NEWSPAPER OF THE LSE STUDENTS' UNION
No. 131
SEPTEMBER 25th. 1974 FREE
Students' Union
st a r ves gets the cream
BRITISH LIBRARY OF POUnCM-JECOIIOHIC SQEKtt
1 ^1990
MONEY has been lavished on the new Director, Dr. Half Dah-rendorf, by the LSE whilst it was telling the Students' Union that its grant is to remain at last year's inadequate level.
The confirmation of rumours about the expenditure on welcoming the new Director, came in The Times (Sept. 18th), and left Union officials expressing horror at the treatment they have received.
The Students' Union, which only just broke even last year, because it received £2,500 in part settlement of the 1971-72 dispute and made a record £5,000 profit on its trading activities, is expected to be heavily in the red by the end of this year.
This is because the per capita grant is to remain at £5.40, which is the lowest of any Uni-
versity in Britain, whilst high inflation and student demands for increased activity, will have to be met. In view of the seriousness of the situation, we print the following report that appeared in The Times :
"Some of the senior staff at the London School of Economics are sui-prised at the expenditure which is being incurred to make accommodation ready for the school's new director. Dr. Ralf Dahrendorf, who arrives from the European Com-ftiission at the end of the month.
The director's flat in The Anchorage, an 18th century house in Clements Inn Passage, is being remodelled to suit Dah-rendorfs requirements. The small sitting room is being extended, and a bridge is being built to make easier access to a room at the back which will be-
come the director's library.
Professor R. Dahrendorf.
The director's official room in Connaught House overlooking
Aldwych is also being refurnished and reglazed, and a false ceiling is being put in to cover the old one which had been smothered in thermoplastic tiles.
The assistant bursar in charge of the operations says the alterations are no more than is required to bring the accommodation up to a decent modern standard. Even so, 'it is not up to the same standard which would normally be enjoyed by a man of Dr. Dahrendorf's standing, but this is not the European Commission.'
Dahrendorf, it is admitted, has strong ideas of his own. The furniture which Sir Walter Adams quietly inherited from Sir Sidney Caine is being removed to make way for something more in accord with Dahrendorf's modern taste.
One senior professor takes a dim view and told me : 'In these
times when the universities are bankrupt, running on overdrafts and not allowed any more money for inflation, I am perturbed to find that we are spending rather a lot of money on things which do not appear necessary. Gutting a serviceable room and remaking it at a time of such astringency seems particularly ofl'ensive.'"
But what matters now, is not past deceit or any petty wrangling between academics, but that the welfare of the students, which has always taken a back seat, is given the kind of . support it truly deserves. By far the best way the new Director could make an immediate impression upon the LSE, is to see that its students are adequately provisioned. In this light we welcome Dr. Dahrendorf.
P.T.
BY October 11th, Britain will probably start a new era for better or worse. The General Election results, however, will not put an end to the worst crisis this country has faced since 1929. Rather it will be the beginning of either finding a real solution to it through genuine socialism or plunging into a violent path of fascism and anti-union bashing.
The crisis has three facets:— political, economic and social.
Politically, the shortest Parliament in modern British history has already done a great deal to diffuse the worst dangers we faced for decades. These dangers were intensified by the
Circus doesn't fool
Government of Heath, Barber, Carr and Whitelaw, in their attempt to emasculate the trade unions first by a vicious policy of unemployment (to which Powell and Sir Keith Joseph want to return) and then by an equally vicious policy of infia-tion.
Indeed the Labour Government toned down the Party's programme, which is another example of opportunism in its Right-wing leadership. But the Party's definite shift to the Left is a healthy sign for the future.
There remains, however, the cooked-up ascendancy of Liberalism and the desperate state of mind among the Conservatives. They are drawing closer together because they were in reality, always the same. The Election is not likely to give the green flash, either to another Conservative government or to a coalition. Too much is at' stake to return to those men and policies that led to the Three-day "Week.
If the Tories do regain governmental power, they will do the
job of destroying the trade unions; if not they will ride the neo-Fascist horse. Lack of uncertainty about the future is behind the recent activation of private armies. But either way it will be Fascism all the same, albeit a la Conservatives.
Economically, there is a worsening balance of payments. Too many imports have made future external balance of payments adverse and dangerous, and that is in spite of the improvement in exports and the favourable effects of devalua-
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tion on the terms of trade. One " i-eason other than imports, is the huge defence expenditure and a massive outflow of capital. Arab money flowing in has not been much help.
Socially, recent studies on the distribution of wealth support the old fact that we are a long way from a cohesive and harmonious society. Calls for national unity are meaningless until sacrifices started by those who can afford them; the 20% of the population who control and own 89% of the country's wealth. A future Labour government must direct its policy not only to the nationalisation of North Sea oil, etc., but also to heavy taxes on the rich and restrictions of both imports (mostly luxurious) and the outflow of capital.
Labour victory or not, the real battle has already started.
Plea for help
Will all students and staff members Inform Lindsay Lewis, the Students' Union Welfare Officer, of any vacant accommodation which other students could use.
