ГУСЬКОВА (1). 1. Инфинитив в функции определения
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6- 17] While a few MPs are believed to favour this revolutionary pro posal certain party leaders and older MPs are opposed to it. Another early confrontation could occur in Nottinghamshire over the proposed closure of New Hucknall colliery near Mansfield. The Board announced yesterday that « redundancies are inevitable» in Kent, as it plans to shut Snowdown Pit within three months, putting 960 jobs in jeopardy. 23. Senior staff at Granada TV's London offices staged a one-day strike yesterday in protest at the company withdrawing creche facilities for staff children. All 50 members of the TV technicians' union, at Granada's Soho offices stopped work for the day, both men and women. Most of them were producers, directors and researchers. The strike was called because of the company's decision to end the creche facility for staff children at a local nursery centre. 24. Leaders of the Federation of Labour met representation of the Government and employers on Nov. 17 to discuss how to further imple ment the suggestions regarding a longer term wages policy which had al ready been discussed. The major element in the discussion was the implementation of a Court ruling to hear the case for wages rates «catching up» in relation to past inflation. At present, even the existence of the office is officially classified. In the intelligence community, it is known as a «black» operation, meaning that nothing about its work or the identity of its officials is sub ject to public scrutiny. The vision one gets of a so-called constitutional reform is one of cheap nagging and bargaining, all at the expense of the Canadian people, who have been completely excluded from the debate. As for the New Democratic Party, « Rather than coming forward with a truly democratic alternative to the constitutional crisis, the NDP too has become part of this 'wheeling and dealing1 at the expense of the national rights of the French Canadian people, the rights of the native peoples, the economic and social rights of the Canadian people,» the statement charges. From being among the advocates of Canadianization of resources, the NDP has now become the champion of provincial ownership of resources, even though these resources are in fact in the hands of the multinational corporations. 27. In the case of the Union of Post Office workers a member could be excluded from membership for up to twelve months since there was no provision for any stay pending appeal to annual conference. 172 The company is reluctant to consider the workers' demand for wage increase. What seems to be the case is that it wants to prevent any drastic steps being taken to interfere with their profit making activity. The fact is that local industrialists were invited to become mem bers of the board when it was set up, and it must have been obvious that they would not only be concerned with local development, but in some cases be personally involved. Complicated legal issues which have arisen are being studied by the Attorney General's department which believes there is a case for dam ages against the tanker's owners. Yet for large and small nations, their record in the General As sembly does provide a yardstick with which to measure the application of their publicly announced foreign policy. Mr H. is the only serious rival at present, and if politics was a sci ence, he would be a formidable rival. He has a splendid record as a re form mayor and a courageous Senator. Mr N. had been under fire from many sections of the student community for allegedly being out of touch with the problems of ordinary students, and his speech tonight was being regarded as a make-or-break bid to win back popular support for executive policy. The biggest problem, however, is likely to be on the wage front. How cooperative will the unions be this summer as their demands culmi nate? A strong point is that the Chancellor of the Exchequer can now have as fullscale and thorough a Budget as he thinks necessary. 35. The tourist potential is as yet largely untapped. But every effort is ng made to develop the industry into a major foreign exchange earner. Apart from the existing facilities, the National Development Corporation is embarking upon a major programme for tourist accommodation facilities. 36. There has been a vast deterioration of public facilities throughout the nation over recent decades, according to the study just made public by the Council of State Planning Agencies. The council's 97-page study declares that the nation's streets, roads, including the Interstate Highway System, publicly operated solid waste and toxic waste sites, treatment plants, port facilities and dams have been permitted to deteriorate drastically. Hundreds of billions of dollars are necessary to halt the ongoing deterioration and to restore the facilities to their former level, let alone expand them to fill growing needs. The most important factors in the deterioration are not included in the study: the diversion of hundreds of billions of dollars from maintenance of the nation's public works into the pockets of the rich, through tax giveaways and the huge war budget. The cancer is bipartisan. 