GREAT BRITAIN: Shaken Symbol

Arthur Horner, Communist general secretary of the non-Communist National Union of Mineworkers, was once a power in British labor. Last week, at the Trades Union Congress in the seaside town of Margate, Arthur Horner was nervous, frustrated, shattered. Lifting his sherry glass with a shaking hand, watching the proceedings with watery eyes, Horner was a symbol of the straits to which Communism in British labor has fallen.

Side-Aisle Stuff. In other years the Commies had fraternized with the other lads, drinking, gossiping and partying with them and staying at the same hotels. Last week, after each day’s session, the Commies went off by themselves to their own hangouts. For parliamentary maneuvers, they had devised a set of hand signals like those used by the “tick tack men” (gamblers’ signalmen) at British race tracks.

Operating through a few unions which they control (e.g., fire brigades, electrical workers, bakers & confectioners, vehicle builders, foundry workers), the Commies tried first to defeat a motion condemning unofficial strikes. Pale, shock-haired Communist Abe Cohen of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers leaped to the rostrum and attacked the motion as “a challenge to the integrity of the rank & file and an insult to their intelligence.”

He got only a spatter of applause. A Red delegate in the side-aisle flicked a paper at Arthur Horner, who answered by smoothing back his hair. Thereupon the side-aisle comrade tried to prevent the motion from coming to a vote; but the anti-strike resolution was carried.

With no more success, the Commies tried to attack the Labor government’s plan for freezing wages (nonCommunist workers don’t like it either, but they would brook no Red assault on it).

The rout of the Commies brought about a victory for Sir Stafford Cripps, prim boss of Britain’s economic affairs. He appeared at Margate and persuasively argued that higher productivity and more exports would do more for the workers’ standard of living than wage increases would. The congress approved.

Defeat for the Lizards. The most curious spectacle of the congress was portly, white-haired Arthur Deakin, anti-Communist president of the World Federation of Trade Unions, lambasting a Communist resolution in favor of the W.F.T.U. itself. Deakin’s presidency represents British labor’s hope of rescuing the W.F.T.U. from Red domination. That hope, Deakin roared, has gone glimmering. He said that the W.F.T.U. was becoming a tool of Soviet foreign policy. The congress boomed approval, the tick tack men flickered like lizards along the wall, and the Communist motion was defeated.

After the session one of the delegates said to Deakin, “Brother, you spilled a bellyful.” Replied Deakin, “Brother, that’s only the beginning!”

Only one Commie candidate was elected to any of the 42 posts on governing bodies and committees. When it was all over, burly Will Lawther, National Union of Mineworkers’ anti-Communist president and newly elected head of the T.U.C., sprawled triumphantly over a half pint of beer. “Yer’d have thoert they woor blooody Nazzies,” said Will Lawther, “th’ way they’ve been schemin’ and skirmishin’—but we’ve got th’ blighters proper licked!”*

*For more Lawther lingo, see LETTERS.