BEAVER. Sept. 25th, 1974—Page Two
UNION NEWS
Exec. Break
THE working of the Students' Union over the summer vacation is usually characterised by frantic preparation for the Freshers' Conference rather than constitutional problems. However, events over this summer have revealed an important area of the constitution opeti to a dangerous dual interpretation. The Union Annual General Meeting at the end of last term passed a motion undertaking to pay two members of the Executive Committee to work for the Union over the summer vacation. As a finance motion it had the required seven days' notice, and the quorum at the meeting was never challenged.
A few days into the vacation Abe Oppel expressed doubts about the validity of the decision, on the grounds that the constitution requires a quorum of 150 full members of Union for a finance motion to be approved. Previous precedent shows that quorum has always been assumed present at meetings unless actually challenged. Reference to the minutes of the meeting showed that no figures had been noted. Mr Oppel declared himself to be not satisfied that the motion was constitutional and said that he would raise the matter at a Union Meeting at the first available opportunity. The watchdog over arguments centering around the constitution, the Constitution Committee, was unable to meet during the summer, so there could be no real resolution of this.ambiguitj' until October. This put the Union Finance Assistant in an awkward position, as he is ultimately responsible to the Finance Committee for Union Funds, and so felt forced to terminate the payment of the two E^xecutive Members, after vi^hich they could no longer afford to continue to work for the Union.
Two important points come out of this. Firstly, there i; an important facet of the Constitution which is open to dual interpretation. This has to be cleared up by deciding either,
(a)	a meeting which is inquorate but has not had the quorum challenged, can pass a financial motion, or,
(b)	only quorate meetings (i.e. 150 people) can pass a financial motion
The appropriate body to decide this is the Constitution Committee, whose decision will have to be ratified by a quorate Union Meeting.
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, in the future some sort of adequate provision for the working of the Union over the summer must be made, so that the Union's employees are not forced into positions where they have to take decisions that are the responsibility of the students. An ad-hoc committee that is .s^iven powers to decide everything but whose decisions have to be ratified by a quorate Union Meeting, seems to be the best answer. This committee should be elected by a quorate Union Meeting at the end of the Spring (Lent) Term.
A;jove all, we must ensure that the work lost and the effort wasted'in argument over this summer is not repeated.
CHRIS WELLS/PT
Handy Book?
I SAY. there's a mistake in the LSE Union Handbook '74. And it's on the third line of the Editorial on Page Three. Expletive is not spelt expletic, or oh shit. Bucolic ends with a 'c' and could be the reason the Editors made, for politicians, a fundamental error in claiming that the Three Tuns Bar serves etc's. That's on Page Five.'
On the same page the Union Shop has very low prices, consist-,ent v.'ith it generating income to pay for stock, pay the manager, pay from year to year and "supply a source of income." Tell it to Harrods 1 Next, Page Seven. The Executive Committee of the SU has unilatei-ally been reduced from 12 members to 10. Gone in the putsch are Bob Boyton. Academic Affairs, and Ono Osakwe, Entertainments. It is gratifying to see that the Editors retained their positions.
On Page Eight there is the wonderful claim that members of the EC "are always at Union Meetings." It's just that I've seen people collapse on reading that. And I can't see the joke. It'll also be interesting to see if, as is claimed on Page Eight, that the accounts for 73-74 do get posted. To whom, or where it doesn't say, but as they haven't been completed yet (September 18th), I'll advise you not to worry.
"What is a little confusing is the debacle around Pages 33-37. I zipped forward t6 this section because I have a special inteirest in Finance and will advise you forthwith, to read the pages in the following order if you are to make any sense of them. Page 33, then 34, followed by 36, back to 35, and then retrace your footsteps, to end up at 37.
At this point, I put the Handbook down to write a short article . . .	p,T,
The last of the few
THERE can be few less gratifying voluntary occupations than being a member of the Executive Committee of the LSE Union. The aspiring political operator runs immediately into a blank wall of cynicism and contempt amongst the students. Further, he soon discovers that the gems of political office within the Union give little scope to the exercise of either idealism or power. Such has been the case for many years and, no doubt, will be so for years to come.
The pattern is always the same. Elections follow a brief period of manifestoes, little debate and much political horse-trading between the nefarious groupings of the student Left (remember, the Right counts for nought, except imbecility, in student politics at LSE). With luck, 600 members of Union will actually vote and, once the elections are over, LSE is lucky to have a quorate Union meeting (quorum : 150) for the next few months.
This can hardly be surprising, for little happens until, usually around Easter, the Left, ever eager to please the freshers, decides on a beano, a spot of bovver. All has been quiet and peaceful up to then, but there follows a quick occupation or whatever (1973—occupation and the attack on Professor Eysenck; 1974—tame controversy over Sabbatical Officer-ships and the "Racists and Fascists" resolution from NUS), Of course, all to no avail, especially to whichever grouping of the Left remains in control of the Exec., for now the "mass of ordinary students" come to the "specially convened,"' "Extraordinary Union Meeting'' and rap them over the knuckles. The Exec, all but collapses in recriminations and the resignations of its last surviving members.