173 Americans are accustomed to a confrontational, adversarial rela tionship between the government and business. Japan's regulatory style is based on intensive dialogue and extensive interaction that leads to com promise. Americans may have been disturbed by Lockheed's conduct but few of them had any sense of wounded national pride or much concern over loss of face in the international community. The problem now is how to de-escalate this international crisis. America should weigh the president's program on its merits and ignore the pretence that all the changes he has proposed are either neces sary or sufficient to conquer stagflation. Coming mainly from academia and think tanks, where they had been on the outside for years, they (Russian emigrants) found that being on the inside was both exhilarating and excruciating. Big business relies on its massive public relations rumor mill to twist truth into lies. There is no question that this campaign has been a success. 4. Сделайте синтаксический и грамматический анализ предложений и переведите их, обращая внимание на передачу значений артикли. 1. The role of the Japanese military is a touchy subject, one that rattles China and other neighbors as well as Japanese citizens, all parties that still have bitter feelings about Japan's role in World War II. 2. With economic confidence across Europe already fragile and economists cutting back growth forecasts, rising jobless totals in Europe's biggest economy threaten to further sour the mood, economists said. «It is not an easy problem. But if we don't stop the conflict now, it clearly will spread. And then, we will not be able to stop it except at far greater cost and risk». The wealth of Britain's architectural heritage rests upon strata of changing taste. There were no reports of violence during the protest. But scattered Christian-Muslim skirmishes on the island injured a handful of people Friday, witnesses said. Many economists are predicting the labor market will weaken somewhat this year, although it will remain healthy by historical stan dards. The state's troubles sent the Brazilian stock market plummeting as investors speculated the political battle over the debt would weaken the 174 central government resolve to slash a budget deficit and ease interest rates. The claim that congressional approval strengthens a president's policy is not one that presidents leap to test. Whereas everybody wants a new president of the European Com mission in place as soon as possible, Parliament — always keen on adding to its power — wants the procedure to go ahead under the new Amsterdam terms. Iran and the Soviet Union once had the Caspian Sea to themselves, amicably dividing its precious caviar. The two knew the sea contained mineral wealth but neither did much about it. «The larger a company gets, the more difficult it can be for the left hand to know what the right is doing». Hurt by the economic slump in Asia and a litany of production and delivery problems, Boeing sought to put the best face on its annual pro duction and delivery data. Reflecting Japan's spectacular economic growth, Tokyo's rapid development and, above all, Maki's [architect] evolving architectural philosophy, the changes helped create a dynamic complex that today an chors one of Tokyo's most popular neighborhoods. Many critics of the government's program argue that it reflects what they say is Mr Blair's Achilles' heel: the desire to be all things to all people, to appeal to the conservative-leaning middle class that helped propel him into office in 1997 while not abandoning the poor and work ing classes, labour's traditional base. The tough talk, they say, is one thing; the reality may fall short of the promise. Human rights are a basic American interest, and the administration should not flinch from promoting them. The civil service is a black abyss of underpaid, underemployed, unsackable people. There are calls for cutting the numbers radically, but if you do, you end up with an indigent army of unemployable people. The once empty, and beautiful, Mediterranean shoreline has be come a solid block of wall-to-wall holiday homes with their private beaches and marinas for middle-class Egyptians. Genre painting existed in the ancient world but was generally deemed an inferior pursuit suitable for less talented artists, an assumption that was inherited by the Renaissance establishment. The native Melanesian Ambonese are mainly Christians but many Asian Muslims from elsewhere in the vast Indonesian archipelago have come to the island for business and as civil servants. 175 The democratic peoples [of NATO members] admittedly do not relish sending their soldiers into foreign fields, but the evidence of the 20th century — two world wars, the cold war and, in the 1990s, the Gulf and Bosnia — suggests that they will generally act when they conclude that a principle or a major interest is under attack. The public outrage gave Beijing «a chance to redirect some of the political energy in a population that might otherwise be antigovernment,» says a China scholar of Wellesley College. French, long dominant at the commission of EU, has been rapidly losing ground to English, which, the French note acidly, is not even a language of continental Europe. Some economists warn that a further slowdown in Europe's econ omy could encourage opponents of the common currency, the euro, to blame Monetary Union for the hard times. ...the description of a solution to a problem as a «political» solu tion implies peaceful debate and arbitration as opposed to what is often called a «military» solution. The record number of mergers of large companies into even larger ones last year has raised fears at many arts organizations and other non profit groups that a decline in corporate donations may be an unfortunate byproduct. 