a quotation from Time Out on the B.B.C.'s choice of whether to leave Monty Python and Alf Garnet on the screen during the elections. "With Uncle Bob and his swingometer, and David Butler with his slide-rule, other comedy programmes should prove superfluous." He laughed, "that's good clean fun. Let's get fun out of what we can." Right on, Robert. C.M. and D.S. yes you! IT'S great to hear all this talk about the Grants Campaign, but let's admit it—even if we haven't got a good financial position now, it's very likely that we will have in the future. That's the reason a lot of us bothered to come to the L.S.E. It's great to hear expressions of solidarity with trade unions like the miners even if it may do them little good. At least we realise that some people don't have the cushy jobs we'll be able to get. It's great to hear people worrying about the oppressed in Chile and Greece, even though they've never been there—at least we're capable of being unselfish at tinies. But . . . There are 38,000 oppressed people in this country who actually NEED 0UR support, and, as a start, our thoughts. It's not surprising that we don't hear much about them, because they haven't the opportunity to come and speak to us, write to us about their real situation, write to the Press, write to M.P.s, appear on TV or in any other way make their real views known. Instead, they spend their time working a full week for 70p pay if they're lucky, subjected to inhuman conditions and brutality, deprived of basic human rights (even animals are allowed to-), their only right of appeal being to the authorities which keep them there in the first place. By now, I hope you've realised that "there" is in prison. And before all the Lefties say: "Isn't it terrible about the I.R.A. mob being force-fed ?" or "Who'd have thought they'd put the Shrewsbury three in gaol for picketing ?—there's no political freedom these days," for Chrisl's sake let's stop making arbitrary distinctions and admit that all prisoners are political. I don't mean that all prisoners are secret trade union agitators, Communists or I.R.A. members. But they have a lot in common with them. All are hitting back at a society which sets one group (the haves) against the rest (the have-nots). And who make .up most of the prison population ? Well, it's not those who can pay their way out, or the ones who have Oxford (or L.S.E.) accents. Yes, prison is just another way of ignoring and refusing that basic fact of social inequality. So, you say, what are the alternatives to prison ? Not psycho-therapy, "treatment" or "understanding"—at least not in the usual patronising manner, but adequate housing, education and job (or leisure) opportunities. Simple, isn't it ? Enough to make most criminologists pack up their jobs and go and build houses—well, it's a thought, There's just one difficulty— the people who are never asked what is needed for prisoners are prisoners. Well, maybe YOU can't ask them either, but you can do the next best thing. Come to a meeting and find out what ex-prisoners have to say (and for those wtio don't know, find out what one looks like!). And then, don't just go away again. There's (thankfully) an organisation that does care about prisoners, and that's not surprising as it's run by ex-prisoners. It's called P.R.O.P., and needs your support—firstly, as fund-raisers; secondly, as voices of protest wherever and with whoever you are; thirdly because some of those cushy jobs of the future might just be making social policy decisions^ So maybe this does concern you after all. Irffo. about P.R.O.P. from 339a Finchtey Road, N.W.3. Open meetings every Wednesday evening, 7.30. All welcome. Lib Skinner. CROWD CONTROL WEAPONS THE Army in Northern Ireland recently tested a new "nonviolent" crowd dispersal weapon emitting two inaudible notes, which are intolerable when they mix in the human ear. A "New Scientist'" reporter discovered this last September, and the magazine warned that the neurological effects of the "squawk-box" have not been fully explored. "Some people exposed to the device are said to feel nauseous, and in extreme cases they faint. Most people have a compelling wish to be somewhere else." The sound is directional, i.e. it can be directed at individuals in a crowd. "Other members of the crowd are unaffected, except by panic when they see people fainting, being sick or running from the scene with their hands over their ears. The virtual inaudibility of the equipment is said to produce a "spooky, psychological effect." It can be mounted on and driven by Landrovers for low power directional use, or on tanks for a "blanket" coverage of the whole crowd. The Army's reaction to this expose was amazing. First they denied that the device existed, and then they invited Pressmen to a demonstration of another device—a large public address system which "could be used for verbal communications over two miles (!), or put out a sustained or modulated (pulsating) sound blanket, to make conver- sation, and thus crowd organisation, impossible." Reporters found that conversation was, in fact, possible, and concluded that the "expose" was a mistake. The "New Scientist" reporter was not invited to the Press demonstration, however (the Army called this an "unforgivable oversight"), and the loud-hailers shown to the Pressmen can be bought by anybody from the American makers. It is hired out by the Army for school sports days! The squawk box has still not been demonstrated, and the national media were fooled by the Army's trick. The "New Scientist'' has also reported the Army's test;- of a flickering light device, s.milar to a discotheque stroboscope, which can trigger fits in epilef)-tics, and in a few non-epileptics, also. The rest of a crowd have unpleasant sensations and panic at the sight of other collapsing. This device only works in the dark, however, and has no effect if you look away. So next time you demonstrate, insteatf of swapping dirty jokes witih the fuzz, you can think of the squawk box, and the other methods of crowd control available when demonstrations become riots or revolutions. Machine-guns have given armies so much power that an unarmed crowd is bound to get smashed. The Russian revolution succeeded only because the Army was won over to the workers' side. More recently, they've tried to find "civilised" methods, so rioters can wake up next morning with nothing worse than a hangover. Instead of banging your head against a brick wall, you bang it against a foam-rubber wall. Water hoses aren't very effective, and on warm days they can be good fim. Rubber bullets are indiscriminate, and have killed and injured many people, CS gas works in fine weather, but blows away in a wind, and regular rioters can build up a resistance to it. CR gas dissolves in water and can be made into a foam barrier which will not blow away. It is more irritating than CS gas, too. The effects of gas are supposed to wear off quickly, but old people, children and asthmatics have suffered long term physical damage. The most disturbing thing about all this is not the increase in power of an Army using squawk boxes and gases. The Army has been overwhelmingly powerful for a long time. The important aspects of squawk boxes is that they may be seen as "humane," and thus as a fair way of dealing with peaceful protest demonstrations. Then protest could be kept ofl the streets if a neurotic government got fed up with criticism, and the only resort of protestors would be to bombs. References—"New Scientist," 20-9-73; 27-9-73. C.M. BEAVER, March 5th, 1974—Page Four IT is a much-publicised fact that welfare programmes exist to alleviate the worst hardships experienced under our economic system. What is not so publicised is that aid is also given to the more privileged classes — without any means tests, interviews, forms or other obstacles. One such automatic subsidy is that on mortgage interest. Even if one accepts that house purchases should be subsidised, this method is not only a poor way of doing so, but does so with discrimination — giving larger subsidies to those with larger incomes. It also worsens the distortion between what tenants (including students) pay for accommodation and those who are buying or have bought their own homes. It is tenants and small savers who pay a large part of the cost of the subsidy to this fortunate section of the community. The rise in mortgage interest rates to 11 per cent last September and the possibilities of further increases have brought forth many squeals from the mortgage holding section of the community and sympathetic responses from both the major political parties. The press, as is their custom, describe such increases as "bombshells", "staggering", "highest ever recorded", "crises". They bring the case of the WHITE COLLAR BURDEN young married couple from anonymity in the same way that the suffering pensioner is rediscovered during strikes. Both Labour and Conservative parties consider it desirable to encourage people to own their own homes. Cynics haVe criticised this policy as at worst being merely an attempt to make the country more conservative — in a fashion similar to Napoleon dishing out land to the peasants or, as pandering to a vocal and electorally important group who are quite capable of "standing on their own two feet." Even with such a policy .'there is no need to encourage home ownership with a blanket subsidy given, not only to first-time buyers, but also to those who took out a mortgage in the past on a house that is now worth some multiple of the original loan. But first the myth that 11 per cent is a painfully high rate of interest. During inflation, loans are repaid with money that is worth less than when it was borrowed. The "real" rate of interest is the nominal 11 per cent less the rate of inflation over the period of the loan — currently around 10 per cent. That leaves the mortgagor paying only about one per cent in Anthanarchists COLIN MORLEY'S case for taking the rational out of education is interesting, but neither constructive nor new. I would rather extend the field of rational discussion, however, to the whole of political life. " Now, whilst I agree with him that there is much to criticise in a dogmatic approach to politics, it doesn't help to confuse "rational" with "dogmatic", and to attack rationalism because dogmatists have an "emotional preference for it." In fact, it's because you rationally appraise arguments that you can characterise an argument as dogmatic, irrational, etc. He urges us to "confuse and disrupt," claiming that it is more rational and scientific to put forward the opposite of what you believe. The method is not constructive, because, it is aimed at destroying any common ground upon which an argument may be conducted. He might as well urge us to answer an argument in Greek or in Chinese—in any way as long as it is incomprehensible to an o|>ponent. Neither is his method new. Wasn't it J. M. Keynes who told in his memoirs of the exhilarating experience that he and his colleagues had when they discovered that the important thing in argument was not the rationality of their arguments, but the vehemence with which they were put forward? And, of course, the two arch-exponents Of the irrational in politics were Hitler and Mussolini. Does Colin really think that Hitler believed all that shit about a Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy? No, Colin, neither constructive nor new, but quite possibly the style of some future candidate for dictatorship. Who was it recently who referred to the country "running in rivers of blood" as a result of immigration ? Let's paraphrase Feyerabend: The fascists' favourite activity was to confuse rationalists by inventing compelling reasons for unreasonable doctrines. Let's paraphrase Colin; If you want to get on in politics, become a fanatical propagandist for the irrational attitudes of people. Anything is justified to get yourself into power. . The only way I can see to overcome this kind of dangerous doctrine is by insisting on rationality at every stage of a political discussion. JOE CUMMINGS. real terms, before he claims his tax allowance. The building society investor, receiving only 72 per cent can see the value of his deposit falling whilst the value of the borrower's house rises. This is not a transfer from rich to poor as building societies cannot accept deposits of over £10,000. In an attempt to reduce nominal interest rates the government has also restricted the rate banks may pay to small depositors to per cent, though people with more than £10,000 to invest are currently receiving llj per cent. Without the forced generosity of the small saver the home loan rates may be in the order of 15 per cent. The direct taxation concessions are considerable. Tax relief on mortgage interest together with the subsidy to the option mortgage scheme means that borrowers are benefiting by £400 million a year. Naturally those with larger incomes can obtain larger mortgages and so increase their share of the subsidy. Not only that, but whilst standard rate payers benefit by 30p in the pound, people paying higher rates of tax benefit by correspondingly more — someone paying a marginal rate of 50 per cent will reduce his tax bill by 50p for every £1 of interest paid. If one finances one's mortgage through an endowment scheme then part of the cost of this will receive tax relief. As a general concession, the rental value received in kind by owner occupiers from their homes is no