,OCIETIT TODAY

The new Machines

Robert Ashley

I suppose the symbol of 0'sixties,

the cult-figure of that culiar

period, was Bob Dylan, the millionaire-protester. In his National Health glasses, his denim suite, "the badge of all our tribe", and his Curly hair, he crouched behind his guitar, and sang monotonous songs (literally: they were all mono-tones, at least the way he sang them), the words of which Were usually inaudible and when audible were usually incomprehensible. But every now and then, to show, that he was getting to the significant bit, he would strum the

guitar strings a bit louder and shout adenoidally the tremen dously percipient phrase, "The times they are a-changing". At Which point his audience would

hod appreciatively, applaud reaptorously, and Mr Dylan would

wave and walk away with another large cheque.

And what has all this got to do With the press? I hear your clamant voices ask. Just this. That Mr Dylan was right. The times are a-changing. They always have been. But they have also always been fixed points, Pole stars a man could steer his ship by. Not now. There were times when a man knew that his Daily Telegraph would be by the side of his breakfast eggs, come hell and high Water. Not any more, he doesn't. In fact, over the last week or two the Ill-ether of times the eggs have

been eaten Telegraph-less almost equals the other times. And the cause of all this? That Phrase which I have used so often am a little ashamed to have to use

Its again: the new technology. Because the Telegraph has been suffering the same sort of fate as the Mirror — in Manchester, that is. Y°11 may remember that, two

Weeks ago (Spectator, November 15), 1 told you how the Mirror men

th Manchester had walked out When they heard of the Mirror (-1rnop's plans to fire (I beg their

Pardon: to make redundant) about a third of their employees in Withy Grove, Manchester, leave onethird there, and bring the other

third down to London (Mancun

ians always come 'down' to London, and right and proper too). W, ell, exactly the same thing has

nappened to the Telegraph. Their Plans involve much the same reduction in staff as Withy Grove and the lads there don't like it, for

very understandable reasons. So there wasn't a Saturday Telegraph in the North and there wasn't one on Monday either. Manchester businessmen, who are being forced to talk to their wives over the breakfast table for lack of anything to hide behind, are naturally angry.

What, they ask, is going to be done? Well, I'm here to tell them they'd better get introduced to their wives all over again because they are likely to have to indulge in quite a bit more breakfast chit chat in the future: the troubles are not over yet, not by a very long chalk.

I happened to be with Mr William Deedes, the editor of the Daily Telegraph, the other night and he told me that his board had asked him up to Manchester last Friday to help them with the announcement to the Northern staff. "Well," said Bill, "I've handled some tough political meetings in my time" (he was, of course, a Minister and the MP for Ashford for years) "but I've never had such a tough time in my life. I can assure you that telling a group of 137 men that ninety of them are going to lose their jobs is not the pleasantest of tasks". I'll bet it isn't. Since Mr Deedes is a master of the understatement, it seems likely that the task was in fact nasty in the extreme. And he seemed to think — although I may be reading more into him than he intended — that there is a very rough time still ahead. Up to now, therefore, everything seems to be much as it has always been: managements trying to secure modernisation and economies, and unions resisting the proposals. So what was all that stuff about Bob Dylan and the a-changing times supposed to mean? 1 hear your even more clamant voices asking. Just this. That on Monday, all the print unions, with the exception of the engineers, met at King's Cross to work out what they are going to do in the future. This is almost unprecedented: though workers of the world may constantly be urged to unite, many of them do not seem to find the invitation attractive, the print unions least of all. So what did they decide? Well, they published a 500-word statement which contained the usual ritual messages: "The unions reject completely any assertion that the levels of manning and existing working methods are the main cause of the industry's difficulties". Of course not. There is no main cause. There are many causes. But that is no reason for not trying to eliminate some of them, especially if they are major ones. And "levels of manning and existing working methods" are just such major factors.

However, having got that off their chests, the print unions then went on to say; "But it is accepted that the more effective use of manpower at all levels and the introduction of new technology requiring a smaller force could be a contributing factor to reducing the production costs of national newspapers".

Callloo, callay! o frabjous day! he chortled in his joy. That is possibly the most important paragraph about newspapers you have ever read in your life. So go back and read it again if you really care about the subject. The unions are there, in black and white, admitting, as Mr Joe Wade of the National Graphical Association did so courageously a month or two back, that there is overmanning in the industry; that there is resis: tance to the new technology; and that both will have to go if the industry is to survive.

After the meeting, Mr Bill Keys, of SOGAT, not the most notoriously forward:looking of unions, was quoted as saying: "There was a broad consensus by the unions right across the board that something has got to be done. As one official put it, we have got to get out of the horse-and-buggy stage into the motor car age" — not a bad remark, since the Linotype machine still in general use is just about as old as the motor car. He then went on to say: "We are not in a game of Russian roulette. We have no intention of allowing employers to blow our members' brains out, and if we blow their brains out, we have no newspapers anyway".

This refreshing air of realism gives me so much hope for the future, just as it looked as though we were all going to commit collective suicide, that I feel like shouting Gallo° Callay! . oh, sorry, I've done that already. But you can see why I'm in such high spirits, I hope?