5. Проанализируйте и переведите следующие предложения. 1. The euro is expected to accelerate European crossborder deals. By creating the foundations of pan-European market for capital, it exposes markets to stiffer competition. So it seems few taboos are left in Europe's once sleepy banking business: banks are merging with each other, with insurers, fund managers and others as never before. But are Europe's banks really set for a merger wave to rival that seen in America? In theory, Europe already has a single banking system. The reality is rather different. For some years to come, further consolidation will be stymied by resistance from politicians, workers and even bank bosses and by the way that banking system has been structured. 2. EU presidency is enough to test any country's skills to the limit. It means arranging dozens of ministerial meetings and managing the paper work for hundreds of specialist committees. Rare is the government that does not come to the end of its six months both relieved and exhausted. The Finns have a big reputation to live up to. Since joining the EU, and despite coming from its most distant edge, they have displayed an almost uncanny mastery of its workings. Many point to them as the very model how a «small country should operate within the EU's institutions: merely modest and purposeful matching a sense of principle with a sense of proportion. Once the state has rooted out absolute poverty, how much wealth, if any, should it confiscate to reduce inequality for its own sake? How much should it curtail individual freedoms — to purchase extra education, to pass on an inheritance — so that people have an equal chance in life? Is there some level beyond which inequality cannot be stretched without snapping the bonds that hold people together? Whatever the answer, these are questions a government should frame clearly, not bury in theob- fuscation of «fairness». Still less should a budget be so subtle that no body can divine, whether, why or how much a government believes in re distribution. Devolution is a healthy and abiding tendency. To de-emphasize the federal government is to resurrect one of the original principles of Ameri can politics. The nation was conceived as a union of 13 pre-existing states. The concept of national citizenship, as distinct from state citizen ship, did not even exist until 1787, 11 years after independence. In the early days, the states showed their distinctive personalities by what they did about slavery or the enfranchisement of non-citizens, rather than wel fare policy or the length of prison terms. But whatever the issues the taste for autonomy has endured and now seems, once again, to be growing. So long as the democracies remember what experience has taught them, they are probably unbeatable. Take Europe and America apart, and that comforting prospect vanishes. The Americans by themselves will still have the means to act, as well as their keener sense of ideological com mitment; but they will have fewer material interests in the outside world to feel concerned about, and the shock of the break with Europe could push them back to their old dream of hemispheric self-sufficiency. The goal of the EU constitutional conference will be to streamline the European Commission and to fine-tune the voting powers of national governments in the Council of Ministers, so that both institutions can ac commodate an influx of new members, mainly from Central and Eastern Europe, in the decade ahead. In contrast to Plato's claim for the social value of education, a quite different idea of intellectual purposes was propounded by the Renais sance humanists. Intoxicated with their rediscovery of the classical learning that was thought to have disappeared during the Dark Ages, they argued that the imparting of knowledge needs no justification — relig- 176 177 ious, social, economic or political, its purpose, to the extent that it has one, is to pass on from generation to generation the corpus of knowledge that constitutes civilization. The study [of two University of Chicago researchers] is not good news for minorities. First, Latinos are significantly more likely to live near a hazardous-waste site than blacks or whites with comparable in comes. Second, the authors suggest that blacks are less likely than whites to live near Chicago waste sites in part because they have been excluded from areas near high-paying industrial jobs by decades of residential seg regation. The Chicago study will stimulate the debate. Some earlier stud ies in other cities have found a significant correlation between race and hazardous waste; others have no. But even in cases where hazardous- waste sites appear to be disproportionately located in minority neighbor hoods, they may not have been put there deliberately. It is currently fashionable to argue that nobody can hope to foresee what is going to happen to big-power politics in the next 30 or 40 years. Some of those who say this then add, contradicting themselves, that there is unlikely to be any great challenge to the security of Europe and Amer ica in the next generation or so: the world