longer taxed. This is to be contrasted with the rent received by landlords from tenants, which is liable to tax. Part of this tax paid is passed on to the tenants in the form of higher rent. Thus people paying rent, pay a tax; people who pay a mortgage pay no such tax. Again this concession is worth more to those living in bigger and better houses — who tend presumably to be more prosperous. Needless to say the favourable treatment of house buyers contrasts with those renting homes, particularly with the government's "fair rent" policy raising rents of council tenants. But there is also a contrast between those who have been paying off a mortgage for some time and those who have just started. As inflation continues money incomes will rise whereas apart from the (cyclical) movement of interest rates, mortgage repayments will not change, and so become a smaller and smaller proportion of one's income. Any need for financial help falls at the same time. The use of the case of the "young married couple" and the first-time buyer to justify a blanket subsidy to all mortgagees does therefore seem doubtful. The situation has not been helped by the steep rise in house prices relative to incomes. Since the Conservatives took office the price of new houses has doubled, those in the South of England now averaging over £13,000. When they took office the payments on a 100 per cent mortgage on an average - priced home would have taken one-third of the gross income of a person earning an average wage. Now such a person would need to spend half his gross income in the same circumstances, which even if he is prepared to accept, the building societies certainly would not. The steep rise in house prices and rents has been at least partly due to the subsidy of mortgages, whether such a subsidy is needed or not. If such a policy were not followed it is more likely that rents would be lower than they are. If the government insists on subsidising house purchasing, there is no need to increase the size of the subsidy with income. There could be some limit to the subsidy received by any one person. If it is continued to be given as a tax allowance then it should be given only at tfee standard rate. There is also no reason why tenants should be treated as unfairly as they are by this policy. In the same way that house owners pay no tax on the benefits they receive from owning their home, no tax should be paid on the rent tenants pay. As a result rents will fall because part of the tax paid by the landlord will no longer be passed to the tenant; in as much as landlords receive any benefit this will encourage them to make more accommodation available. One obvious alternative policy would be for the government to devote its efforts to encouraging house building — which should result in home prices .being less than they otherwise would have been. It should also, because of the lower price in property, result in lower rents for tenants. Unfortunately the government does not seem to think so — the number of houses completed last year was the lowest for 14 years. Given that mortgage sub< sidles will continue whoevei? wins elections the policy could be made to function more efficiently, with less unfairness between house buyers with dtf'? ferent incomes and between house buyers as a group and tenants and small savers. An equally important point is that whilst payments to people in more obvious need, social security, family income supplement, receive tremendous scni< tiny by the media and others ("benefits for strikers" etc.) n« such attention is directed at the finances of the more prosperoiist not only with tax evasion but with direct subsidies like the £400,000,000 annually on mort* gages. SIMON JAMES SOMEWHERE TO SIT S117, a room that used to contain the anguished faces of battle-torn politicos, has recently been given for the use of another set of faces. It is hoped that these more calm, mellow faces will encourage the lonely, bored, pissed off, suicidal or lost person to enter over the threshold and sit, have a cup of coffee, and talk if he or she wants to. The demand for this function was brought about by the recognition of how difficult it is to meet and communicate with people at LSE. Loneliness being the inevitable consequence of this, it was felt that there should be a neutral zone in LSE where it would be possible to relax and meet people. Thus a rota system of volunteers to staff S117 was worked out^ and the community room is open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. The community room is apolitical, and tries to avoid any labels. There are difficulties when members of certain groups (narrow right?) attempt to polemicise, and the meek or nervous are frightened off just by the hysterical voices extolling Russia, without even looking in the door. Next time dear reader, just come in and sit down. Remember, hot beverages are free, and sometimes, if you are really lucky, you can listen to music, although the LP selection is at present Hmited. Lastly, the proposed 'niteline' service should be mentioned, Here we hope to carry on the. function of the community room by means of a phone-iti service. It is still in the planning stages, but there will b6 a series of talks by members of the "Samaritans", and froni' other niteline services such as the one at Imperial College. If you are interested, please lookout for publicity, and comi, along. . JEWELLERY AND WATCHES 20% • 25% DISCOUNT to all NUS members and Un^/ersity staff DIAMOND ENQAQEMENT RINGS. Qol around, making thecn feel at home, and especially seeing no one is left out. It's obviously a hard job—but needs to be done because it's the basic introduction to life at LS.E. for most students, and often when they meet most of their friends (or begin to feel left out). If you are interested, ideas and comments are welcome at meetings (to be advei*-tised) and forms available from Emma, at SI 04, or Sue Williscroft, undergraduate pigeonholes. li Takeatrip toMoscoiw by Soviet RaiKvays Welcome to the Soviet Union! You'll enjoy a holiday in our famous capital which reflects its 800 years of history. There is a wealth of interest to be found in Red Square and the Kremlin, the Lenin Museum and the art galleries. A. visit to the Exhibition of Economic Achievements will . give you a chance to see mircles of modern science, including space rockets. Travel comfoi-tably and inexpensively in the sleeping ears of Soviet Railways direct to Moscow without changing trains. Regular services from Dover to Ostend, or Harwich to the Hook-of-Holland. Inexpensive and comfortable accommodation is available at students' hostels in Moscow, Leningrad and other major cities. Ask your travel agent or book direct with any branch of Thos. Cook & Sons Ltd. Soviet Railways (1) Where is justice in a situation where one of the parties in an argument is also the Judge ? (2) Every one of the Passfield residents at the party is supposed to pay to live there, sub-warden§ get two double rooms each and all ¦ their meals free, can they not put up with a little inconvenience on a Saturday night ? TEACH-IN THOUGHTS THE workshops themselves were conceived as a totally difi'erent sort of learning experience and we felt that they could provide a positive opportunity for a non-elitist exchange of ideas. We soon learnt, however, how all pervasive the individualistic and competitive educational ethos can be. We had specifically rejected the idea of people giving seminar papers that are then attacked and are the focus of all attention, in favour of a situation in which everyone could contribute creatively and on an equal footing, that would involve a collective responsibility for the outcome. It was found, however, that it was difficult to avoid people talking at each other, rather than with each other and to establish some common basis on which we could build. Given the" diversity of the participants and their experience, and the numbers involved we need to consider whether some alternative structure could have been more productive and capable of avoiding the criticisms made above. We had consciously decided in favour of non-structiired workshops in order to encourage flexibility and free participation. Subsequently, some have felt that a more ordered system would have been preferable—for example, a chairperson directing discussion. On the other hand the size of some of the workshops would have made attempts to impose this structure difficult especially since participants disagreed about the important aspects of the topic under discussion. The smaller workshops exhibited similar traits—competitive self-assertion and a tendency for domination by a very small number of people which could not be dissipated as was possible in the larger groups. If only for this reason it was felt that the larger groups were generally more fruitful. One proposal has been suggested which we feel is worth considering: that is, a large group throws up those aspects of the workshop that are felt to be important ; the group then splits to discuss these separately and then comes together for a general report back of the conclusions reached. This has advantages in that people might be able to talk with each other in a smaller group once a more specific commop basis has been established. However, the major problem we face in this, or any structure is learning to work together. Further, the teach-in illustrated the separation between theory and practice, a characteristic of bourgeois ideology. A division frequently developed between the intellectuals and the "practitioners" (teachers, etc.). The teachers were anxious to provide grassroots illustration of the education system from their own experience and to develop a strategy relevant to their practical situation. The "intellectuals" did not see the relevance of expressing their theoretical frameworks in practical terms, and thus no concrete proposals seemed forthcoming to help combat our present position. In this context we were very careful to have the film from Brunei. In relation to this the workshops on ideological frameworks of subjects produced a division between the "experts" and the "rest" who felt intimidated and unable to contribute. The discussion seemed to stay at the level of academic debate. That these workshops were conceived as being specifically concerned with the need to develop a radical critique of bourgeois subjects were the ones which produced the most obvious examples of academic elitism and competition, we feel is highly significant. Two points were raised. Firstly, there is the conflict between those who oppose intellectualism in general because it implies that those in the "know" are members of an elite and others who think that one has to have an intellectual understanding to expose the contradictions inherent in bourgeois ideology. Secondly, the "experts" saw a role for themselves in this exposure but this clearly provided no strategy for the rest whose major commitment v.'as not to attaining the necessary academic level. Despite these criticisms we felt the Teach-in was valuable in that we were able to identify them. We leamt how far we have to go in order to work constructively with each other, and that such problems must be dealt with if we are to develop struggle in each of our situations. We feel it is important to continue on from the Teach-in in building up a strategy we can use at our own work places on an out-going basis. ACTION GROUP. AMENTDES THERE has been considerable talk recently about the lack of decent facilities avail-* able for students at the L.S.E. A very good case in point is Florries extension and S>01A about which academic staff, students, porters, cleaners— •the lot—have complained at one time or another. BEAVER, March 5th, 19T4—Page Six REFECTORY SURVEY THE Welfare Group has decided to launch a survey to find out just what L.S.E. students think of their refectory. Could you please complete this questionnaire, cut it out and return it via any of the boxes that will be around, or to the Union Office, SI02. Thanks. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 7. Do you generally use the refectory to eat ? .........YES/NO If you do use the refectory how often, on average, do you have lunch there...........................TIMES/WEEK How often do you have supper there ? ......TIMES/WEEK How often do you use it for coffee, snacks, etc........................................... TIMES/WEEK If you don't usually eat there, where do you eat ? BLUE ROOM/ ROBINSON ROOM/FLORRIE'S/ WRIGHT'S/ELSEWHERE. On the whole what are your feelings about the refectory service ? SATISFIED/DISSATISFIED/INDIFFERENT. What are your feelings on the following? Satisfied Indifferent Oissatis Prices of food Quantity of food Quality, taste Service Facilities, space General atmosphere 8. If you have any other comments, suggestions, criticisms, praise, etc., please write them below. THANK YOU. A quick glimpse under the bed—get your magnifying glasses out! ZUMBAS SANS FRONTIERS .......................................................................................................................................... SNIDELINES" IT IS gratifying indeed to know that the Union's meagre finances are in the capable (not to say elegant) hands of Mr Julian Hall. Only dogs-in-the-manger would feel that the imfortunate loss by the Senior Treasurer of the inconsequential sum of £100 at the Playboy Club, Park Lane, on Monday, February 4th, is indicative of his financial efficiency. UNDER THE curious pseudonym of "Bazza McKenzie," an aggrieved Verity Burgmann, Executive member with responsibility for the bar, lodged a complaint with "Beaver" staff for incorrectly describing her in a recent issue as an "Independent." The point she attempted to make was that a staunch Trotskyist like herself did not deserve to fall under a category that "stinks of wishy-washy liberalism." My own humble opinion is that "Beaver" has triumphed again, ^d that such a classification is perfectly fitting for a former (and perhaps present ?) Political Officer of the Liberal Society. (See Page 22 of the current Union Handbook). No, Ms Burgmann, I'm afraid it's YOU who's made the "blue." I HOPE Union will make its opinion strongly felt if and when Ms Wanda Brown, our bespectacled Weliare Officer (see photo), is questioned about non-attendance at two meetings of the executive committee in succession. Apparently an adequate excuse is necessary in such cases if the wrath of Union is to be escaped. I myself would take a dim view of the as yet unofficial plea of Officer Brown that she has been too sexually indulgent of late to find the time to answer the call of high political office. All contributions gratefully received at S116 or via any member of "Beaver" staff. AMIDST fears that the Crosscountry Club was trying to take over, it was decided to resurrect the long - dormant Soccer Club report. The last report concerned our efforts to teach les frogs the finer arts of football and piss-ups. Since that time, the campaign has progressed and last November there was a trip to Nancy. It was a dark and stormy night etc. when the intrepid band of 22 specially-trained piss artists, led by the late Pikey and his mate, left Victoria. Despite the disadvantage of having captain Gerry McManus of the IRA in the party, we survived our first encounters with the enemy, and arrived in gay Paree the next morning. After losing Kenny "les onions" Carr for the first time, and after a fruitless attempt to rip off the Mona Lisa, we eventually reached Nancy. We received a tremendous reception, and very soon were being shown the sights of the town, including Rob Phillips" arse, and Coq au Sam Hazley. The competitions began next morning in deep snow, and we easily overcame our opponents in the football to reach the final. In the afternoon, a scratch rugby team acquitted itself very well, despite the reluctance of certain people to take part, and we then returned to the college gymnasium for the volleyball and handball matches. Once we had learned the rules of these games, we improved immensely, and Mike Bradbury, Andy Corbin, Big A1 Boyd and "Stumpy" Nolan starred in an unlucky handball team. We then returned to La Place Stanislas for "refreshment" and in so doing lost Kenny Carr for the second time. The football final was scheduled for the following morning but unfortunately everybody overslept. However, the Nancy boys decided to give us the ci|# anyway and our victory celebrations continued at a bargaia banquet that afternoon. This was the piss-up to end all piss-ups, culminating in a team Zumba and near riot in the town centre which saw Le Chat heroically taking on a mad French taxi-driver and Ron ¦¦ Leather Gloves" drinking everyone sous la table. Meanwhile, Kenny Carr gat lost for the third and fourth times and also contrived to get beaten up by les gendarmes. After much drinking we all eventually eclipsed in someone's flat—all 22 of us. The return journey was as wild as the previous three days^ However, the law eventually caught up with Sam "Butch" Hazley and our leader Pikey was tragically lost within sight of home. In all it was a bargain trip and a lovely time was had by all. Late score : Pikey 0, v Customs—many. Picture : Jeff 'Mr Kodak' Grout. MINERS NEWS McGuinness Flint will play a benefit concert in the Old Theatre on Saturday, March 6th, for the miners. Details are still being worked out. ANARCHIST BOOK STALL Open every Thursday. Cheap new albums and bootlegs for sale. Profits go to : Dwarf Harmony Village Trust. GLIDING CLUB Six films are to be shown, the first on Wednesday, March 6th at 1.15, room S75. All non-club members are welcome. BEAVER, March 5th, 1974—Page Seven LEARNING ABOUT WOMEN iT would be patently absurd fc r two women to sit and lecture another group of women about their role in society. Every waking minute of their Hves they experienced the sight, insults, hurts, oppressions (and occasional delights) of being women. By talking together, raising the surface discontents and reactions to each other, and €xploring our common experience we could work towards a re-discovery of ourselves. The pupil-teacher relationship would dissolve and with it hopefully the inertia of the passive student who merely takes in and does not give out. They might begin to question what they were doing and what was happening. For example, why were the students mostly women and the teachers mostly men at the Academy ? How did the men relate to the women ? What kind of attitudes did they display ? What kind of relationship or dynamics was set up ? Clearly ,this was a bit difficult for the women to adjust to immediately, so for the rest of the seminar, 1 talked . . . about the lack of female identity, in the sense that it imposed from outside, about the contradictory images put out by the media—pretty, silly, sexy, childish, inefficient, t»ut also perfect mother; about the family, its relationship, to the state and its maintenance of patriarchy. Gradually, the women joined in the discussion and the seminar extended as argument raged. "But I like men opening doors for me," wailed ©ne woman, "Well, for every door I've opened there have been 10 slammed in my face," retorted another. We had started. Reasons for coming to the summer school seemed to be varied. They were all teachers or training to be teachers, so it was possible to pick up some graduate credits (which mean salary increments). Some had come for a good time or to pick up an English husband/lover, others to absorb English culture or try a new experience, and still others took the courses seriously. Jean Gardener came and gave an invited lecture on Women and the Economy which seemed to shock and horrify a lot of the students who were comparatively well off. The school then decamped, first to York University and then to Bradford University. Tricia and I moved in with them for two weeks. The students had a very full schedule apart from lectures, seminars, education workshops and field trips, there were numerous excursions and social events.- We asked the women to try and meet us for a small period each day, apart from our assigned seminars, to assess and analyse our experience. We wanted them to observe, listen and question, all the time—to become "agents provocateurs" in a sense. Meanwhile we tried to be always available and always prepared to talk. Margaret Edney and Tricia Langton describe their experiences when they taught a class in "Women and Society" at a Summer School for Americans in Yorkshire. Within the university we asked the women to talk to the cooks, the bed-makers and to watch how they were treated by the men. Also on field trips to villages and towns we asked them to try and establish female profiles. Where were they, what were they doing, and what was their relation to the community ? The other tutors had asked them to pick up bits of leaves and bricks, to do charcoal rubbings of manhole covers, and to photograph ducks. We suggested they find out the population, age, sex, class.ratios, the recreation facilities, available transport, shops, prices, nurseries, schools, range of goods and work prospects. Our dialogue with the educationalists continued as we moved into their craft workshops. The general idea was that you used any medium to explore some aspects of the field trip. This was not actually our scheduled province, we were supposed to be using our time to prepare seminars. By participating as students with the students we hoped to demystify the idea of us being teachers. Having collected all the local newspapers, we cut out everything we could find about women and made wall newspapers around the themes,, work, leisure and home, which tried to point out some of the contradictions (like the part-time jobs offered which were, in fact, a six-hour day). We also made comic strips, diagrams of Bradford facts and figures, and a giant cartoon Surreptitiously, women left their own education project work to help us and when it was finished we covered all the foyer of the main dining room with our efforts. "Well, you certainly work hard, whatever else ..." was the male tutor's comment. Later on, some of the displays were ripped down, although no one would say why. The film course also provided a forum for discussion. The tutor interpreted the films we watched in terms of Jungian archtypes (man seeking salvation fleeing from devouring mother). This was rejected quite violently by a lot of the women who saw it as women fighting desperately to get out of oppressive material circumstances but ultimately being crushed and destroyed. After much pressure "The Salt of the Earth" was shown, it s about a strike in New Mexico which only succeeds when women join in the struggle. Cheers, clapping and stamps of applause went on throughout the film, and afterwards the women supported it vehemently against attacks by male students and tutors. In social situations we made a point of dancing together, of buying drinks, of commandeering buses and cars, of leaving field trips early so that we could go out for tea and buns or of skipping workshops to go shopping instead. This was to show that women could enjoy themselves together and not be dependent on men in social situations. When the school moved to London we asked Sheila Rowbotham to talk on the history of the Women's Liberation Movement but to relate it to her own history and to her move from Yorkshire to the south and the differences and problems she encountered. Most of the women said they felt a lot of identification with what she said. They had experienced the cultural and environmental differences between the north and the south. But more immediate was their understanding of Sheila's description of awakening sexuality, attitudes to men, and confusion over what society wanted her to be and what she felt she was. Quite clearly, the internal structure of the course wasn't thought out well enough, although fortunately we were able to learn as we went along and adapt our approach. Women can't just suddenly open up and think creatively or raise their consciousness if they have been educated and trained to keep their minds closed. The balance between formal lecturing and informal discussion has to be carefully worked out. Our fundamental mistake was not to realise that our informal structure had to work within a rigidly formal structure. The decision to share the course, although it meant sharing the salary, proved to be correct. From the outset, we had insisted that it be a joint venture but the school understood this to be doing half each—in ^erms of time. We had to fight ^0 be allowed to work together and throughout the course it was vitally important in terms of our solidarity and sanity. We are still receiving letters from some of the women and that in itself makes it worthwhile. But I won't forget the huge bouquet of flowers they gave us when they left. We both wept. CONDENSED FROM SPARE RIB EQUAL PAY THE Department of Employment is making a grant of £44,000 ©ver three years nine months to the London School of Economics and Political Science for Baroness Seear, Reader in Personnel Management, to evaluate the effects of the Equal Pay Act, 1970 and its impact on the employment of women. The Equal Pay Act comes into force on December 29th, 1975. The Office of Manpower Economics has undertaken a inationwide survey of reactions. Baroness Seear's project will show how organisations are planning for and adapting to the Act's full implementation. This will be done by monitoring the progress of approximately 20 organisations at regular intervals for a period of three years until the end of 1976, i.e. during the time when they are adapting to the requirements of «he Act and for a subsequent year when it will be fully operative. The organisations have been selected to cover as wide a range of size, product, skill level and region as is possible. An aim of the research will be to reveal problems associated with the implementation and to identify issues requiring further action to be taken at company and government levels. This project is a continuation of an earlier study by Baroness Seear, financed by the Nuffield Foundation. '''oiimcrii iinr"' THAT'LL TEACH YOU TO STAY OUT OF MY KITCHEN BEAVER, March 5tti, 19T4—Page Eight WEARING THE TROUSERS AND HOLDING THE BABY — Facts from 1971 Census MORE women are going out to work than ever before. More women with children are working than ever before. But does this mean they are liberated from stove and nappy? Does the second income bring a rise in the family's standard of living ? Predictably, while the "Profits not People" brigade are at the helm, it does not. It means, firstly, that more women are doing two jobs- after a hard day's work a night out at the launderette. Robert Taylor (in Spare Rib No. 19) summarised some findings of the 1971 census. "In 40 per cent of all married couples, both wife and husband now go out to work. This means that getting on for five-and-a-half million couples are in the labour market." While 