Tariffs No Answer

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"But for the oldest industrial country whose industry was geared to the world market and lead an offensive and conquering character, the transition to protectionism is historical testimony to the beginning of a process of mortification, and signifies in practice the maintaining of certai branches of industries that are 1 less viable in the given world situation, at the expense of other branches of the same British industry that are better adapted to the conditions of the world and the home market. The programm of senile protectionism of Baldwi policy can be countered not by ar equally senile and moribund Free Trade policy, but only by the political programme of a socialist overturn. But in order to tackle this programme it is necessary as a preliminary to purge the party both of the reactionary protectionists like Guest (right wing Labourite land reactionary free traders like Macdonald."

(Trotsky: Writings on Britain, Vol. II. p. 116)

This is how Trotsky in 1925 saw the policy of tariffs and protectionism that we now see raising its head once more.

The policies of sections of the ruling class who complain of "too many" Japanese cars, televisions, radios and even ball-bearings being imported and calling for tariffs to be raised at a time of capitalist crisis find their echoes in the trade union bureaucracy together with the Labour leadership, even including the "lefts' of the Tribune Group, who are all in favour of in the statement by the Tribune Group MPs on the 31st January they said " there is a strong e for selective import controls in di aling the ci anys ray.

TUC The TUC in their proposals to Healey for his budget recomment that import controls should be imposed as a temporary measure.

The paper of the Communist Party, the Morning Star about this in an editorial:

call for the temporary imposition re which is tong ove adoo, md is. timo now a matter of urgency in view of the serious crisis shown by the huge deficit on the balance of payments...........

"As a result, without physical controls on these imports, expansion would become difficult to maintain for it would suck in imports and add to the trade deficit." • Labour MP Robin Stott said to a demonstration of mill workers in Ince-in-Makerfield :"BriNov Winte Imperial Typewriters workers demonstrate tain has for far too long been th dumping ground for every unde developed country in the world.

Their efforts are to divert trade union struggles along nationalist lines rather than alass lines. athe possiblity of uniting internationalls the struggles of the working class can be seen clearest in the motor Industry where workers all over the world are laid off or on short time.

But instead of any international perspective of fighting for car workers all over the world to struggle for transitional demands leading to the struggle for power, leading Stalinist in Fords, Sid Harraway, *We believe that the profits Ford has made out of British workers are being used to build this plant (in Spain) instead of being ploughe back in this country"

As well as telling the company that the work for a new light car -destined for Spain - could equally well be done in Britain, Dagenham stewards also pressed the company to discontinue the building of Cortinas in Amsterdam.

JOBS

At the beginning of the moves in defence of jobs at Imperials, a 350 strong demonstration in London chanted "Yanks out", having been led to the conclusion that British capitalism is less ruthless than the American type.

This was played up to by the Hull "social audit" produced by the union which advocates export subsalies coupled with "some kind of unport control, possibly of a temporary nature" to protect the hom market against "foreign" competition.

On the 25th February, thousands of Plessey workers in Liverpool demonstrated against short-time working and against a C30m Post Office contract being given to a Swedish firm. The leadership were calling for a public inquiry into the ranting of this contract MAIN ENEMY Trotsky's demand to clear our the Macdonalds means just as much a fight against all these leaderships who bring into the workers movement the bourgeois ideas of protectionism.

As Lenin correctly established at he opening of the First World War "the main enemy is at home". There is no solution to workers problems in any country without an all out fight against their "own' ruling class and the fight for sociaist internationalism.

by TONY RICHARDSON Yet the the new party.

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