LITTLE LEARNING
THE controversy surrounding the closure Of the St Pancras Reference Library by the London Borough of Camden is further evidence of the moral decline of modern municipal socialism. Obliged by the con- sequences of its own irresponsible profliga- cy to make economies, Camden has chosen to close the admirable and efficient library, which is in the poorest part of the borough and used by woiking people. The space is to be let to an advertising agency. Opposi- tion to this asset-stripping has been treated with both indifference and ruthlessness. Camden's public libraries consume only some 2.2 per cent of the borough's annual budget. (Camden is, in fact, one of the richest local authorities in the country.) Libraries are not only an essential concom- itant of civilisation but also a vital oppor- tunity for some of those whom Camden's councillors affect to be so concerned ab- out. The silence of the national Labour Party over the behaviour of its adherents in Camden Town Hall is significant. There was a time when socialism envisaged the transformation of society through educa- tion and enlightenment. Knowledge is power and education is as necessary as ever: one of the principal objectors to the closure of the St Pancras Library was the National Union of Railwaymen whose members in the nearby termini use it to study for examinations. But modern social- ism would seem to require the realisation of an egalitarian utopia not through mutual uplift but through common barbarism. Public libraries, those precious legacies of high-minded philanthropy, are equally at risk from the philistine dogmatism of both political parties.
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