Lottoos Carter Bid to Ape Callaghan

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gold and other commodities) overthrow. Carter campaigning These are the only prospects wage controls whether they offered by the capitalist system come from capitalist Carter or today. The interests of the the almost indistinguishable l world working class demand its "socialist" Callaghan.

WNMERSARY RALLY President Carter last week made his strongest attempt to date to force the deepening problems™ of American capitalism onto the backs of the working class.

But in doing so he was forced to reveal a little more of the weakness and lack of direction and leadership of the American ruling class.

• Two weeks ago a sadly diluted version of his energysaving plans finally passed through Congress.

"Voluntary"

Carter has now proposed a programme of "voluntary" wage controls and public spending cuts which are almost the spitting image of the Callaghan-Healey policies in Britain.

Wage rises are supposed to be restricted to 7% (below the present rate of inflation), price rises to about 6% and 20,000 Federal jobs are to be slashed at once.

Even the White House, which must by now be accustomed to a feeling of being out of control, seems to have been shocked by world reaction to its latest move.

The immediate effect was not the hoped for recovery of the dollar but a new 5% plunge in its international value, despite massive attempts by the Japanese, European and US Central Banks to support it.

And this plunge came after a week in which the stock market index fell over 7%.

The effect of last week's fall in the dollar alone is to give a sharp new twist to US inflation just ten days before the Congressional elections in which the whole House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate seats are up for election.

The weekend was spent trying to patch up an emergency rescue operation through which the IMF and the Japanese and European Central Banks would try to prop up the dollar, even if only until polling day.

But even if Carter manages to plug the hole in the dyke for a while and catch the foreign and US speculators, he still has to contend with the lack of enthusiasm with which even the right wing of the US labour bureaucracy greeted his new policy.

Veteran reactionary bureaucrat George Meany called it "a cruel joke"

Fear of militancy

As in Britain, the bureaucrats' refusal openly to go along wth Carter's wage limits stems from their fear of the militancy and resentment of their rank and file.

This has been reflected in the recent bitter disputes in the coal mines, railways, postal service and the newspapers.

Carter's search for new anti-working class policies and the dramatic new dollar crisis provide more evidence of the profound and completely unresolved problems of the world capitalist economy-the perilous imbalance between its component states, the constant threat of disintegration of the currency system (illustrated by last week's soaring price for EGUE and the menace of worsened economic warfare and slump.

SOCIALIST PRESS RALLY To commemorate the 1st anniversary of the weekly Socialist Press.

Speakers to include Socialist Press Editor A necessary step towards this goal is the rejection of all SOCIALIST PRESS The farcical proceedings in the Aubrey, Berry, Campbell "secrets" trial reached a new pitch last week with the judge's decision to waive the main charges, raised under Section One of the Official Secrets Act.

The four remaining charges all relate to Section Two of the Act, which the last Labour manifesto pledged to repeal, but which a recent White Paper would, if anything, strengthen.

Under this legislation the three defendants could face sentences of up to two years in jail for taking part in a private conversation early in 1977 in which the hushhush military surveillance network known as SIGINT was mentioned.

Meanwhile after his show of 'impartiality' in refusing to allow the prosecution under Section One-the "spying clause" of the Actto continue, and proposing that some of the mound of documents in the case be thrown on the bonfire, the judge has swung round and implicitly attacked those still campaigning for the dropping of the charges.

This now includes not only the ABC Defence Campaign and the National Union of Journalists but presumably the National Council for Civil Liberties, which has called for the resignation of Attorney General Sam Silkin, on whose responsibility jointly with Home Secretary Rees, the prosection was initiated. WORKEKS FAGUE

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