It happened last year. By the end of the Executive's term of office at the end of the Summer Term. 1974, only four Exec, members remained — Paul Cockerell, Chris Hoyland, Dave Kenvyn and Raul Sohr. The
other eight had resigned, leaving even the Executive Committee inquorate (quorum : eight).
Such facts are rarely in dispute, it happens too often. But as to the reasons, that's a different matter. The usual ploy is that Union is not relating sufficiently well enough to the vast majority of students at the LSE, i.e. the members of the Union. This is because Union meetings are held at an awkward time (Friday, 4 p.m.). The all too common scenes of constitutional wrangling and political infighting ; the Constitution being used as a wet towel thrown in the face of one group after another to confound them and their devious designs.
By the end of the first term things have settled down into their usual pattern with only three types of people going to Unicwi meetings. The old hand politicos, the foolhardy and any rash enough to think that, as an occasional visitor, they can get something done or even a motion passed and, finally, behavioural psychologists and anyone else who's game for a good laugh.
The politicos do all right, in fact, if truth be known, many of them like the system as it is, for they get their pet motions on multifarious topics passed as well as receiving their Vv'eekly "fix" of intrigue and controversy. The latter group also enjoys the system and, only in their most morbid stupors, consider the prospect of refoi-m. Those in the middle either get taken under the wing of one of the dominant groups or leave very quickly, neither wishing to be frustrated nor being suckers for punishment.
The depleted number of members remaining on the Executive Committee at the end of its year of office needs little explanation for, as in any organisation, resignation is a politically useful means of making a point. The
lack of interest in Union affairs shown by most students is probably also very easy to explain. The often-quoted arguments of the structural failings of Union (e.g. the timing of meetings), of the political in-fighting and the constitutional procrastination count for very, little in it.
Those who would wish us all to flock to Union meetings and pass motions of condemnation of this and that or vote the money to send a telegram of support to our fraternal comrades here or there have got to realise the total lack of interest that most students have not only for this sort of ego-lifting activity but also in the transient and very unrealistic world of student politics anyway. On the whole they justly regard student politics as a trendy and meaningless load of old cobblers!
But if you do want a reform of Union, and perhaps I had just better mention a little idea I've had, don't ask for more LSE related matters to be discussed at the Union, lest they become an even more ridiculous charade of discussions on anything from the colour-scheme of the bound copies of ''Econo-mica" in the Library, to the aesthetic considerations of the stems of alternative teaspoons to be provided in the refectory.
Rather look to the Executive, The four members left at the end of last term will be holding the fort (dealing with little matters like the induction of freshers, and the arrangement of society grants) until new elections can be organised, despite the expiry of their lease of office in June. Perhaps we ought to thank them. Perhaps we ought to have staggered elections, October and April, say, so that there are always six Executive members, not counting resignations, confirmed in office and able to carry on Union business over the long vacation.
No newly arrived freshers will be disenfranchised and, providing those students leaving in the summer are not allowed to stand for election in April, a few Executive members may exist in October, probably the most crucial time for Union administration.
PETER CAPEL.
SCHWANENGESGANG
"WELL, what does the L.S.E. Union face in the next twelve months ?
It seems to me that there are two main issues.
First, the constitution of the Union needs radical alteration. As it is at present, I reckon that it would provide full-time work for at least three lawyers. If it is not Byzantine, it is labyrinthine, and if it is not labyrinthine, it is incomprehensible. "What is needed is a constitution of no more than two pages, and if there is any dispute, reference can be made to some book
such as Citrine's book on Chairmanship.
Second, sooner or later, the Union will have to have sabbatical officers, thus achieving the same status as the rest of the Students Unions in the country. After all, why should L.S.E. be the only union in the country without full - time officers ? I don't see why we should deprive ourselves of full-time workers for some idiotic "principle".
"What has blighted Union activity not just here but in other universities as well has been the idea of transferring
"sovereignty to the union meeting"—and then finding union meetings invariably inquorate, The people who propose this should be told that they have effectively castrated the Union.
"With inquorate meetings, nothing is done.
The big question now is nOt how to mobilise the Unioft around a few "revolutionary"" slogans, but how to involve the mass of students in the day-today work. The people who caft successfully solve this problem ' will gain the leadership of the Union.
They deserve to.
JOE CUMMINGS
Felicity's Diary
AT last the long wet summer is over. I spent two damp weeks with my friend, Imagine camping-in France. It is frightfully-difficult for someone as politically conscious as myself (after one year at the L.S.E.) to go somewhere which isn't fascist. Portugal is all the vogue at the moment with its new regime and all that. I believe the International Socialists ran a shuttle service to Lisbon and back. I understand the language barrier was a problem because phrase books don't include things like "where are your working • class ?" "hullo, working class, let me raise your consciousness", "lead me to your shop steward", "how about a strike ?" etc.
