T HE SILENT SEMINARISTS By Our Industrial Correspondent !m en rarely
been necessary to take the Daily Herald's pro- ements seriously since it became the weak left arm of Pie; but its silences are sometimes significant, and its to pontificate about automation is one of them. te Standard dispute broke out, the editorial winches in their predetermined way, delivering the routine abuse of the Government to the Herald pithead. But r silence fell, because the Herald had no idea what Li line, let alone the TUC line, was going to be. Would lard workers be condemned for folly? Or praised for ? Nobody in the TUC knew; and everybody, not least r of the Herald, realised why nobody knew. The TUC ng the price for letting itself be captained by a figured her than a helmsman. It had made no advance plan to h the coming automation crisis; and when the crisis . it was helpless.
employers, admittedly, might still take the line that it the unions' business. They would be unwise; for, as r events have shown, if the unions do not act other less able groups will, and take credit for their action. The Company was tactless to push ahead with its auto- plans without making certain that its workers were on But the to can legitimately answer that it airaged to do so, in the absence of any direct negative TUC; and, again, the blame slides back on to the :adership. And to the charge of inaction the TUC has it feeble reply. It has been investigating automation; /11S have been held, views exchanged, and culs-de-sac IT has noun the Peop When the load of ihereafte the anioi Stan ess' the edit Payi "eild rati 4)Pe wit caught it some p'4110ne c ''aventr3 S4Qetac'unta -ndard !nation was side, 1" enec rciril th TUC's it 1,1,1.41e In silscussic thoroughly explored; but so far the only positive result of its deliberations appears to have been the convening of an inter- national seminar, for more discussions (it is to be held next week; presided over by, and given the benefit of the advice of, the President of the National Union of Boot and Shoe Opera- tives : evidently the habit of bringing up the hay after the horse has been stolen is not exclusive to Downing Street). What is needed is not seminars, not speeches, but a simple and forth- right statement of the TUC's views and intentions.
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