38 per cent of women were "economically active" a decade ago, the figure now is 43 per cent. "This number includes women who are employed, self-employed, seeking work or prevented from seeking work through temporary iUness." "Ten years ago only 26 per cent of mothers with dependent children were either in or seeking a job. This figure has shot up to 40 per cent of 2.8 million mothers in the decade." (my emphasis). Furthermore, 20 per cent of the 3.1 million mothers with children under four were working and "A quarter of mothers with five or more dependent children are economically active and 22 per cent of those working a 36 hour week." It means, secondly, that someone is making big profits by paying women less AND by allowing men's wage rates to drop, relative to the cost of living, below what is necessary to support a household. More and more women have to work. One in five women are now the "chief economic supporters" of households. They have to work : so the supply of cheap labour is maintained. "In April 1973, the average gross weekly earnings of men reached £41.9 a week (£48.1 for non-manual male workers). This was a 14.9 per cent increase on the previous year's figure. In contrast, the average gross weekly earnings for women came to a mere £23.1 a week (£24.7 for non-manual women workers). This amoimted to only a 14.6 per cent increase in twelve months, which means that the gap between male and female earnings rates has actually widened not closed. While it is true that women are working, on average, fewer hours than men (37.8 hours a week compared to 43.8 hours), this does not explain the fact that a man's take-home pay was nearly twice the size of a woman's." While male manual labourers in engineering got 87.8p an hour for a 45.8 hour week, women in the same category got 55.7p an hour for a 40.4 hour week. "A male manual worker in food manufacturing could be expected to make 71.8p an hour for a 48.5 hour week, but a woman in the same industry gets only 49.8p an hour for a 40.7 hour week." And in the public sector a male clerk in the civil service earns on average £28.8 a week for a 38.7 hour week, but a woman in the same category gets an average of £23.3 for a 37.1 hour week. Robert Taylor comments, "The low pay of women has become a national scandal . . . 48.2 per cent of women manual workers in local government get under £18 a week and so do 39.1 per cent of women hospital ancillary workers and 27.9 per cent of all nurses. In catering, the woman's situation is at its worst with 50.5 per cent of all women working in pubs and 39 per cent of women who have jobs in hotels or restaurants making less than £14 a week. (Tips are supposed to supplement the low income). Over half the women hairdressers are getting under £14 a week and so are 32 per cent of women working in laundries." So more women go out to work. The army of cheap labour increases : an army of conscripts by and large, not volunteers, second-class wage-slaves not liberated women, many with unpaid "second jobs" to come home to. Meanwhile someone, somewhere else, is getting fat. LIZ SEX AND STUDENTS LAST year ten L.S.E. students "accidentally" became pregnant. Most of them had abortions which are an expensive and traumatic experience. Tihe few w4io chose to keep their babies had all the usual problems faced by single parents, such as accommodation, exacerbated by the abysmally low grant whilst no longer being able to claim a dependant's allowance. This, combined with the dearth of nursery facilities which are financially viable to students, makes the continuation of their degree course very difficult. All these pregnancies, irrespective of whether the children were consequently born or not, were unplanned and hence unwanted. They were also unnecessary. Modern technology has given us, as well as pollution and built-in obsolescence, highly reliable methods of contraception. These are widely known but there is a certain mystique about methods of acquiring them and about the institutions which supply and advise. AU the organisations i mention will give help on all sexual problems and most cater specifically for single people. Tiiey all advertise themselves as being helpful and open- minded, so make one hell of a fuss if they aren't . . . The most obvious place for L.S.E. students Uo go is to the Health Servic^ which provides a gynaecologist two sessions a week. At the moment she is booked up about a month iji advance for new patients. It you want to obtain contraception at short notice see Dr Clarke first (ring the nurse for an appointment—it's quicker), who will prescribe contraceptives at once. But still make an appointment to see Dr Little, the gynecologist, as soon as possible, People who live in boroughs which provide contraceptives free should say so when they are getting their prescription. As far as is known, Camden, Lambeth and Southwark are the only free ones, although there may be others. Also some boroughs subsidise the provision of contraceptives. If in doubt ask the Health Service—they should know or be able to tell you where to find out. If for any reason Dr Clarke is not available, i.e. he is ill or on holiday, you are entitled to use the Student Health Service at 20 Gower Street. Their surgery is open Monday to Friday 9.15 to 10.30 and 4.30 to 5.30, Having seen a doctor there you are able to buy contraceptives from their receptionist; this seems to be a lot cheaper than buying from a conventional chemist. Most boroughs which supply free or cheap contraceptives also provide clinics which prescribe them. In Camden, which includes both Passfield and the Carr-Saunders complex, there there are several Family Health clinics wliich do family planning sessions. The nearest one to L.S.E. is the Province of Natal, Guildford Place, W.C.I, The people there are very helpful and nice but the snag is that although there is an appointment service when you actually go it's a case of first come first served. They are always behind schedule so you end up spending the whole morning there. Still, if you've got the time to spare, both the consultation and supplies are free and the people are friendly. Another organisation which has been semi-official for many years but whose very existence is threatened by the reorgianisa-tiofi of the N.H.S. is the Family Planning Association. They have clinics in every borough and charge a consultation fee of £3.80 a year and also charge for supplies. Some lioroughs pay for your fees, some pay for your supplies, and some pay for both.. To find out what your borough pays for, if anything, and also to find out where your nearest clinic is ring 636-7982. Tihe Brook Advisory Clinic (tel. 580-2991) and the Marie Stopes Clinic (she's the one that started it all) (tel. 388-0662) are run on similar lines to the F.P.A. Even when you're remembering to take your little yellow pill every night you are still at risk when you enter into sexual relations. It ought to be a simple matter of consideration for other people that if you know you have or could have a sexually-transmitted disease you don't deliberately expose other people to it. However, people aren't always as considerate as they ought to be, and if you have the slightest suspicion you have caught anything either go to your G.P., that is Dr Clarke at L.S.E., or to a V.D. clinic. The nearest one to L.S.E. is in U.C.H. (ask the lady at the reception desk). Remember—make love, not unwanted children or V.D. epidemics. WANDA BROWN Women's I at U THE Women's Liberation Group ^ at L.S.E. is in action again! ^ One of our main objectives is the formation of an informal ^ Women's Studies course. Every ' Wednesday at 1 p.m. in room t S.075 a speaker has been invited f-to talk on some aspect of Women's Liberation. In the coming weeks talks will be given on Women in, Higher Education, the Phycho I logy of Sex, the Politics of Women's Liberation, Women and the Sociology of Literature, Women and the Welfare State, and Women in Industry in the Late 19th Century. Everyone is welcome! We hope to develop this into a regular feature at L.S.E. In addition, we hope (1) to develop other activities within L.S.E. (ex. working towards the formation of creches); (2) to increase the number of con-ciousness-raising groups and (3) to contact and support outside organisations (ex. Women's Centres and certain political groups). C '( HEART-^ > OEUS cPfcber thing f in tl?© n&ar"'y I £XQOO. 1 BEAVER, March Sth, 1974—Page Nine WOMEN'S BATTLE ALONGSIDE MINERS: U.S.A. AND MEXICO U.S.A.: Wives, relatives and friends have played a crucial part in the strike of Kentucky miners which started last summer. They formed themselves into the Brookside Women's Club, whose militant activities, especially in picketing, ensured that the strike' did not collapse. Geoffrey Sheridan, in an article in Spare Rib No. 20, describes what's been happening. '"Last summer, the men who dig coal for the Eastover Mining Company voted to join the United Mineworkers of America, rejecting the company union which had been installed by the management. But Eastover refused to recognise the U.M.W.A., whose contract terms would include a tripling of payments for miners' health and retirement funds, improved safety, and—not least—the right to strike.'-' The miners came out, and have now been on strike for several months. "The main problem, as with many strikes in the United States, is blackleg labour, often enough imported from neighbouring states where non-unionised workers feel no allegiance to those across the border. The principal task which the members of the Brookside Women's Club have undertaken is to give the scabs a very unpleasant run for their money." Before the women's club was formed, pickets at the pit entrances were limited, and the men "were just having to sit there and watch the coal being moved." "The Brookside club began with a march of 50 women through the town, stopping off at the court house, the local newspaper, and the coal owners' association, picking up recruits on the way. Then they drove back to the mine." Mary Widener explained; "The women waited for the scabs to come out of the mine and then we talked with them, and we fought with some of them." Fighting included whipping the scabs with switches—a far cry from poetry or fiower-arranging. For the past few months, "not an ounce of coal has been mined at Eastover—"and the company store ain't run either," says Gussie Mills. "We stopped them from putting stuff in the store. We don't allow the trucks to stop here." The women also sent a delegation to nearby High Splint mine to explain the issues to miners there, but they were met by two "armed company goons." The women refused to be intimidated—and two-thirds of the High Splint miners came out in solidarity that day. Several of the women have been jailed—they could not pay high fines imposed for alleged violations of a court order limiting picketing. Conditions in the jail were cramped and filthy, and some of the women had to bring their small children in with them. But when the judge ruled that they be released on condition that they did not join any more picket lines, they reacted vigorously. "If they take one of us back to jail," said the president of the Women's Club, "they're going to have to take all of us. We're all going to go so the jail can't hold us . . . I'm proud of my son and I'm proud of my late husband. He was a one hundred per cent union man and I'm a 100 per cent union woman. I will be on that picket line at Eastover until the company signs that U.M.W.A. contract. No contract, no work!" MEXICO: The vital role played by wives in a Mexican miners' strike is described in "Salt of the Earth," an excellent film shown recently at a Socialist Woman conference. The mining company was able to enforce a ruling which stated that the men were not to picket. The women, who solidly supported the action of their husbands, immediately seized upon the wording of the ruling—which mentioned nothing about women pickets. The women organised themselves on the picket line— leaving their husbands with the housework and ^he children—^for the duration of the successful strike. This militant action was a real breakthrough for the Mexican women, who are generally completely tied to husband and home. "A' ? ? ? L.S.E. Women's Liberation Group are in touch with the Kent Miners' Wives Committee. We hope that they will be able to visit L.S.E. soon to tell us about their activities. Too big for The fact that women have smaller brains than men is the reason why there has never been a female Beethoven. INTELLIGENCE and creativity have such a low correlation that it has long been dismissed as insignificant by psychologists, scientists and teachers. Getzels and Jackson showed in their studies that high intelligence does not necessarily mean a high creative streak. The ability to create—be it music, verse, art, sculpture or whatever, ie something which a child may or may not possess, regardless of his I.Q. level and which, if fostered, he will develop. The whole crux of the matter lies in the fact that this ability to create must be recognised and encouraged by parents and teachers and it is only over the last few decades that women have been given any encouragement. Indeed, even today parents tend to encourage a son rather than a daughter, who, by thfe time she leaves school, is quite convinced all she wants to do is get married and raise a family, even though perhaps she can play the piano well; but parents won't volunteer the money to