is for the time being, safe for democracy. Neither of these things is necessarily true. It is possible to make a reasonable guess at how power will redistribute itself round the world in the opening decades of the new century and how this redistribu tion of power will show itself in what counties do to each other. This rea sonable guess holds little comfort for the democracies of the West. 10. Though they seldom admit it, many Hungarians continue to har bour prejudice against gypsies, which is one reason that campaigners pre fer to use the term «Roma», arguing that from the lips of most Hungari ans, «cigany» is itself derogatory and that the word's most usual (and value-free) English variant, gypsy, should also therefore be dropped. What is less arguable is that it has been almost taboo, in Hungarian politics, to acknowledge that gypsies do have a real grievance. So for the foreign minister even to be discussing the subject is progress of a sort. 11. An inexperienced crew is working late shift, packing apples at the Northwestern fruit produce plant here. The new hires barely keep pace with roaring conveyor belts. But things are hard here. Last month, half the packing plant's 180 employees were laid off. In what turned out to be one of the biggest employment sweeps ever by the Immigration and Naturali zation Service, agents sifted through the records of 5,000 workers in 13 local packing plants here — and forced the companies to sack 562 de termined to be illegal immigrants. 178 In a move that clears the way for a wave of high-tech interactive gadgets in cars and trucks, five of the world's biggest auto makers said they are pursuing a common wiring standard for new vehicles. The stan dard should enable automotive suppliers to design their products to plug into millions of cars and trucks, regardless of the vehicles' maker. It could reduce the cost of such devices by allowing suppliers to standardize manufacturing processes. Germany wants a European Employment Pact to be adopted at a June summit of EU leaders in Cologne, Germany but some EU diplomats question whether this will be possible. At a meeting Monday, France and Italy meet opposition with their call for specific growth targets. Mean while, proposals by Spain and Britain for a more decentralized approach also find little favor. The Scottish National Party (SNP), which had campaigned quite ineffectively since it was founded in 1928, became a significant political force when it latched on to the discovery of North Sea oil in the 1960s to argue that an independent Scotland could escape from the economic de cline caused by the collapse of traditional heavy industry. Given the contempt with which I hold television, why would I want to appear on it to promote a new book that deals with its perverse effects? 1 have no easy answer. 1 struggle daily to find one. The best that 1 have been able to come up with is that 1 believe strongly that there is a deep, unsatisfied hunger on the part of the American people for some thing better, for something that speaks directly to our constant search for meaning on the basic issues of life itself. Egypt was committed, under its agreements with the IMF, to de nationalise one of the four state banks that together control 60% of retail banking. When the agreements expired, with no bank privatised yet, the IMF decided to give the government more time. Although Egypt's banks have a sounder reputation than some in the region, their closets still rattle with the skeletons of dodgy loans, handed out to inefficient state enter prises on government instructions. One reason why foreign investors still tend to hold back is that they are seldom invited to buy a controlling share of a company. The law has been changed so that there are no longer restrictions about the spe cific level of foreign shareholding; moreover, the new laws on repatriat ing capital and profits are very liberal. But multinationals tend still to think that the government's policy is not quite convincing: the legal groundwork for offering them a controlling share is there but it doesn't often happen in practice. Bad public relations, say Egyptians, plus preju diced foreigners. 179 Mr. Clinton's domestic critics are dismayed. They understand his words are another sort of code: permission for the appeasement-minded on the Security Council — including Russia, China and France among the five permanent members — to plead mitigation for Iraq and so make a military response from the 35,000 American servicemen currently mas tered in the Gulf anything but automatic. Hungarians like to think that ethnic hatred is something that takes place only in the Balkan badlands to the south. The government also re alises that it needs to be seen to be doing something — not least if its own lecturing of its neighbours on the fights of ethnic Hungarian minori ties is not to sound hollow. But what? — The government acknowledges that the country's current policy is inadequate, thai all is not well with its showpiece policy, a system of ethnic self-government. These autono mous, democratically elected bodies are quite good at doing such things as organising dance troupes for ethnic Germans, but are ill-equipped to deal with the many problems facing gypsies. Donors can still help by spreading knowledge of a technological or institutional sort. This is one rationale for (small-scale) project aid. But what donors