GHOSTS MARCH

Continued from page 1 depression years of the 1920s and '30's has gone into action again. Then, as now, the campaign is led by the leaders of the miners union.
At their head stands Mr. Will Paynter, who was doing the same thing in the days when the Welsh mining valleys, week after week, resounded to the tread of marching feet.
Place names which were constantly in the news in the stormy times of 25 years ago came back again last week-end -Maesteg. Aberdare, Rhondda, Ystrad, Maerdy (where Communist Arthur Horner—now general secretary of the National Union of M i neworkers—led the unemployed for years), Mountain Ash. Even the same old pits have come once more to the fore—Fernhill, Parc and Dare, Gelli, Porth, and Cambrian ..
More disturbing still is the fact that the slogans are the same. When the big depression first began in the 1920's the unemployed marched alone. By the 1930's the slogan was: " Unity of employed and unemployed."
"We must base our movement," said Mr. Paynter at Swansea on Sunday, "not on unemployed marches but on the unity of the employed and unemployed." According to the " Daily Worker " Mr. Paynter was cheered when he went on to say that " it may be necessary for the employed to exercise their defensive powers in their own self-defence ". That, quite clearly, was a threat of strike action.
As always
Probably some of those who cheered him now that he is the South Wales miners' president cheered him when he made almost the same demand in almost identical words in the days when he was an unemployed miners' leader. As always in South Wales, the miners marched behind their local bands and those from the pits where they are employed. As they marched they sang the hymns which they use as battle songs.
Most of the hymns they love best are in the minor key. They must have sounded even more sad than usual last Sunday, for they told of the bitterness of the past and the disillusionment of the present. That disillusionment is already great and may very well become greater. For the really striking thing about these new demonstrations is not just that the people, slogans, and character of the marches are the same as 25 years ago. The really saddening and disillusioning thing is that the psychology is the same. too.
Mine-owner
In those days the mine-owner personified for the unemployed miners all that was evil. Their resentment was directed against a visible, tangible opponent. They believed that, if they could get rid of the miee-ovvners and have a nationalised industry instead, men would no longer be thrown on the scrap heap. Unemployment would be a thing of the past.
Now -the industry has been nationalised. The " enemy " is a depersonalised, remote National Coal Board. And the threat of unemployment has returned. "As in the '20's—so in 1959." said some of the posters carried by the 10,000 anthracite miners who marched last Sunday. That, for a generation which believed that socialisation of the means of production would make an end of every problem, is a bitter commentary on present hard realities.
PRAY ON
SUNDAY
Continued from P. 1
any rate we can accept without making it a matter of political contention in the House."
Mr. David Logan, Labour Member for Liverpool, Scotland Division said " There can be no true education in this country without the knowledge of God, for I believe that the knowledge of God is the highest form of wisdom. The Jew has it; the Catholic has it; the Protestant has it. Credo in unurn Deum."
The Minister had given a broad hint in his opening address that our demand for help to build completely new Catholic schools would be considered, but beyond that he would not go.
Mr. Philip Bell, Conservative, and Member for Bolton, East, the second Catholic speaker after Mr. Logan, followed this up with the remark: " There is a strong feeling, quite possibly a majority feeling, among back benchers on both sides that there should be generous treatment in providing funds for the building of denominational ecbooli."