Imagine and I found that French students were most interested in the L.S.E. They had heard it was a terribly political place. We put them right. I wonder where they got the reputation (the French I mean) for being sexy. The most they did was to kiss Imagine's
occupations for silly reasons, although I can't quite remember what the last one was for, try and fit your occupation in with a strike at Fords or something. For your speech the word "solidarity" always goes down well, except "solidarity with the Chelmsford Young Conservatives", that's not funny.
ADVICE
During the occupation you will be sleeping all night at the L.S.E. Bring a good secure sleeping bag with a hood to cover your face. This should stop strangers in the night popping in for a quick one. You will notice that as the night wears on members of political groups tend to segregate themselves into separate rooms. The CP and Broad Left (I will explain what they are later) will drink themselves into a soft soporific stupor and are quite safe to be .with. The more extreme groups will either try to recruit you or sonojething more intimate. Do neither. A plea will be made before the occupation for people to do security.
for some reason. Could it be that it was produced by two of his cronies! (that's gossip!). He is president of U.L.U., which is that empty building in Malet Street, and president of vice at the N.U.S., which is the place that gives out travel cards and has conferences and belongs to you ! John Carr is a member of an organisation called the Broad Left, which is sort of political. They like Moscow and don't like Trotskyists.
CHRIS HOYLAND
Also belongs to the Broad Left, but is a real-life member of the Communist Party, which is political. He has a round face and smiles nicely and you can't really dislike him. He doesn't often speak at Union Meetings unless the Broad Left can't find anyone else. He is fond of climbing mountains and going ^ to Bermuda for his summer hols. Member of S.U. Executive.
PAUL COCKERELL
Also a buddy of John Carr. Paul likes N.U.S. Conferences and other members of the Broad
PEOPLE IN THE NEWS
Chris Hoyland '
(right)
Paul Cockerell
(left)
hand and she was wearing that very small bikini the whole time too !
Now comrades, brothers and sisters the occupation term is here ! I am .girding (guarding) ' my loins in readiness. For new readers the Michaelmas Term is a whow for events, even Union Meetings are quorate, and with increased fees at the halls of residences and a brand new Dii-ector, who can tell what exciting things will happen.
If you personally want an occupation in order to make friends and influence people, go along to the Union Meeting on Friday and propose it, almost certainly someone from the International Socialists or Inter-National Marxist Group will second it for you. Of course, the L.S.E. students don't have
Think about it carefully, at least you will have a torch and can see what you are doing! Last of all, don't drink too much, it can be embarrassing the next day.
PEOPLE
The L.S.E. is a frightfully gossipy pjace. I hate it myself and I try in my diary to be ever so fair to everybody. That's why I ?m often called a liberal. You will hear people saying "John Carr has got his hair cut" or "Paul Cockerel! is pregnant." And then there is political gossip, "IMG has joined the Broad Left" etc. You may
well say, who the---- cares ?
But I will fill you in a bit on the more familiar names.
JOHN CARR
Three times appears on this year's Union Handbook
Left. He often makes speeches at Union Meetings and does it jolly well too ! Member of S.U. Executive.
DAVID KENVYN
Dear David has been with us all a very, very long time. He also belongs to the Broad Left. Don't get the idea that the Broad Left is a huge organisation, it is just -that the people who belong to it like running the Union. He is innocuous. Member of S.U. Executive.
CHRIS WELLS
Chris is what you would call a standing fixture in the Union offices. He would like to be a member of the S.U. Executive and is standing for General Secretary.
KEN MULLER
A member of an organisation called the International Socialists. Cuddly Ken does not like
"in-groups or cliques in the L.S.E. Union and does not want to be included on this list," which is strange as the I.S. are one of the most sectarian groups at the L.S.E. Ken makes loads of speeches at Union Meetings and is very excitable and fairly inarticulate, but he makes up for it by pointing his finger.
The International Socialists
have not got a piece about themselves in the Handbook this year. The reason for this is that they get so excited about things that they forgot to write anything.
There are lots of other groups abounding here at the L.S.E., the Conservative Society is ever so good socially as they are always good for a laugh.
The student who is the editor
of this issue of "Beaver" is called PETER TIMMINS and it
is not true that we are going together, we are just very good friends and anyway I don't like men with beards. I must finish now and get my clothes ready for the Freshers' Conference. I am a student host now so watch it!
FELICITY
'DEAR DAVID"
THE PEER-ELE LIMITED EDITION OF
THE LSE
1974-75 CALENDAR
IN this presentation of the Calendar each original addition has been pawed by hand, using a style of lettering which remains at all times subservient to the noble endeavour of Higher Education. The edition is limited to 260 numbered copies of which 378 are being offered for sale at £147.52 each.
Mrs June Wedgwood Benn, M.A. and "Bernie" Donoughue, M.A., D.Phil., both of the Grand Court of Governors, have written an Introduction, and will personally sign each copy.
