Nalgo-drain Howled

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£6ОO FUND The May Fund closed at £539.22. With the June Fund under way, we have to date received the following amounts.

Central London, £40; Winsford, El; Oxford Assembly Plant, t6; THS, £41; North London £35; Coventry, £12; Bolton, .50p; South condon, £10; Oxford PSF, 13.25; Aylesbury, £5; Oxford General, £21; East London, £20; Leamington, .80p; Banbury, £1.97; London colWith half the month now gone the fight is now on to go one better than last month and raise the full f600 fund target. All donations souk be sent to: Socialist Press Monthly Development Fund, 31, Geoffrey Drain, NALGO General Secretary, was howled down by delegates to the union's Conference at Eastbourne last week.

This marks a further development in the consciousness of NALGO members - facing TUC wage cuts and mass redundancies through cuts in government spending.

MILITANT The conference opened with many motions demanding a militant stance against public expenditure cuts, an end to support for the social Contract, toI public ownership and control of the profitable sections of the manufacturing industry and for an irreversible shift in the balance of wealth and power in favour of ordinary working people. All these motions were composited and weakened.

In the ensuing economic debate the General Secretary, Geoffrey Drain, attempted to head off rank and file action in favour of his continued talk of reforms with the TUC Economic Committee.

Such reforms are clearly no longer possible under capitalișm in crisis, and Drain's age-worn and bankrupt platitudes drew such howls of anger from delegates that for several periods he could not be heard for the uproar.

However the lack of an alternative, partly due to the with drawal of the motion demanding a lection, £5.57. Total so far: £203.09.

Dartmouth Park Hill, London NW5 IHR. sliding scale of public expenditure and wages, allowed the National Executive Council to scrape home by the skin of its teeth on the old reformist ticket.: of "unity" and by the defeatism: deliberately fostered by platform speakers.

The disillusionment and frus-, tration of conference delegates was further compounded by the empty rhetoric of the guest speaker Michael Foot MP.

With all the skill befitting this great parliamentarian, he avoided any reference to the cruel realities facing NALGO members, and with casual cynicism delivered a mere party political broadcast.

CRUST The Executive Council showed. their great strength and resolution in crushing all initiatives and proposals for action from the branches.

Unfortunately these qualities have been totally absent in their negotiations with the government.

But while this conference has allowed them further breathing space, next year it will not be so easy.

The fight must begin at once in all NALGO branches for a programme of demands that can unite the whole labour movement against capitalism and capitulation and for a sliding scale of public expenditure to keep pace with the rate of inflation as determined by committees of trade unionists and housewives.

SYRIAN TANKS ISRAEL (cont'd)

the ascendency then the threat of Israeli intervention in Lebanon would increase since Lebanon would become a secure base for PLO operations.

Any Israeli invasion of Lebanon would immediately expose the inability of the Syrian regime to carry through the struggle against imperialism and its Israeli agents and to support the struggle of the Palestinian masses which has wide support among the masses of the Arab world.

The Egyptian disengagement from Sinai and the private deal with Israel last year, coupled with President Sadat's headlong move into the Western camp graphically illustrates the nature of such regimes as currently claim 'leadership' of the Arab and Palestinian masses.

This then is the basis for the open collusion between Assad, Israel and the USA (with French assistance) to 'stabilise' the situation in Lebanon by forcing a political settlement favourable to the right wing Maronite forces.

PRESSURE

This collusion has taken the form of open Syrian pressure for the Lebanese premiership to pass to Elias Sarkis - ex secret policeman and welcomer of US Marines to the Lebanon in 1958.

The American Sixth Fleet has again been standing by together with French troops ready to step into the breach should the Syrian initiative fail.

However, by the end of last week Palestinian and Muslim left forces had succeeded in halting the Syrian advance, aided by desertions from Saiqua, the Palestinian commando unit under Syrian Army control, and the general reluctance of Syrian troops to fight the Palestinians.

ARAB LEAGUE

This set-back has resulted in the entry of troops from the Arab League countries to attempt to defuse the situation and especially to preempt US action. The presence of troops from Libya and Algeria gives a left' face to the action and it. has evoked