should not be spreading in these cases are large quantities of cash. That policy not only wastes money; it also undermines political support for every kind of aid, including those thai work. While it remains true — as this study makes crystal-clear — that the key to development is good economic policy, and that this is something, which only the gov ernments concerned can put into effect, aid can play a useful role. It is up to donor governments to see that it does. From the recruiting sergeants who haunt the high schools and malls and Me Donald's across America to the generals who count bunk and beans, there is a growing concern that generational and demographic changes have overtaken the ideals of military service. Sweden, of all places, has one of the most segregated work forces in the West. And while it didn't much matter economically when Sweden was a prosperous, welfare state, the country faces increasing pressure to tighten its belt. Sweden can no longer afford the disparity, needing women to contribute their full share into government tax coffers and pen sion funds. In fact, economists and policy makers warn that this is a challenge that much of Europe will face. Economic and social transformations of the past 20 years of re forms are likely to have been less destabilising than if modernisation had not taken place. This does not mean that social instability poses no risk at all. A serious economic downturn would make it harder for the government to buy off the disaffected. What of the party? Here lies the problem. For, much as China's economy and society have been transformed, its political structure has not. Its political institutions were designed to change society, but are now incapable to adapt to it. The high divorce rate and liberated lifestyles of the boomer gen eration may now be producing more cautious, conservative attitudes among the young. «Generation X-ers basically believe the baby boomers went too far with their lifestyle, taking it to the brink», says Ann Clurman of Jankelovich Partners. «Children of divorce are 50 per cent of gen X- ers. They think they are victims of divorce and want to pull back from the precipice. Down the road we will definitely see less divorce». Like the Council of Ministers, the EU Parliament has been accru ing power at the Commission's expense. Yet, it too suffers from weak leadership. It needs to attend to its own faults if it is to exercise better control over the executive, bringing to an end, in particular, its expensive dual life in Brussels and Strasbourg. Best stick to Brussels, even though this would require a treaty change. Germany's chancellor faces two general difficulties and one par ticular one. First, he has to show that he really has some sense of what he wants to achieve: he has, in other words, to dismiss the impression that he has no central values and no clear idea of how Germany, or indeed Europe, should be run. Second, he has still to reform his party, which has been subjected to none of the colonic irrigation of that other new Middler, the British Labour Party. And then, unrelated to these general concerns, and perhaps even harder to achieve, he has to cajole the other members of the EU into accepting a budgetary arrangement that makes it possible for newcomers to join. America has the best technology, so it is inevitably the best, and right target for espionage, by China and a host of others. Given that China does indeed have spies, and that it is an actual rival and potential threat, America should be spying on China in return. Have no fear: it is. China rightly senses that trade can be used as a lever to soften, or blur, foreign policy issues. American businesses lobby for a softer line and for rule-changes at home to allow them to sell more in China, particularly for high-tech goods previously controlled on security grounds. They reinforce that pressure with political donations. 28. The challenges of running a country may also stimulate Scottish intellectual life. Many Scots fondly dream of a new « Scottish Enlighten ment» , like the one the country enjoyed in the 18th century when Scottish thinkers like David Hume and Adam Smith were at the center of the 180 181 philosophical revolution which swept through Europe. The French philosopher Voltaire remarked, only slightly sarcastically, that if one wanted to learn anything from gardening to philosophy, one had to go to Edinburgh. The Enlightenment was partly stimulated, some think, because political union with England ended the Scottish preoccupation with battling against its more powerful southern neighbour and opened northern eyes and minds to the possibilities, both intellectual and commercial, arising in a fast-changing world in which Britain was then playing a decisive imperial role. 29. Between principle and practice, of course, can lie an ocean of dif ference, and seas of ink have indeed been drained in arguing about the consequences of accepting that gender as social. If it is, mustn't society be overturned to better women's lot? Is it inequality with men or male stereotyping that women suffer from? Isn't talk of suffering itself a new form of victimhood? Naomi Wolf, in her book «Fire with Fire» (1993) blamed older feminists for exaggerating women's powerlessness and for the supposed excesses of political correctness. 