The book is printed in four colours, black, white, maroon and gold, on French hand-made mass produced vellum and bound in full Niger Rubberised Latex. This is an abounding achievement, a prospectus of which can be obtained in a plain wrapping on request from the publishers. The prospectus gives details of the life and the natural photography of Senor Peer-Ele, whose erections to the natural arts figure abundantly throughout the Calendar.
Members of the Peer-Ele's mailing list will have received advance information concerning this work. The subscription list for this fine edition opens to the public on September 30th, when orders for the remaining copies will be recorded and fulfilled in strict rotation by Mr G. Ashley, the company's Registrar.
EYRE-ON SPOTTISBUM PRESS LTD. (Publishers), one of the CIA Group of Companies, Sontiogo, Chiie.
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BEAVER, Sept. 25th, 1974—Page Fom-
Opinion
Dissatisfaction
widespread at LSE
Lecturers - 1st year
Group la
o
c
lib c
Ilia
b c d 8
IVa
Uc
£
f
Via
c d
Law
	Number of Replies	¦7f Very Good	cf Good	% Neutral	CO CD	cf p Very Bad
Economics A R Richardson	29	10	24	21	28	
K Klappholz	31	-	10	29	22	J9
Economics B mj Desai	35	6	31	29	23	11
Intro to IKlath Econ S3 Nickall	3	34	33	33		
Alg & Kleth of Anal A Beck	9		45		44	11
Intro to Anal & Set Th KG Binrnore	3	100				a.
Elem of Stat [ileth CA 0'IKluircheartaiqh	8	13	62	25		_
D3 Raid	u	~	"	-	11	89
Elem Stat Th KF UJallis	13	61	31	8		
Quant fflsth for Econs fOAffl Smith	21	24	62	14	_	•
Intro to Logic C Houjson	4	-	25	_	-	75
Intro to Sci IKleth JlUN Uiatkins	3	6	34	33	33	-
iKlod Pol & Gout B Donouqhue	20	30	55	15	-	-
GUJ Jonas	18	If	t)±	L(		-
P30 Self	19 '	S 1 S/		lb		s
Eng Lsgal Insts Gffl 3acob	17	-	18	41	23	18
ra Zander	28	Zb	54	18	¦ 3	-
Struct of Internat Soc AW 3am8S	14	7	29	43	7	14
Internat Laiii LDfrt Nelson	9 .	11	11	56	11	11
Econ Hist, UK & USA DE Baines	4		50	50	_	.
CO Erickson	3	-	100	-	-	-
3 Potter	3	34	-	-	33	33
Polit Hist 1789-1941 IDS Anderson	6	17	67	16	.	.
Elll Robinson	6	- -		34	33	33
lUorld Hist since 1390 GA GrUn	11	18	27	55		.
Hist Euro Ideas since 1700 3B 3oll	5	40	20.	40		
0 fflcKay .	4	-	50	50	-	-
Intro to Sociology PS Cohen	29	24	45	21	10	_
EI Hopper	27	-	4	18	30	48
OG hlacRae	ZZ	-	55	45	-	-
Intro to Psychology GD Gaskell	9	22	67	11		
BA Gerber	y	45	33	22	-	-
Pa-iiic of Soc Anth 3 Pitt-Riuers	14	29	: 36	14	14	7
Human Geography DKC 3ones	$	34	33	33		.
f(13 Uiise	9	22	33	45	-	-
Property 3S Anderson	7		71	29		
TM Partington	4	-	50	50	-	-
SA Roberts	7	29	42	29	-	-
Contract C Grunfeld	7	29	42	29	_	
IflA Pickering	7	- .	42	58	-	
Public Lauj Outside Speakers	6	.	17	33		50
ci & Admin Social History 3F Harris	8	63	37			
logy Statistics D3 Bartholomeuj	15	13	13	27	20	27
Soc Surveys Cffl Phillips	8		38	25	12	25
Soc Struct of fdod Br WC Burraqe	3	67	_	33		
RT flic Kenzie	3	-	34	66	-	-
3H Uiesterqaard	3	-	67	33		
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Law
THE intention of the questionnaire was to bring out into the open the feelings of as many L.S.E. students about the L.S.E., in all its aspects, academic as-well as social. Generally, the replies to the questionnaire have not been favourable; the academic as well as the social life at the L.S.E. have been strongly criticised by the replies of the first-year students.
There were, however, some exceptions. Overall, the feeling reflected in the survey showed that L.S.E, was an impersonal place. There were inadequate facilities for undergraduate students and there was little Staff/Students communication. "The first year was a waste of time." As one student put it, "The L.S.E. is alienating, unfriendly, and bureaucratic."
The courses that have been unfavourably commented upon are Economics A and Introduction to Sociology. Economics B has been described as "fucking awful." No other course has been mentioned which shows that there are a great number of people at the L.S.E. who are very apathetic to say the least.
Hopper and Professor Bartholomew have been slammed, the former as being "pathetic but funny" There is a distinct lack of communication between lecturers and students as well.
The Teaching- Library was also criticised mainly because it was inefficient and the books could not be had at the proper time. The system of reservation slips had its inadequacies; they kept getting lost. Too often the more widely and commonly used text books were in short supply.
