Fred Ice - a comment by a miner

From Ted Woolley,* I really must take issue with your editorial: 'Fred Lee Must Go.' The points made on the previous page and those relating to the need for unity of Miners and Railwaymen, whilst they do not jn any way exhaust the subject of an integrated fuel policy, are essentially correct. But why after going so far towards a decent analysis of the situation, prostitute the matter by such demands as those in paragraph six? Is the root of miners! problems today to be seen in the subjective to the firing of lee? Does lee in fact make the policy? Are not the real issues the current requirements of British capitalism - the system - posed in contradiction to the happiness and welfare of some half a million mineworkers? And is it not necessary to advance policies, which will draw that half million and their families along the road to the oaly final solution? Instead you offer a puerile slogan and at least the implied suggestion that ‘new strong hands! can reverse the process, It is really here that the greatest affront is made by youe In fact you hereby peddle the view, that the present set up in the labour machine can, by a few changes of personnel, become Sncialist in our sense of the word. This in turn reduces us to Blanquisn. Mechan‘sation, automation, electronics and finally cybernetics can, in a very short space of time eliminate the need for labour power in the pits, Viewed in terms of health, as miners put it, ‘care 0' the bone' that is a fine thing, No more lungs solid with coal or silica dust, no more smashed bodies, no more bloody corpses, less bronchitis, arthritis, less old men of 50. And this process, given survival, is inevitable. The question is simply; does capitalism organise the introduction of this new era or does a socialist, working class movement? If it is the former, we shall have repeated the usual callous solution, perhaps modified by a Labour Government, so that the old lads of sixty go out with a couple of hundred pounds and eighteen months dole, followed by PeA. And will this kind of man, then care much, if lee or Castle perform the funeral rights? The rationalisation programme, to borrow the coal board's terminology, can have no other effect « Coal will be cheaper and will then rival other — power sources in attractiveness, especially. when stability of oil. sources and balance of payments crises have to be considered. On top of this, the taxpayer contributes the sum of upwards of £250,000 per annum protecting the interests of toil imperialism! in fact a hidden subsidy to impetalism,. Clearly then cnal is an economic proposition, as well as being politically sate, Every issue then of a pit closure or concentration within a pit can raise directly the right of capitalism to survive or not, Our job is to formulate a programme and a policy which takes this potential and converts it to political energy. In all seriousness, do you believe lee has any major significance in or out of the Fuel Ministry. *Ted Woolley is a miner, active in the Lancashire N.U.M.