allow her to develop her talents, won't even let her take scholarships. w What little girl in Mozart's day would have been tramped halfway round the world as Mozart was by "thoughtful" relatives because of his extraordinary- ability at the pianoforte ? Psychologists have, for many years, studied twins, who, identical in every way because of course they are the halves of the same egg, have for some reason been reared in different environments and have been seen to develop in conipletely different ways, despite their identical, inherent characteristics, and almost identical I.Q. levels (J. B. Sheilds, 1948) (Newman, Freeman & Holzinger, 1947). Anyone at all familiar with the research into this question of heredity versus environment knows that what one has is what one is born with and the way one develops depends almost entirely on one's upbringing, "socialisation" as the sociologists call it, and the way society exploits the potential of each child determines what kind of a person that child will become. One only has to bring to mind the female writers, sculptoi'S, musicians, designers, etc., etc., produced over the last few decades their brains to see that it is society which is at last beginning to accept them and encourage them—women aren't suddenly being born with larger brains. It is high time society began to treat its members as individuals, each with their own contribution to make and to stop typecasting them according to their physical form. It is also high time newspapers, who after all, have a great influence on the general public, began to think a little more seriously about what kind of attitude they are reinforcing by printing articles which as good as tell the potential sculptress that she may as well give up now because, as her brain is not as big as her male compatriots, she will never make the grade. TINA. WOMAN'S STUDIES PROGRAMME Every Wednesday at 1 p.m. in Room S.075 A series of talks on various aspects of research in Women's Studies, arranged by the Women's Liberation Group at L.S.E. Forthcoming : dates and times to be posted. The Politics of Women's Liberation—Michelene Wandor (ed. "The Body Politic"). Women in Higher Education—Susan Wolff (Sociology Dept., Women's Studies, Essex). Women in Industry in the Late 19th Century; "Board School Girls" Ruskin—Anna Davin (Women's Studies, Cambridge). The Psycholog.v of Sex—Joanna Ryan (Lecturer in Psychology, Women's Studies, Cambridge). Women and the Sociology pf Literature—Michelene Wandor. Women and the Welfare State—Elizabeth Wilson, Angela Weir. OPEN TO ALL BEAVER, March 5th, 1974—Page Ten AT last; a cut-out and pin-up full frontal new Ents page to boost our egos and "Beaver's" circulation (Ed. watch-it). Why waste space on Ents ? Well, Ents exists (surprise surprise) to entertain L.S.E. students and give an alternative to the expensive and generally rip-off offerings of the metropolis, and it can only do this profitably by having an efficient propaganda apparatus. Now while Cliff works wonders with his posters and handouts they do inevitably have to compete with thousands of other notices, adverts and announcements that litter L.S.E.—so an Ents page can ®nly be beneficial. Next term we've got some real goodies—Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee on May 8th, Country Gazette on May 11th, and George Melly on June 22nd. These gigs will hopefully provide full justification for Ents policy of booking specialist acts that are top in their own particular field. This term, unfortunately, we've had a lot of bad luck with certain bands (Leo Sayer for example) pulling out at the last minute because they thought that they could get better exposure and more money elsewhere. The only way to stop this happening is to put L.S.E. on the map in a big way ; this can only be done if people are willing to support Ents concerts both at Friday lunch-time and Saturday night. PAUL MtLLIKEN. ANGE A FRENCH group, Ange, were featured in an Ents Free Lunchtime Concert on February 8th and despite mixed reactions performed what I thought a very entertaining and musically satisfying act. In an interview afterwards. Christian Deschamps, Ange's lead singer,' emphasised the classical influences on their music, mentioning Debussy and Ravel and this was very apparent in the sensitive keyboard playing of Francois Deschamps. The dramatic, atmospheric nature of their songs — comparisons with Genesis were made — was heightened by Christian's use of mime and the band's weird costumes. "Le Soir du Diable", in which Christian used hand puppets and "Ce Gens La" with lyrics by Jacques Biel, were particularly memorable and were generally weH received, although the climax of the set came with the final number. This was the very powerful "Le Cimetiere des Arleqins" —'"The Cemetery of the Harlequins" (an apt reminder of Ange's theatrical emphasis) which was the title-track of their last album^ AH in all, a very entertaining set by a band whose British tour could give them the kind of cult-following that they have in France. RICHARI^ LEES. THE SHARKS SINCE their formation some eighteen months ago. Sharks' path to fame, fortune and a "Beaver" preview has been dogged by bad luck. Their debut album "First Water" — featuring "Snakes and Swallow Tails" and "Driven Sideways"— was recorded in rather a hurry and although the band's great potential was amply recognised in the very favourable reviews that it received. Sharks Mark I ceased to exist on the album's release, with the departure of Andy Fraser. Ex-"Free" star Fraser, bassist and keyboard player, was very much the motivator behind "Sharks" and he was, in a sense, irreplaceable. On top of this "Sharks" had record company and management hassles that threatened to sink them completely. Happily, the band have never looked back since and Messrs Snips (vocals / guitar), Chris Spedding (lead guitar). Buster Cherry Jones (bass), Nick Judd (electric piano) and Marty Simon (drums) have created their unique style which although still having roots in Free's sound, is pushing on to harder rock territory. "Sharks" kicked-off their current tour, to promote their new album, "Jab It In Your Eye", at the Marqee on Saturday, January 15th, in front of a packed and excited audience. The band have proved that they have, visually and musically, improved dramatically in the period that they'd been off the road. The rave reviews that the gig received amply testify 'Sharks'' ability — "They're heads above most other new bands. They're tight, highly professional, never sloppy — and still fun" ("New Musical Express"), "Sharks look set to make a meal of quite a few big fish in the 'Rock and Roll' sea" ("Disc"). P.M. IT has always been a main feature of Ents policy, that where-ever possible, we would try and book interesting specialist bands, e.g. Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee, Weather Report and a band like Gryphon are exactly that. Gryphon have been together for about two years and have built up a considerable cult following. Their music is inspired by the formalities and structures of Medieval and Renaissance music, but it ranges over the centuries, including adaptations of familiar folk songs, original GRYPHON compositions, Beatles tunes, Elizabethan jigs and thirteenth-century English dances. Part of their novelty and interest centres on the strange shapes and sounds of instruments like Brian Gullands bass crumhorn or the shaw — an instrument with a conical bore rather like a very loud oboe—of Richard Harvey. But few medieval instruments survive today and Gryphons instruments are copies hand-made by instrument craftsmen who base their work on medieval designs. Their first album "Gryphon" (their second is due for release very soon) attracted rave reviews and considerable interest from both music papers and the popular press — "The 13th Century Slade, topping the charts with a Crumhorn", The album reflects their wide range of material — several respectable traditional folk tunes are raped and pillaged and a couple of Gryphon compositions are included which smack of Yes, Prokoviev and Bach originally combined. P.M. The Faces 'Coast to Coast/Overtures & Beginners' PROBABLY the fairest thing to say about this, the Paces' first "hve' album, is that it contains elements of Rod and the boys at both their best and their worst. Generally, their best is to be found on the decidedly up-tempo first side, which blasts off with two numbers from Rod's "Gasoline Alley'' album— "It's all over now" and "Cut across shorty"—moves through a loose jam involving "Too bad" and "Every picture tells a story," ending strongly with the classics "Angel" and "Stay with me." The second side opens with the' Tempts "I wish it would rain," a recent addition to the Faces set, followed by the weakest part of the album: a balls- up of "I'd rather go blind" and an embarrassing attempt by Ronnie Wood, whose guitar work is otherwise admirable, to pick his way through "Amazing grace." But this side is saved by Rod's emotive rendition of "Jealous guy." Tetsu, on his debut tour, seems to lack the confidence to assert himself sufBciently on bass; Mac is reliable as ever on keyboards, but Kenny Jones is merely competent. Nevertheless, the "throat" excels, and the album successfully conveys the tremendous sense of fun, booze, rhythm 'n' blues that is typical of a Paces concert. ' BRIAN MATTHEV/S THE REFUGEE AT the L.S.E. on February 16th, Peter Hammill, former lead singer with the legendary Van der Graaf Generator, made his first British concert appearance for many months. Playing solo and accompanying himself on grand piano and guitar, Peter proceeded to delight a medium-sized audience with compositions old and new. The audience was made up of a remarkably loyal following who greeted all but the very new compositions with rapturous applause and delighted to those long involved song with intensely deep lyrics. The accompaniment was kept fairly simple but the dynamics of Peter's voice portrayed the emotion contained in the lyrics. The early part of the set was taken up ¦with compositions from the "new album, "The Silent Corner . . ." Many of these were instantly recognised by a very large proportion of the audience despite the fact that the album had only been released two or three days be-for the concert. Lo'ud cheers ¦ also greeted "German Overalls" and "Easy to Slip Away" from his "Chameleon'' albuirs. However, the biggest applause came for the old Van der Graf songs "House with no Door" and "Refugees". Indeed it was after a very fine rendering of ''Refugees" that Peter left the stage. Immediately the audience was up on its feet shouting for an encore. However, Peter's manager soon appeared to say that Peter felt that there was no song of his that could follow "Refugees". The audience shouted innumerable suggestions but it was all in vain. It had been a remarkably fine concert which was greatly enjoyed by the whole audience. R.R. COMING... COMING THE SHARKS GRYPHON DtSCO and BAR with all Concerts Advance Tickets available from Union ShiciP' FREE : Friday, March 8th CASABLANCA Next Term : SONNY TERRY & BROWNIE McGHEE, May COUNTRY GAZETTE, May 11th, REVIEWS BEAVER, March 5th, 1974—Page Eleven THE PHOTOGRAPHERS GALLiRY Gt. Newport St., Students THE PHOTOGRAPHER'S GALLERY'S current exhibition is : disappointingly small—in the scope of the work of the ; photographers involved and the variety of techniques used. I Surprisingly few of the photographs are large enough to see ¦ properly from more than a few feet away, and these too seem intended as "alcove" pieces, yet the prices range from 115 to 215 dollars. Each photographer has supplied a small number of photographs ; set together they look like a few pages from an album. Few showed much originality and some looked as if they had just been given a new camera or lens for Christmas and were absolutely staggered by the results of their first photographs. Only a few illustrate contemporary America as such— although more attempt to illustrate its ideals and morals. Of the photographers Michael Bishop presented outstanding work—his pieces use photographic and drawing prints together—to create a wider view of the subject, who may be in three positions. Joseph Deal's work consists of photographs of parts of houses—and he succeeds in making them appear more like sculptures than functional objects. Benno Friedman uses colour well—in using washes over parts of the photograph, and has some remarkable pictures of rock formations and mountains. Stephen Shore's work seems the most "U.S.