28 SEPTEMBER 1974, Page 3

Wreckers

Mr Foot, likewise, after numerous prevarications has now come down in favour of extending the rights of trade union pickets. There is but one end of such a policy, and it is industrial violence. However much Mr Foot is defended as a theoretician with his head in the air, a man noble and pure in soul, but somehow out of touch with the realities on the ground of Confrontation between those who want to work and those who do not, the fact of the matter is that the Secretary of State for Employment has given the encouragement of the state and the government to those who are willing to use whatever methods lie to hand to enforce their will on their work-fellows.

In every respect the Labour Party and this Labour government have shown themselves to be wreckers. They have set as a matter of deliberate policy, to destroy the profit motive, and with it British industry and all its capacity to produce the wealth the nation needs. They have set out, as a matter of deliberate Policy, to destroy the capacity of the Citizen to save. They have deliberately — and in the words of the Prime Minister, Who is so willing to consider his class allies as the only useful elements in the community — set section against section in the community. At almost every occasion on Which a vociferous, determined or manic element in society — from the striking hospital workers at Charing Cross to the activists led by Mr Hugh Scanlon — has striven to assert its own interests or predilections against the rest of society, then this government has taken their side. It would be sad indeed if the public were deceived by the show of amity which passed before us in charade at the trade union conference in Brighton. There can be no doubt that the so-called social contract will continue to exist throughout the period of an election campaign, for it is only thus that the Labour movement can suggest to a distracted public that Mr Wilson and his colleagues can at least deal successfully with the trade unions. If returned with a substantial majority, however, Labour will certainly be called upon to pay the price for that period of calm, and the price will be heavy, for the taxpayer, the non-union worker — anybody outside the massive cohorts of the larger unions.