The feeling was that L.S.E. was very much a research oriented place, that undergraduates were left to their own devices. The lecturers and class teachers were' more concerned with their own research work rather than the welfare of their students.
The price of food and the quality of food in the Refectory was also criticised. A lot of money for a lot of inedible food. "Savoury mince looks like sludge from some sewage works and its taste was indescribable."
The second-year students' reflections on life at the L.S.E. were comparable to that of first-year students. The services in the Main Library were considered to be inadequate.
Some comments were forthright. "Prais must go" and "the School should not allow Fascists such as Devletoglou to teach any of its courses."
In general, lecturers tend to be more academically sound than class teachers. But there are many apathetic ones around who could not care less whether or not you learned anything: An example of this sort is Dr. Mishan.
Lack of communication between academic staff and students was pointed out again by many of the replies to the questionnaire. "The Court of Governors Is out of touch with the problems of students"; they only take a superficial interest in looking after the welfare of students.
Typifying this unrealistic view of the student world is "the major preoccupation and concern for better academic facilities, for example, the new Library rather than with improving social life and making L.S.E. a more humane place to live and work in."
The Students' Union also came
under attack as it could not be taken seriously by anyone with, responsibility because of its farcical election procedures and ideological infighting.
Much of student politics at L.S.E. was considered to be sterile. This could be attributed to the general apathy in the student body.
There was a call to strengthen community feelings at L.S.E. and one of the ways by which this could be achieved was to have students wearing gowns!
Put briefly, "L.S.E. is a cultural void, paintings, murals and other decorations are in extremely short supply. The School fails to inspire."
"The L.S.E. could do with brightening up its image." One feels that one is hemmed in on all sides and there is a general fieel-ing of claustrophobia."
The examination system came under scrutiny as well. A large number thought that the preseut system should be scrapped and replaced by continuous assessment. Examinations as they are held at the moment have no objectivity in them.
Courses are too examination oriented and consequently students did not develop any particular in^ terest in them.
Again people found that the academic staff are more interested in their research than with their students. Alienation is very much in evidence.
Third - year undergraduates expressed similar feelings as those who were In the first and second . years.
A lecturer is appointed for a probationary period of five years at •L.S.E. If the Governors and Staff (but not the students) think he is any good he is there for life. Thus you cannot get rid of him.
In the Economics Department "Mr Lucien Poldes must be the worst lecturer" and "Mr Devletoglou the worst class teacher".
"After his first class nine out of 12 asked to be moved. After the second class two more students asked to leave. A special enquiry was instituted by the Economics Department as to why nobody liked Mr Devletoglou."
J. C. R. Chanet and A. Sked were "dreadful".
Another grouse was that teachers were too busy to see their tutees. An example given was Dr. French.
Some students had enjoyed life at the L.S.E. but not for academic reasons. Lectures were generally a waste of time, classes could have been longer and seminars more numerous. Eight papers for one degree was a bit too much.
"Garth Plowman of the Social Administration Department is a useless convener. The course is run badly extinguishing all enthusiasm that existed on arrival. However. Plowman as teacher is fine."
In conclusion, most of the reacr tion of the inmates of L.S.E. was unfavourable to the Institution. Lack of social and recreational facilities combined with staid academic courses contributed to the disaffection among the students.
People at L.S.E. tended to form their own little cUques which made for lack of communication among the students themselves.
Campus atmosphere at the School was non-existent. This added to the pissed off feelings of the students.
It is hoped that the shortcomings mentioned in this Survey are rectified so that the L.S.E. becomes a better place, and both the student body and the Administration work towards this end.
A.M.
BEAVER, Sept. 25th, 1974—Page Five
Leisure
Food
AFTER the hols, I do hope we are in for some culinary surprises this year. I can well remember the last time I enjoyed the Director's menu on Thursday, September 12th, 1974. The hors d'oeuvres included a most delicious Smoked Salmon followed by Roast Lamb with glazed peas and carrots. The Chateau Potatoes tended to have not enough little sprigs of parsley, although I must admit it was delightful to have new potatoes out of season. The wine was a good Chateau La Joncarde (1971), although I myself would have preferred a 1967 Beaujolais. My most delightful surprise, of course, was the cost. The Director seems to have a penchant for passing this on to the students with the result that in these troubled times of price rises, one can still obtain a good meal, gratis.
Unfortunately I have not had time to recover from the following day's refectory meal. I experienced a decided taste of spun soya bean. How they managed to encase it in a mackerel skin, and include the
fish bones, I have yet to discover. The minced beef and vegetable pie (22p) fared slightly better although one had difficulty in experiencing the taste of anything resembling mince. No doubt with the beef mountain having to be dispensed with, we may be able to look forward to an increase in the meat content of this dish. I have very little to say about the spaghetti provencale (17p) except that it is still lodged somewhere within my bowels. My doctor has told me to mix
sulphuric acid with my tea (in small quantities of course) in the hope that this substance will facilitate the breakdown of this spaghetti provencale.