-inspired" ; but is very small (140 dollars for a normal snapshot-size print ?). •The gallery itself is well worth a visit. It sells a large range of postcards and books, and will soon be putting on combined exhibitions of films, prints and photographs. S. WILLISCROFT. WOMAN'S CONSCIOUSNESS, MAN'S WORLD Sheila Rowbotham Pelican 35p WOMAN'S Consciousness. Man's World has been getting rave reviews everywhere. As part of a mammoth work on women it is a definitive statement on Women's Libei'ation and Marxism. Laying out clearly all the political arguments, one can see the exaggerations and the suffering of working-class women used as propaganda by their educated, middle-class sisters. One also sees the parallels in the exploitation of men. I liked Sheila Rowbotham's description of the Women's Lib Movement today. She says : "A new consciousness is a laborious thing. Now we are like babes thrashing around in darkness and unexplored space. . . . We have to discover our own reality or we will simply be subsumed." If more women realised this, and realised that they have allies in the opposite sex, I have no doubt that the women's struggle would realise its aims much quicker. Miss Rowbotham's book is not easy reading. She credits David Widgery with encouraging her to express herself in her own way whilst experimenting with words : Mr Widgery has a lot to ^^swer for. This unhappy synthesis is compounded by her Marxist trait of trying to say too much, encompassing all the world in one sentence. The only other criticism that I have is that it seems Women's Liberation leaders are very careerist. We all know what happens to a revolutionary movement that becomes institutionalised : It is a pity that Sheila Rowbotham seems to be leading her followers that way. Her description of her emerging awareness of being a woman is quite lucid. Growing up must be hell for a sensitive female. Anybody think that it's easier for a male ? J.B. SUSAN HILL Albatross and other stories PENGUIN BOOKS 30p This is a collection of short stories by an accomplished wiiter that co^d be enjoyed as a casual time-filler. But at the same time it is fine writing with an extraordinary attention to detail thflt will stand up to repeated reading. The stories are about people on the fringes of society: mvalids, recluses, mental defectives and patients with terminal illnesses. Ordinary events are given an air of unreality because the characters see them in a way peculiar to those not caught up in the maelstrom of life, e.g. an aged woman can see a trip to a seaside resort as a voyage of discovery similar to re-birth, and a young boy can view the prospect of a party as a nightmare. This eerie ambience is especially effective in "Albatross." The hero is an adolescent who is described as ''slow" and cannot think about more than one thing at a time. His perception is that of a simple, primitive life form, a kind of twilight consciousness inconceivable to those in the rat race. The story is slightly reminscent of "The Sound and The Fury" but nothing more; only because nothing could hold a candle to that classic. The WTiter gives the impression of unmasking some of the more sordid aspects of human nature and human affairs. This disturbing feeling is added to by the way that loose ends are left at the end of the stories. Susan Hill makes no attempt to exploit her sex : none of the women characters are particularly revealing and none of them arouse much sympathy. But I couldn't help noticing that the adjectives "groin' 'and "creamed" were used more than most. JULIAN BRUTUS. BOESMAN AND LENA PARIS PULLJHAN "BOESMAN AND LENA" is a film by South Africans, for South Africans. It illustrates the misery and precarious existence of the "Coloureds", those half-castes caught between the dominant Whites and the totally oppressed Blacks. The films poignantly illustrates this social schizophrenia with Lena suffering the humiliation of being Boesman's wife while Boesman suffers the "humiliation'' of being Coloured. He wishes to be White while she sees their salvation in an act of solidarity with the Blacks. Yet there is something oddly lacking in this point Athol Fu-gard tries to put across. Maybe it is a result of his "overacting", the behaviour of "Coloureds" to Whites when they wish to gain a material advantage from the latter. The opening scene of the film clearly illustrates this. There we actually do have "Coloureds" acting out the role that Group Area Legislation has on their lives. Athol Fugard playing Boesman tediously tries to recapture this spirit but fails rather dismally. The dialogue between himself and Lena, which is a large part of the film, is saved by photographic skill and the natural beauty and starkness of the landscape. The dialogue itself is rather South African and tends to exclude understanding on the part of a British audience since it utilises many words and phrasM which have an exclusively South African meaning within the context of the English spoken word. ABE OPPEL DUCK SONG' Aldwych Theatre A NEW PLAY by David Mercer should be something of an event, but "Duck Song" is tatally unworthy of a writer who at one time deserved to be considered at almost the same level as that genius of the 'sixties, Joe Orton. Mr Mercer has grown fat and middle-aged, and the change can be perceived in his work. , Primarily because of the success on TV and in the cinema of "Morgan'-, he is always associated with the sympathetic concentration on the rebel on the screen and stage of the nineteen-sixties. The memory ' of Mr Mercer's precise and agreeably partisan treatment of this usually young and male character prompted me to expect a great deal from Eddie Bone (Brian Croucher), a proletarian ponce living on the moral earnings of a harsh and embittered woman psychiatrist (Carole Hayman), both of whom ¦ inhabit the opulent house of her- father, Maurice Shanklin (Mark Dignam), a somnolent ex-artist. Add Herhert (David Waller), his brother, who justifies his former career in safe-cracking by reference to his socialist leanings, and who is harassed by the sudden arrival of his newly-released and frantic accomplice, Wheeler (Arthur Why-brow). The surprise return of Maurice's long-forgotten wife (Elizabeth Spriggs) who brings Swift Arrow (Gareth Hunt), her Red Indian and dim-witted anti-colonialist lover, completes the non-action of Act 1. The arrival of Act Two is heralded by an explosion from nowhere which denudes the characters of all their material surroundings, and there is even less to get excited about here. The expected masterful treatment of the reaction of several bourgeois stripped of everything but their personalities, and left in the company of that self-styled representation of many of their class's past crimes, Swift Arrow, turns out to be notliing much more than the conversion of Mr Mercer's cur> rent personal confusion into a n^onotonous, ill-assorted collec- tion of inconclusive remarks on social and political problems. It is easy to gain the impression that the playwright attempted to relieve the work's shortcomings by the insertion of quite a number of badly-adapted jokes such as the refei--ence to an apology to a black man when he has trodden on your foot whose purpose is all too plainly to amuse any near-philistinic north - west - threes who might be littering the audience. When Mr Mercer has produced such incomparable anti-heroes like Morgan and the anarchic axe-swinger of "For Tea on Sunday", the invention of the parroting, hypocritical insurgent, Eddie Bone, is doubly unfortunate. He is not even allowed the redeeming feature of likeability. David Mercer has said. "I think that 'Duck Song' Is the expression of the awareness of tragedy." If by this he means the arrival of a once-brilliant playwright at the point of no return, then I can believe him. D.S. "DUCK SONG"—point of no return for Mercer ? BEAVER, March 5th, 1974—Page Twelve 'NO INDUSTRIAL DISPUTE SOUDARITY OF PEOPLE LIKE TO ALL L.S.E. STUDENTS "ON behalf of the Snowdown miners we would like to express our deepest gratitude for the effort that has been put into the miners' wages struggle. The hospitality you have shown has been tremendous, not one of us has been left stranded without a bed for the night. Some of the lads lodging with the female students are thinking of staying an extra week. "No industrial dispute can be won without the solidarity of people like the students in the L.S.E., and the working class. You will always be remembered for the assistance you have given us in the never-ending struggle to achieve a decent living wage for miners and the working class of Great Britain. We hope that in the coming struggles that you enter into, we will be able to give you the same support that you have given us. "Thank you." THE SNOWDOWN MINERS' PICKETS. Support the miners attack the theory! WHEN Jack Collins came to talk to students at L.S.E., some of us asked what would be the most practical way in which students could show their support for the miners. We said that it was easy to give verbal support or even to wander down to some picket lines, but neither was this of great help, nor did it provide a means of developing more permanent links between miners and students. Two things seemed important tween various groups each keep- to us. Firstly that we did not just support the miners outside the lecture rooms and departments. It was in the departments that the miners and the working class were often attacked by theories purporting to show that their claims could not be justified economically, or that industrial action could be explained. Psychologically in tprms of "greed" or "envy". Sociological explanations of conflict are equally misleading. Some of us started to actively criticise courses which portrayed these devious perspectives, and found that other students were prepared to support us. The second step that we felt was necessary to take was to develop real and personal links ; with the miners. The only possible way seemed to be to work closely with a particular col-"liery. This meant , that we could concentrate all our support -effectively instead of its being ; frittered away according to -Jthe whims of NUS, NUM, and "any self-interested bodies. This ;;is why the proposal to adopt '.Snowdown was put, and I feel J, rightly agreed upon, by 350 stu-^dents at the emergency meet-ting. PERSONAL CONTACTS " As soon as the Snowdown lodge had welcomed the adoption some of us went down to see them to discuss plans on how we could work together closely. The results of this '.can be seen in the various articles on these four pages. One thing is clear and that is that students at LSE have 'achieved closer and more personal contacts with the miners than we or others achieved biefore. I think the reasons for this are simple. Well phrased slogans and acclaims of support ; political wrangles be- ing a jealous eye on one another and all anxious to claim all the praise "for supporting the miners," do nothing. Practical help like accommodation, money, entertainment, etc., really do help the miners. It may not be very glamorous, or seem very "political", but it is what the miners need and what they appreciate. The miners who have been up here have had a personal view of how students live at universities. We have both got to know each other's way pi life, and this is essential if real links are to be made which will last for longer than the strike. VICTORY CELEBRATION. The question of continuing the contacts after the strike is of equal importance, for both the students and the miners. The miners at Snowdown have already invited all students at LSE to come down to a Victory celebration at Aylesham as soon as the strike is over. They suggested that we visit the pit on a Saturday morning, have a game of football, rugger, and what-have-you in the afternoon and a social in one of the clubs in the evening. We are all welcome to stay the night and go home the following Sunday. But this should not be enough. Each of us who has made personal contacts over the last weeks should try and keep these up as long as possible so that the next time either we or they have to fight, then the support will be real and mutual. And don't think the occasions won't arise. So we ask all the students w^o support the miners to continue to develop closer links with the men and families from Aylesham, look after them while they are here and don't just forget them when the immediate struggle is over. JAMES ALLEN, Miners' Support Group L.S.E. students chat with Snowdown N.U.M. officials outside one of the miners' favourite haunts. SNOWDOWN DELEGATION RESULTS IN LINK-UP ON the day that the N.U.M. executive announced that the miners were going to strike, half a dozen L.S.E. students were down in Kent tatking to the Snowdown miners who live at Aylesham, a village near the Snowdown colliery. The trip down was the result of the L.S.E. Union motion to "adopt" a N.U.M. lodge and the agreement by Snowdown miners to be adopted ' by us. Both the miners and the students were anxious that this would result in more than verbal support. After we were met by the miners, two of us discussed with the union oEBcials what were the most useful ways in which we could help them. The result of this and other conversations was that three main areas emerged where our help was specifically needed. At the time problems with Social Security seemed to be the most urgent as there had been a lot of trouble during the last strike; single men found it especially difficult to get any benefits. A claimants' union in Canterbury had helped them then but there was no contact with them now. With this in mind, the collection of money was seen as the second main idea in which we could help. We all understood that this should go directly to the Kent area if not to Snowdown, as it seems that not all was what it should have been last time; not much money was made available for those in Aylesham and even the pickets were little better off. Normally single men or those with special hardships are chosen for picket duty so they will get at least some money. When we were down in Aylesham. the problem of accommodation did not seem so important and we were just asked to make contingency plans. Little did any of us, know what would happen. . We left Aylesham having been well looked after and thinking that the only urgent problems were Social Security and raising money. ANGRY "The strike started on Sunday the 10th, but nothing much seemed to be