30. Mr. Menem's [of Argentina] past services are undeniable. Elected in 1989, he inherited hyperinflation. That alone might have led back to strongman rule. Instead, his government by creating a currency board, has killed inflation stone-dead. He has brought to heel the armed forces, still snarling when first he came to office. Today, these once masters of the land serve its elected government. Abroad, Mr. Menem has mended fences with the United States, taken Argentina into the Mercosur trade group, and solved its border disputes with Chile. This is a solid record. There are clear arguments to be made in favour of equality (relief of poverty, the encouragement of social cohesion); but there are also clear arguments to be made against imposing it (this is unnatural, unattainable, suppresses initiative, attempts self-defeatingly to create a sense of broth erhood by coercion). «Fairness», by contrast, is a label a government can slap on pretty much any policy it chooses. Equality is measurable, fair ness — in the eye of the beholder. The left thought equality was fair; the right thought inequality was fair. When overseas aid was under Foreign Office control, it was clearly a tool of foreign policy as well as a way of helping poor countries. 182 And it sometimes subsidised British business by being tied to British goods and services. But that approach clearly had drawbacks. Aid priorities were distorted by the pursuit of commercial advantage. Britain, for example, was discovered to be funding a dubious dam project in Malaysia in the hope of winning arms sales. When New Labour came into office, it announced that aid should be purely for helping the poor. Modern youth becomes the dreaded avenging angel of his parents, since he holds the power to prove his parents'success or failure as parents and this counts so much more now, since his parents' economic success is no longer so important in a society of abundance. Youth itself, feeling in secure because of its marginal position in a society that no longer depends on it for economic security, is tempted to use the one power this reversal between the generations has conferred on it: to be accuser, and judge of the parents' success or failure as parents. With monetary policy in the hands of the European Central Bank, fiscal policy — budget deficits and surpluses a la Keynes — is the re maining tool with which the member states of European Economic and Monetary Union, or EMU, can affect their own growth and employment. The sense of energy and optimism generated by Mr. Blair's at tempt to create a brave new Britain could easily give way to disillusion ment — as it did in the 1970s — if his government cannot turn visionary rhetoric into something rather more substantial. 36. It is less than a month since the prime minister decided to break cover, stand up in the House of Commons, launch his «national changeo ver plan», and make it plain to anyone who had ever doubted it that he really did intend to lead Britain into the promised land of the euro. This was the very week in which big business started to fire its pro-euro artillery, with the official launch of the «Britain in Europe» campaign headed by chairman of British Airways. 37. The US elections have often been compared to a circus. It is a shame that the comparison has some truth in it. It is a time when a clear and precise estimate of the national situation should be made, a balance drawn and a course agreed on for the next period, but it is actually a time when the leading political contestants exert themselves most to deceive the public, falsify the record and lie about the future. It is national aberration-time when politicians roam the land, trying to put matters more out of focus than usual. It is the time of statistics-twisting, juggling with facts, gymnastics in the position-taking, and hocus-pocus. Such a situation is contrary to the interests of the people and to the national interest. More and more voters are disgusted with it. It is, there- 183 fore, more urgent than ever not only to bring the real issues to the fore and to mobilize the broadest possible coalition around «people before profits» solutions, but also to take steps to restore — or to impart — to elections their real function, to correct what is wrong and to steer a better course for the future. 38. There are powerful big business lobbies in the capital, and an ele ment in the Democratic Party here favors pampering multinational corpo rations. This group insists that any legislation favorable to working people in the state must also include financial incentives to big business. Labor observers here see a similarity between recent contract negotiations and the approach of big business to legislation. «Make it worth our while,» they say, «or we'll pack up and leave.» Corporations shut plants and move operations in order to maximize profits. Some move to get out from union contracts. Some move to states offering financial incentives. Some move to the South where wages are low. Some move totally out of the US. The legislative proposals, which are not yet fully formulated, lean heavily in the direction of the corporations. They offer increased incentives to keep corporations from moving out of the state — more profit — and place the burden of picking up the pieces after a plant has moved on the shoulders of the tax payers of the state. 