The vegetables are, of course, the hand-me-downs from the Director's lunch and the Senior Common Room. At least one could argue that it did once grace the plates of those higher up. The price would, however.
seem to be on the steep side, averaging 6p per portion.
I was sorry to hear that the Senior Common Room will not be graced by those imported continental waitresses. One. will miss pinching a bottom between courses. I expect that we should be consoled by the fact that prices are to remain as they were before. Another sad development is that our new premises in Roseberry Avenue will not be licensed. No doubt this is due to the crisis this country is facing. I feel that all students should be teetotal but then the dears may have too much time to think.
GASTON GNOME
Music
YOUR beloved Ents Committee swings back into action again this term with a fine and varied programme of musical entertainments for your pleasure. We do of course hope that it will remain as scheduled but we seem to have been rather fated this year having lost appearances by Weather Report, Tangerine Dream and Leo Sayer, due to various cock ups and, appearances by lOcc and Magma scheduled for this term ha\e similarly been postponed.
However we do still have an excellent term's entertainment lined up including three exclusive London appearances, those
being Stefan Grossman (October 26th), Manfred Mann's Earthband (November 9th) and the second date of term. The Johnny Rivers Boogie Band. We open with the freshers' dance on September 28th featuring The JSD Band and comedian/folk singer Bill Barclay. The JSD Band are an ideal freshers' band with their bright entertaining interpretations of traditional material. Despite recent line-up changes they are as good as ever and feature old favourites like "The Cuckoo",' "Fishin' Blues", and "The Fox", as well as some very fine new material.
A week later on October 5th we have The Johnny Rivers Boogie Band and the Mike Storey Band. Johnny, with
many gold singles and albums under his belt after over a decade of success in the music business is on his first tour of Britain as part of a lengthy continental sojourn. With a fine looking backing band, including Ric Gretch, and Zoot Money, and a fine new album "Road", Johnny plays at L.S.E. after a month of continental dates with an appearance on the Whistle Test also scheduled for early October. His appearance at L.S.E. will undoubtedly be one of the highlights of the year.
The remainder of the term's programme is as follows :
October 26th—Stefan Grossman
plus Undercarriage
November 9th—Manfred Mann's
Earthband plus Rod Felton November 16th — Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers plus a band called "O".
JOHNNY RIVERS
We are also planning to hold regular discos in the bar and would welcome any bright ideas as to what else we can do. Ents meetings will be held at 1 p.m. every Thursday in SI 18 and all those interested are invited to • attend.
R.R.
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BEAVER. Sept. 35tli, 1974—Page Sue
Teach-in: the Undergraduate
The letter (opposite)/ from Liz Curtis, led us to the note below, and on from that to the whole question of the Undergraduate, Staff consultative "system," as discussed below that note.
THE LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIEKC£
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'It is obvious that the UG-Staff consultative 'system' needs over-hauling'
THIS article deals only with Staff / Student Committees and the Undergraduate Studies Committee.
SSCs
Most departments have an SSC (see below for those that don't), at which students can discuss with staff any matter relating to their department, with the view to obtaining a change, or refusal. Knowing where the parameters of a Department's definition of itself are, is vital knowledge if any discussion is to progress and not wing endlessly around in whirlpools. Topics discussed can range from course criticism, helped in compiling this information.
Anyone can decide what is to be discussed if they get it on the agenda (for this see the list of secretaries below), and they turn up to the meeting. We hope to be able to tell you when your SSC is going to meet and what is decided, through these columns or through the Daily News sheet. This will be possible because of the kind co-operation of some of the Depart-
mental secretaries who have tionship to the rest of the LSE is as follows :
It is impossible to over-stress the importance of these official channels of communication, for though informal contacts can bring in the goods, they are more often than not used as sidings in which to lose them. But SSCs must be used with care ; they are not ends in themselves (see Some Recommendations). Their rela-which appears to be the most frequent, although not the most popular topic with some people, to questions about lecturers, tutors and the organisation of the Department.
The Court of Governors (the rubber stamp of the LSE ; very much a PRO exercise) ...
The Director (Sir Walter Adams' 'traffic controller')
The Undergraduate Studies Committee (one of 32 under his 'cont^-ol') . . . Staff/Student Committees (supposedly 16 of these. Their minutes go to the use on a voluntary basis.
DEAR BEAVER, — There is widespread mystification, about staff-student committees. Some (many ?) are not functioning at all: and—which is worse, in at least one department a committee has been operating, without students knowing about it.
Here is a cautionary tale from the Social Anthropology Department, where events last year made 'paranoid leftie' ideas look like a bland statement of reality. Also a request for information, as one of the morals of this tale is that we need to know what our rights are if we intend to use them.
We now know there were two S-S committees operating in the Social Anthropology Dept. last year. We had thought there was only one : the one which brings together students and staff within a single department. We got some things done through this, having got round the hazards (one rep who represents only one faction/an ineffective lowest-common-denominator rep/an isolated rep yielding to staff pressure) by all going along to meetings instead of electing a delegate.