happening; we heard that the N.U.M. executive only wanted eight pickets in the whole of London. The Kent miners were very angry about this and eventually decided that they were going to send up 180 pickets regardless. About an hour before they arrived we had a call from Aylesham to say that 50 Snowdown pickets were coming up and could we meet them. When we arrived at the N.U.M. headquarters we found chaos as no proper arrangements had been made either for accommodation or picket money. Most of the Snowdown men were asked to go home, but they refused. In the end it wa;s agreed that for the night L.S.E. would look after 30-odd men and that the next day Snowdown and L.S.E. would sort out the picketing^ and accommodation arrangements for 25 of them. The N.U.M. did nothing other than say which sites were to be picketed and agree to pay £1.25 a day to the pickets. They gave their official blessing but otherwise it was left in Snowdown and our hands. The result was that although there was some chaos at the beginning, by Thursday everybody was well settled in and picketing under way. The miners were understand- ably upset by the behaviour of the N.U.M., but were determined to stay up here. REFUSED Meanwhile fimd-raising was under way. Many students took collection tins aroxmd the College and a day of action to raise money was planned for Thursday (see Page Fifteen). All this money was intended for Snowdown or Kent but the N.U.M. and N.U.S. execs, heard about it and were demanding that all of it be given to them. We refused on the grounds that it was unlikely to be seen again, and in the end it was agreed that even if it could not go to Snowdown it would go to Kent. We believe that it was eventually used to pay the pickets who should have been paid directly by the N.U.M. We have now got agreement that all money will go to Snowdown in future where it is really needed. This Tuesday there was a change of piclcets; the 25 went back and a different 20 came here. Arrangements were smoother and all accommodation was sorted out within an hour. However, money is becoming a more pressing problem, as it will do the longer the strike lasts. The N.U.M. is again trying to cut down on picket money and saying that pickets ai-en"t really needed. But in many places other union men are co-operating only if there are pickets present. One might ask what the NiU.M, exec, is up to. So. the practical result of our decision to adopt Snowdown is that we have accommodated 45 pickets, raised by now over £200, and helped with Social Security payments for over fifty miners' families and single men. We still have a lot to do, ,so I hope help will still be ' offered by all those who support the miners' struggle. BEAVER, March sth, 1974—Page Thirteen CAN BE WON WITHOUT THE STUDENTS AND THE WORKING PATRICK SUTCLIFFE has been an electrician-miner for eight years. On February Sth, students from the L.S.E. visited him and his wife Isobel, his small daughter Briany and baby son Patrick as part of an investigation into the living standards of colliers' families at Snow-down, Kent. "At the moment, my basic wage is £25 for a five-day week. If I work overtime I get £10 for a Saturday and £14 for a Sunday shift. After deductions that works out at about £31 per week. If this new rise comes in, we should get a basic wage of £26.50 for a five-day week. "We do get free coal from the face but we pay cartage. We should have to pay rent for a colliery-owned house, but this house is owned by my father." Isobel said the bulk of her income went on food for the , family; "I think with the increase in food prices our food bill has gone up from about £8 two years ago to about £15. After the shock of seeing all our friends lose their furniture in 1972 (the last dispute) we have bought nothing except a rented TV on H.P." Paddy: "We're tired of reading about the £50 a week figures quoted in the national Press. We still oply get two weeks' paid holiday a year—a basic £56 for the two weeks was all I got last year which meant we could only afford to go away for one ' week. CLASS.. ¦' -what makes you think you are any better than your dad? "I am not having my son go down a pit. Looking back, I feel I've wasted my life up here. Although my father and grandfather both worked down a mine I did try to get an apprenticeship away from the colliery, but was told to go back home again—what makes you think you are any better than your dad? We had very little education at school as they expected all the boys around here would be miners. "In our village community, every faniily is connected with the mines, and all our wives are behind the strike. We can't lose ; either we get the rise or they'll have to close the mines and retrain us for something ejse. All the lads agree, we'd be a lot better off without the mines—only in the case of the older men it would be hard for them to leave the area and start again—but not in the majority of cases. "Most of us have to work three miles underground and the Paddy train can only take you 1| miles. "You have to walk sometimes crouched over and carrying your tools for the next ^ miles. "There's also the danger of getting scarred by coal falls on your face and back. It's even worse with the new machinery they are using now. "It's hard to describe the dreadful feeling every Sunday night, when you know next morning you have to go back underground again. It's not actually when you are under ground with your mates, it's at home when you start thinking about it, and you dread the thought of going down again. •Isobel added: "Yes, the fear, of accidents is always at the back of our minds—you have to leam to live with it, but it's not very easy." Relaxation ? Paddy said ; "It would help if we had some entertainment for the whole family. It's expensive to have to pay a sitter if we want to go into town on a Saturday. All they have got here at the club is the bingo every Saturday and Sunday. "We have had letters of support from the American miners who think we're very poorly paid. Even with a weekly wage of £45 you won't get the miners of the future going into the mines. So far we've been loyal to the Government. "They told us when they started closing the pits when they brought the gas and oil in. that we'd have to lump it. Now we're fed up with the way we've been treated, and every miner feels he's going to get off his knees and fight for better conditions and pay.?' C. T, THE LORD, THE Ml NER AND A COUPLE OF SICK RABBITS THE national press reported recently, that Jim Slater, of Slater Walker, was to open a shooting estate at River Spey, Morayshire for the entertainment of his International playboy friends. A week's shoot on the 21,500 acre, £lm. Tulchan property, will cost £550 per person . . . but naturally this includes .tra- vel, full board, and a spot of salmon fishing. The 13th Viscount Massereene and Ferrard (John Clotworthy Talbot Foster Whyte Melville Skeffington to be pedantic) who has a country estate at Chilham Castle, Kent, neighbouring Snowdown Colliery, is an enthusiastic sportsman and "shot" of the type likely to take up Jim's offer. He's also a devoted Tory Peer. . However, Viscount Mas-sereene's hospitality does not extend to miners, although his base at Kent depends like thie rest of the community on the miners to bring the county prosperity. Terry Loomer (pictured left) is shortly to appear before local magistrates accused of poaching on his land. BEAVER, March 5th, 1974—Page Fourteen HOW THE L.S.E Former miner and now student, Joe Cummings, who proposed the support motion for the miners to a packed emergency Union meeting, holds 'The Times" aiofi inside a leader said the miners should not be given more money; further back in the paper were reports of a "mini boom in the City." STORMING THE SOCIAL SECURITY A WEEK ago last Thursday (February 14th) two students plus a Soc. Admin, lecturer, and a member of the Claimants' Union, stormed the Social Security office at Dover with about 50 miners and wives from the Snowdown Colliery who, if not given payment, would be penniless over the weekend. This situation had come about because the S.S. did not wish to accept any claim forms before the following Monday and then in alphabetical order—so, anyone unfortunate enough to have a surname beginning with 'Z' would not be seen until the Thursday. Initially, we were told the Manager was not there, but after some minutes he came out, telling us there was nothing he could do, that it had been agreed no claim forms would be received until the Monday and beside, he hadn't the staff to cope with a mass claim. He was •ffered accommodation and qualified staff at the pit—this he declined. He then tried to tell us that it was an impossibility for single strikers to be paid. However, as we told him, under Section 13 of the S.S. Act, single strikers in "urgent need" were entitled to benefit. After haggling for an hour, the office .reluctantly gave in to the suggestion made by the Branch Secretary that a round sum of £10 should be sent to each person who submitted a claim form there and then to tide them over until the following week. We were not happy at the idea of the Giros being posted and the Branch Secretary said he would collect them the next afternoon. Giros could not be handed over the counter, we were told. Either we agreed to receiving them in the post or we wouldn't get anj' money at all. Either they were handed over the counter, we said, or everyone would refuse to leave the office. Finally, they gave in and it was arranged that the Branch Secretary and Treasurer would go down and collect all the Giros and distribute them at the pit. As it happened, Social Security did post the Giros with instructions that they should go direct to Aylesham Post Office. Luckily, the postman was sympathetic and, in fact, delivered them direct to the colliery. We have since heard that Social Security have said that if such an incident happens again they will withdraw all their labour. But now they are refusing to pay out benefit to single strikers, so tomorrow (Friday) we are going to visit them yet again. LARRY HOLT, Miners' Support Group. m Postgraduate Frank Webster seconds Joe's resolution setting up the L.S.E. Miners' Support Committee of 18 members. Left: John Carr, who chaired the meeting). COLLEGES MOVE TO ADOPT MINE LODGES AND PICKETS THE L.S.O. Miners' Support Group began in response to' an initiative taken by a number of students at L.S.E. about the time that the N.U.M. called for a strike ballot on its members around January 23rd. Wanting to extend and consolidate the preparation of support, student« at the L.S.E. agreed to an emergency union meeting on Jajiuary 30th to offer active support and to call on other collegeges to organise. 1j.S.E. set u|i an Action Committee to get accommodation, funds, student pickets, publicity, etc., imder way. This sort of local action was to become a model in other London colleges and on a higher level at L.S.O. Some L.S.E. students decided to put out a call to L.S.O. to mobilise London support. The success of this resolution led to a LiWidon Delegate Conference on February 6th at the University of London Union, two dayi after the announcement of the 81 per cent ballot for a pit strike. More than 40 colleges were represented at the first meeting. An Action Committee was elected from the floor and each given at his election, speclfia areas of responsibility. The day following the conference, the Action Committee secretary collated information he had obtained from a questionnaire given to each delegate at the conference (asking for details of accommodation, pickets, funds, transport, welfare and printing), and handed the results to th« requisite member of the Action Coinmittee. Every college in the L.S.O. was issued a list of the officers of the Action Committee, their duties and their addresses. INTENSIVE WORK Localised action was stressed and the secretary followed by notifying every college of the conference's decisions and issuing further questionnaires to those not attending :he first meeting. It was clarified that the only way support would be efiactive would be through intensive work at grass roots. A chief task for the Action Committee was administration. For example, the idea was that if the National Union of Mineworkers needed to put up 300 miners they would notify the accommodation officer. He, in turn would clieck his list of resources which included the names of delegates and the amount of accommodation they could provide. The accommodation officer then divided up his total by contacting delegates from particular colleges, giving them a number of miners and leaving delegates to mobilise their own college action committees. It was also agreed that a major role of the Action Committee would be to produce a number of publicity meetings, benefits, and to put th« miners' case by issuing leaflets and posters all over London. Again this was seen as a supplement and not a replacement to intense local action covering all these areas. The secretary of the Action Committee worked with the N.U.M. by issuing central headquarters with details in Kent, South Wales and Midlands districts of the N.U.M. Throughout, they had been adopted by London colleges. This was later extended to adoption of picket lines in the London regions. A substantial list of help, including accommodation, volimteer student pickets (if needed by the N.U.M.), benefits (arranged for February 24th, March 2nd and March 11th), meetings, welfare helpers, fund-raising