39. Officialdom in Huyton, Liverpool, does not know the meaning of democracy, which we are supposed to have in Britain. They charge what rent and rates they like and think they are doing us a favour if they do any maintenance or repairs to the council housing, which they assume they own, as apparently the councillors do not regard themselves as the elected representatives of the people. 40. The Prime Minister has come down heavily in favour of waiting for a consensus to build, based on the belief that «a strong leader is not needed for the Japanese people because they themselves are full of vital ity» . But his self-cast role as orchestra conductor to the numerous minis tries and agencies in Tokyo while the body politic calls the tune is said by many to neglect the fact that participatory democracy is still only surface deep in Japan. Also, that role is directly at odds with the high-profile, ac tive stances taken by former premiers. Contrary to popular belief, the Prime Minister has not totally forsaken day-to-day political matters. He is well aware of the pressing problems: the Foreign Minister is being given a somewhat larger role to play in policy planning and is to lend a hand in calming the still rough Japan-US economic waters. 41. The Prime Minister's insistence on the «politics of waiting» and his homespun advice to proceed « slow and steady» have opened the door to critics of his approach to the running of the government and matters of state — but perhaps they have moved the discussion into an area that fits well within the premier's game plan. There is little argument from any camp that the new government is facing problems — for instance, slow economic growth at home, the continuing problems between Tokyo and .the United States, the difficulties involved in the emergence of a new political role for Japan and the on-again, off-again courtship of ASEAN. How quickly and in what manner these are approached does lead to disagreement. 42. Children demonstrating outside the Belgrave Children's Hospital in South London at the weekend marched to Downing Street to hand in a petition as part of a widely supported campaign which was launched in South London to keep the children's hospital open and persuade the local area health authority to improve facilities there. The hospital's once thriving out-patients department is already being reduced, and staffing problems are getting worse. At weekends, one student is often left in charge of a ward. But the hospital now faces a threat to close all the beds meaning that the only children's operating theatre in the district will shut down despite recent modernisation. The worsening economic problems of the country derive ulti mately from causes which no party or government can readily cure, even if it knew what to do. A century and more of industrial underinvestment, export of capital, low growth, failure to exploit innovation richly but vainly provided by British science (U.S. industry has done well out of British inventions neglected at home), — these are at the root of Britain's contemporary troubles. Labor did not cure them, but neither have the Tories. His distinctly high-profile leadership conflicted with the ideas of other chiefs as to how an operation of this kind should be carried out. The Chancellor of the Exchequer impressed on the House that all that was needed was that everyone should behave sensibly and realize that if the country threw away this opportunity it might be long before it got another anything like so favourable. Stable prices could be assured only by price reductions in the field where progress was fastest and if the benefits of progress for which the whole community was responsible were shared by the whole community. 184 185 46. That view will gain ground because a new shock awaits the Par liamentary Labour Party and the Labour movement. The Prime Minister appears to have won the case, and carefully calculated leaks are coming from Cabinet Ministers to prepare us all for yet one more reversal of policy. 47. It is not the critics of the Minister of Economy who are cynical. That is a word which could be more accurately applied to a Minister who says he is for prices being kept down, and then supports a Budget which puts them up. If the staff at Labour Party headquarters get the 12 V2 per cent pay rise which it is reported they are to be offered, or the bigger increase they may ask for, they will no doubt congratulate themselves not only on their own efforts, but on having employers prepared to stand up to the Gov ernment and defy the pay freeze. The argument about whether the motor companies should release workers to the rest of the labour market rather than put them on short time reveals once again the great divide between economic ideas in the ab stract and the way the British economy works at present. The big question in industry today is security of employment. As redundancy and short-time working spread throughout the car industry and the many industries wholly or largely dependent upon it, as the same process operates in the other sections producing consumer durable goods of all kinds, like furniture and refrigerators, and as the programme of pit closures gets under way, workers everywhere must be worried about their own jobs even if they are not in one of the immediately hard-hit industries. It is a thorough disgrace that a Labour council should be acting in this way. A Labour council should set an example as a model landlord, not as peacemaker for the