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names Fus Two allegedly 'left' Labour MPs were given answers to questions in parliament this week which should put them on the spot.

Both of them were enquiring about jobs. One was the Tribune group's economic "expert", Brian Sedgemore who is a member of the Commons Committee that last week quizzed a Senior Treasury economist, Frank Cassell, on the official government forecasts for jobs.

In response to Sedgemore's questions, Cassell revealed that even if the economy grew by 3½% a year between now and 1982considerably in excess of anything achieved by British capitalism this century-then unemployment would still remain well over a million at the end of that period.

Sentenced That means the government is admitting that, even if the British economy fulfilled its most optimistic expectations, hundreds of thousands of workers have been consciously sentenced by the government to unemployment for life.

Of course, these same estimates imply that the continuation of the recent overall stagnation of production in British capitalism is bound to lead to mounting mass unemployment which by 1982 could reach three million, the peak figure of the 1930s.

Indeed fearsome possibilities exist in the world capitalist economy today which make even the Treasury's figures look optimistic.

These are most visible in the development of trade war between the capitalist countries, taking the form of protective duties, competitive devaluations and various kinds of export subsidy.

A new study has just been the spread of protectionism in the last few years of capitalist crisis.

So far protectionism is concentrated in four industriestextiles and shoes, steel, shipbuilding, and miscellaneous engineering (especially TV tubes).

'Rationality'

GATT's report is opposed to protectionism from the standpoint of capitalist 'rationality' on a world scale.

But the report (entitled Trade Liberation, Protectionism and Interdependence) is useful in showing the spread of protectionism and emphasising the elementary point that protectionism can only 'save jobs' at the expense of destroying jobs somewhere else in the capitalist system.

This elementary fact raises an important question of principle for the Labour movement.

Proletarian internationalism demands the firmest possible fight against any chauvinistic 'solutions to the problems of unemployment.

But Brian Sedgemore and his co-thinkers of the Tribune group will use the information he has gained not to support demands for socialist policies internationally but to back up their reactionary call for import controls.

Better strategy

Aside from import controls, the other panace of the Tribunites for solving the economic crisis, is a better "industrial strategy" by which they mean more power to that rescue squad for the capitalist class, the National Enterprise Board.

In an effort to prove that the government's use of the NEB is inadequate, Jeff Rooker, another Tribunite MP also last week got hold of some interesting information in the House of Commons.

In reply to a question from Rooker the government issued detailed information about the changes in production and jobs in various British industries since 1975 (roughly the life of Tribune's cherished NEB).

These figures show that over