activities in London, and publicity were drawn up. Thousands of leaflet# were distributed at the February 8th Grants demo., stressing the unity of the students' and miners' struggle, postws and general publicity. The support continues. FRANK WEBSTER (L.S.E. Miners' Support Committee and L.S.O. Action Committee)i BEAVER, March 5th, 1974—Page Fifteew MOVED INTO ACTION Students send £150 valentine ta miners STUDENTS representing nearly every department in the L.S.E. swung into action with a vengeance on St Valentine's Day and raised an incredibly £150 for the miners' support fund. The money came from a jumble sale and Bun-Bite held in the Concourse at St Clement building, as v/ell as collections held throughout the school. It is probably a record time for collecting so much money from students in one day. An equivalent amount for a picnic for miners' children was raised in a six-week period during the last miners' dispute. Students from the Social Administration, Sociology. Law and many other departments manned the jumble sale in turn for about five hoiurs throughout the day, while other students brought and bought jumble. Others who spent all morning buttering rolls and slicing cheese for the Bun-Bite, felt more than rewarded for their hard work by the generosity of fellow students. One person handed over £5 for his bun ! The Student Union Executive more than vindicated their dreadful pasts by offering themselves as targets for passing students to throw buckets of flour and water at them. Strangely enough, students seemed wary of the tempting offer—although many of those lurking around Room Slola that day had been known to take a swipe at the shins of passing executive members on previous occasions. More fund raising events are planned. C.T. iiliiliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii Left: Mr L.S.E. Action Man ------ - • 1974, General Secretary Elias Noujaim (without natty white boots, but with pretty blue Y-Fronts), tries out the latest headgear for size. Below : Eureka! And a successful splashdown for one L.S.E. student—all over (left to right) Paul Cockerell, Ono Osakwe, Alistair Goe, Verity Burgmann, Eiias and Guru Hoyland. Bottom' Left; Cheese butties and pickles in the Concourse. Chris Hoyland tries out a flour and water shampoo 1964-HAROLD WILSON AND ALL THAT Interestingly enough in light of recent events, Page 53 of the National Union of Mineworkers' Annual Report and Proceedings, 1964, reads : "I now come to your claim for adult wages at age 18. The Board are generally opposed to the claim on social grounds and Lord Robens put this view to you himself at a meeting with your full executive in February, 1962. "It is not in the interests of the youths themselves that they should reach adult stature (from a wages point of view) at too young an age. It gives them a false impression of life generally and makes it more difficult for them to adapt themselves to the responsibilities they have to assume later." MINER'S SUPPORT EVENTS March 11th Theatre Royal, Stratford, Ajax Glasgow and theatre groups. March 16th I.M.G. Student Rally — Speakers: Tariq Ali, Alan Jones and League Com* muhiste member. BEAVER, March 5th, 1974—Page Sixteen NOW KENYA JOINS THE STARVATION LEAGUE OVER the last few months Kenya, together with other African countries, has been imprisoned by the disaster belt at present throttling Africa by the throat. Starvation has raged for seven years now, but for Kenya, a young country with many problems to solve, this is a shattering blow. Charles Harrison of the BBC reported on January 9th, 1974: "Over 30,000 people in the Marsabit area are in need of famine relief, while double this number face drought problems." No doubt this is a journalistic estimate; no evidence exists that we are not facing here too, another Ethiopian cover-up operation. The Kenyan News Agency quoted a famine relief committee in Marsabit as saying "The situation is alarming and warrants immediate relief measures. More than 200,000 cattle have either died or been moved into adjacent areas in search of grazing. The crop failure last year has resulted in an increasing influx of people into the towns of -Marsabit and Moyable searching, of course, for food." Such an extention of starvation in Central Africa has not fallen upon the people of Kenya as a well-deserving ethical lesson on the evils of selfishness. Kenya is a prime example of the virtues of self-help, mutual-help and co-operation. Indeed, Kenya has been an exampla of disinterested and fraternal generosity. True to form, it has called upon other African countries to take the path of African co-operation and sent relatively substantial assistance to neighbouring Ethiopia in solidarity with its share of the African Great Starvation. President Kenyatta appealed to Kenyans on October 31st, 1973, "to donate generously to^ wards the Ethiopian Famine Relief Fund" he had set up on [the previous] Tuesday because "Ethiopians were Kenya's friends in need and were, therefore, friends indeed." He reminded thousands of people who welcomed him at Treasury Square, Mombasa, that the government of Kenya had despatched 10,000 tons of maize and ten tons of milk powder (worth £28,000) to Ethiopia to assist those hit by the famine. (Cf. the right-wing Kenyan paper, "East African Standard", November 1st, 1973). This is a great contrast with the 'aid' of Western industrially-developed countries. It's a contrast with their ethical and social orientation, lumped under 'individualism' and 'liberalism'. Yet it fails to conceal the marshy ground on which it stands. The economics of the Kenyan authorities is old and bad and is unlikely to prove any more successful in Africa than in the West. The President went on to say :— "I therefore appeal to all in d-ividuals, firms and organisations to co-operate and contribute generously towards this humane effort. This is why I have consistently called upon Kenyans to work hard in their shambas and produce more so that we can be in a position to help others in need. At the moment we can only afford to give maize and milk powder because we have enough of such products for our consumption and to help others. We could have done more if we had similar surplus of wheat and rice. That is why there is even greater need for hard work" (ibid). Hard work indeed, and people must work harder. The national product can increase in this way Kenyan authorities as a surprise and may not prove to be an eye-opener either. After ten years of independence, to December 12th, 1974, great strides of progress and emancipation have been made to tackle the heavy burden of colonialism and backwardness in a country that is considered to be "one of the oldest populated regions in Africa." But nothing has been drastic enough to fulfil the claim of this "paradise on earth" or to stop a "second colonialisation" with its particularly African accompani- for example, hardly a Minister or senior civil servant who does not have a very considerable holding often of several thousand acres." The need for those revolutionary structural changes, involving private property, wealth distribution, socio-economic institutions together with the methods of production is now greatly intensified by the spread of mass starvation into Kenya. But the ruling elite may be enlightened and even pursue a neutral foreign policy, but it can only handle the situation in ac- .......... . • 'It. until productivity starts declining because people work too hard (Taylor's studies on productivity). But there is more to it than generosity out of surplus. For this is nothing but a form of charity. Solidarity is an essential requirement of international statesmanship as well as national management, and there can be neither international solidarity nor national co-operation between the wolf and the lamb, between the two sides of the feudal and imperialist modes of production. Working hard alone cannot provide genuine salvation, for the cake cannot be increased very much by whipping the cook and increasing the heat of the oven through the money supply. The whole structure of the economy is here involved with both its production methods and distribution of wealth and income. The lesson Kenya faces now is not ethical. It cuts deeper and is more devastating. The extension of the famine into Kenya herself is a crystal-clear result of political short-sightedness and economic faulty reasoning. Joining the Starvation League, however, has logically and unfortunately come to the ment of a new comprador elite (cf. The United Nations' 1967 Report on the World Social Situation pp.155-6). The 'London Financial Times' admits:— ''The gap between the elite and the mass, even though the elite is large now, is still very wide and very obvious" (December 12th, 1973). After talking about "the continuing poverty of very large numbers of Kenyan citizens", the 'Financial Times' quotes the ILO report on Incomes, Employment and Equality as fair comment for saying : "Kenya's employment and imemployment problems are deeply embedded in the country's social and economic fabric and these can be significantly alleviated only by fundamental changes in the pattern of development and in the structure of key institutions." The F.T. comment reads :— "There is disappointingly little evidence that the leadership is prepared to initiate those fundamental changes which might affect elitist interests. In a country in which land is a highly emotional, highly-charged issue, there is. cordance with the elitist interests both of itself and of the neo-colonialists. Indeed they are unlikely to attempt such changes even in the face of a mounting risk of peasant uprisings, which are seen as another wave in the sea of surprises overtaking the ruling classes in Central Africa and the ex-mother countries. This class blindness can alone account for the fact reported by the BBC correspondent, C. Harrison, on January 9th: "The seriousness of the situation in Northern Kenya was not realised earlier. A spokesman for the President's office has suggested that the problem may not be quite as bad as it appears since some livestock owners may have been able to find grazing in other areas". The experience of the other African countries seared, by the "desert-fire" of mass starvation is now being repeated in Kenya; the same short-sighted improvisation, the same narrow concern for the class comrades! But it is the nomads and peasants who constitute the majority of the population and it is their flesh and bones that feed Pi-inted by Ripley Printers Ltd.. Ripley, Derby. Published by L.S.E. Students' Union. St. Clement's Building. Claremarket. London, WC2A 2AE this divine fire. None of these has an honest voice in the high echelons of decision-making machinery. It is no secret that the nomads and peasants of Africa as well as its small working class supply their vital life-line of labour-power to the tribal chiefs, the feudalists, the European farmers, the traders, the government machine and foreign corporations. Such a great famine may indeed reduce the quantum of this labour-power, but can hardly fail to provide some of these "parasites" with a blessing in disguise: disregarding the speculators and traders with essential food supplies (the "East African Standard" on Nov. 7th, 1973, speaks of "unexplained rice shortages" and the development of a "black market" while no mention was yet made of famine, drought, etc. within Kenya itself), this mass starvation, mass crime in fact, may sweep off a third of the population but doubtless carry with it at least two major outcomes, an influx of cheap labour to towns and European farms (producing 67.6 per cent of the Kenyan farm produce) and also a decline in the morale and fight-ing-power of the peasant. That happened in the other starving African countries as it did in the Indian sub-continent; why should it not happen here too ? And when labour becomes "plentiful" for the " entrepreneur," profits will be "maximised" further still. The Black Death of 1333-1349 that swept the world from China to Scotland may have created the seed-bed for the thirteenth-century peasant revolts, notably the 1381 Peasant Revolt in England; but what matter if it destroyed the feudal order and brought in "capitalist civilisation" ? Nay, our blessed middle-class interlocker continues, the "Enclosures" of the sixteenth century in England and the "Potato Famine" in Ireland did the job with no Peasant Revolts following. Why should it not hapen with the perfected modern techniques of easing things with a bit of "relief" here and a bit of it there, be it through the United Nations, be it through international charity organisations ? Such mechanistic reasoning is all very well in its own terms but it won't do at this stage of world development. This is why a curtain of secrecy is being drawn concealing the true crisis and making believe that there is nothing to be worried about. But worried stiff they really are, and so are the masters overseas sitting amidst intricate problems of their own making. ' One observer, however, did not see the irony of the whole thing. Our BBC correspondent remarked: "The same dry spell is killing large numbers of game animals in Kenya's national parks, but the authorities can do little to help. Their hope is that rains, due in March and April, will come in time to restore the grass which animals (in the National Park) need. Meanwhile the vultures get fat and the lions and other carnivores (human or other-wise) have ample food." (ibid). I