avaricious, grasping private landlords. The rea son for the increase in rents is the usual one — the council is in the red on its housing account. But that is not the fault of the tenants. It is the fault of the Government, which has failed to keep its election manifesto prom ise to «introduce a policy of lower interest rates for housing». It is also the fault of the council for not insisting that the Government honour its pledge. Instead of an increase in rents, the council should insist that inter est on housing loans should be cut. This is something the Government could do. It was he who with the Prime Minister turned the scales against having a snap election in November without making even the pretence of coping with the dollar crisis. It was he who threw his weight in favour of February as the best moment to send the Labour machine into action; and it is he who will profit most among the party's leaders if Labour wins. In his speech to newspaper editors yesterday the Paymaster Gen eral named monopoly and big commercial advertisers as a threat to Press freedom and democracy. But having revealed many of the things that were wrong, unfortunately he did not assist us by making proposals which would help to put things right. The Government itself has helped the «process of concentration and monopoly» which, the Paymaster General said yesterday, he regarded as a danger not only to Press free dom, but to democracy itself. By giving the Press tycoons all this adver tising, and depriving the independent press of a fair share, the Govern ment is helping to increase the danger to democracy. It is time it was understood that history does not develop according to the formulae of those who would like to conserve it, those who would like to arrest the movement of the people along the road of progress. The Prime Minister has done the right thing in ending speculation about a summer election. He had pretty well forced an announcement on himself. Irritating the Labour party with his cat-and-mouse tactics did not matter; the fact that he was teasing the public as well did. The announce ment is also timed. To have made it earlier might have taken any zest there was out of the local government elections; to have made it later would have invited the charge that the Prime Minister had been influ enced by their results. The new Cabinet shows significant changes, both personal and constructional, from the old one. Naturally it will be looked at most searchingly in the Ministries which touch the home front, and particularly its economics. It was the failure either to coordinate these Ministries successfully or to present an intelligible picture of their activi ties to the electorate, which was the chief weakness of the previous Cabi net. The Prime Minister's own record is here at its most untried. He will have to show that his capacity for government is not overestimated to make him as successful on the home front as he has been on the overseas. The real need is for the Western powers not only to maintain their basic objectives, but to be more supple in applying them in the search for unity, and the beginning should be in a recognition that unity is more likely to come in a relaxation of general European tension. Complete ri gidity is in danger of defeating the ends it has in view. The Black revolt has many causes, but its basic power is that of the force of economic wretchedness. It is this wretchedness that techno logical change is threatening to exacerbate beyond endurance by auto mating out of existence many of the unskilled and skilled jobs Blacks hold. That the Black community is in the throes of profound economic crisis is evident from the unemployment figures. 186 187 Although military aviation can be said to have started in 1870 when balloons were used during the siege of Paris, it was not until the First World War that it became of substantial importance. It may be unprecedented, but it is not illogical for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to have used his Budget speech for announcing the Government's intention of hustling through Parliament an Act designed to shackle the trades unions. The Budget, like the preceding ones of this Government, has as its main objective to devalue our wage packets. The decision to rush through the anti-TU legislation is aimed at disarming the working people, and hampering them in their struggle to retain the real value of their hard-earned wage packets. It is a policy aimed at ensuring that any increase in either productivity or output should lead not to more wages, but to more profit... There can be no other explanation for the Chancellor's moan that increased production and productivity rose only four times as much as wages. The Congressman was deprived of his seat last month by vote of the House pending investigations by the special committee on the grounds that he had put taxpayers' money to his own use, flouted the law by refusing to pay libel damages, and evaded jail sentences imposed for contempt of court. One cannot expect to see as yet, any decisive change in the pattern of the economy in these countries. The change from developing country to a developed one is a huge task. If the capital needs of developing countries are particularly heavy, one must recognize that their absorptive capacity, on the other hand, re mains more limited than was the case of Europe in the nineteenth century. |