The other committee came to light by a devious—but instructive—way. In the summer term students met to discuss issues over which the staff had been dragging their feet (mainly undesirable course alterations). A third year student came along to these meetings and monopolised them, telling us how well-meaning, etc. the staff are. (This may be true : but it was actions not intentions that were in question). Nevertheless we managed to draft a letter to the head of undergraduate studies about the situation.
A few days later we were surprised to find a note in reply pinned on the noticeboard—but
BUT students are elected from SSCs to the USC).
THE USC
The Undergraduate Studies' Committee is the committee for UGs and is (not surprisingly) consultative. It deals with 'arrangements for UG teaching' and meets 'twice a term.' At its last meeting the following items were discussed: Hall accommodation, isolation of first-year students, the Part 1 BSc Econ, accommodation to be released by Strand House, tutoring and counselling, a proposal from the Women's Liberation Group and a complaint about the BSc Soc Sci degree. This last item was to have been dealt with by the Dean of Undergraduate Studies (then K R Minogue, now G A Grun, International History Department), the Chairman of the Committee, who was to take up the complaint with the Convener of that Department.
In part, this is the attraction of this Committee, that it can put pressure on a Department where its SSC has failed. In practice, what 'take up the complaint' actually came to mean is not clear. It seems certain that representatives to these Committees should demand feedback, and dates by which something
not the forrnal reply we had asked for. It' was signed by a lecturer.
Some time afterwards, a formal letter from the head of undergraduate studies was pinned up.
The mystery began to be unravelled after a student was heard complaining about the third year girl's behaviour at meetings. The girl took issue over this, and in the course of the conversation it emerged that:
(a)	She was in the habit of going along to members of staff after student meetings to tell them what was happening.
(b)	She claimed she did this in her capacity as "student representative." She said she was the representative for all Soc. Anth. students on the committee which meets with "higher bodies."
When we asked how could she behave this way without consulting those she "represented," she said she knew what was best for us. Without asking us? Yes.
We asked why she didn't report back to her "constituents" on what went on to the committee meetings. She said the meetings were too boring, and nothing ever happened.
But what can you expect when you have a 'representative' whom you never elected ?
She had acquired her position because the above-mentioned lecturer had asked her to take on the job. "Traditionally," he told her, a third year does this job. (How quickly traditions are established when it is convenient).
The lecturer evidently notified officialdom that he was sending the lady along as an "ad hoc" representative, 'until we can hold new elections next session.'
should have been achieved, or a refusal obtained.
The major drawback of the USC is that o.f its 20-odd membership, only nine are students. From this fact flows the following. Firstly, there is no official parity and the number of student representatives could be insisted on.
This is important because, secondly, as it can be seen from below, there could be 16 SSCs and the constitution of the USC makes it clear that only two students from each subject group can take their places, plus the Students' Union Executive Committee member responsible for Academic Affairs.
Theoretically, this means that only the second subject group can be fully represented, and five departments in the fourth group must go without being heard 1 Unfortunately, there are three facts that make the theory look worse. Firstly, there has been such a lack of organisation of SSCs that their representative to the USC is not quickly voted in, often because the SSC itself does not come into being until late in the Autumn term. Secondly, the general ignorance about SSCs has resulted in people being 'landed' with a job they don't want and, on further promotion to the USC they have
Is there a set time for elections? Students don't appear to know anything about the committee involved, let alone elections.for it.
And a couple of thoughts to end up with :—
(1)	Fake representation is worse than none at all;
(2)	Representatives should know what representation means, and should be recalled if they don't.
And please can we have some clear information on our powers? What committees do students sit on ? What proportion of the committee members are students? What voting rights do they have? Are there any formal election arrangements ? Is there any publication containing these details ? And, last but not least, is there any formalised way of getting this information to newcomers ?
LIZ CURTIS.
Editors note,
The first confusion to be cleared up occurs in paragraph three. The two committees were, the Departmental, Staff/Student Committee and the Schools (i.e. non-Departmental) Under-graduate Studies Committee. For the relationship between them see the article on. this page.
The committees that students sit on are given in the School Calendar and a free, invaluable pamphlet on School Committees that the Information Officer, Shirley Chapman, H412, has prepared. If you can't get near to either, or both of these publications, the next "Beaver" (Tuesday, October 15th). will update their contents.
Finally, each SSC has its own constitution, there are no formal election arrangements, no publication containing details of SSCs although I hope to produce one for the Union), and no formalised way of getting information to newcomers. For further information read the article on this page.
shown their cumulative distaste by not turning up. Thirdly, not every Department has an SSC 1
The SU Administrative Assistant, Emma (Hamilton-Brown), has to decide which of the Departments is not to have a voice on the USC. This is done on the 'first come, first served basis' which seems as fine a way for an institute of learning to conduct its affairs as any other cognitive approach.
SOME
RECOMMENDATIONS
It is obvious that the UG/ Staff consultative 'system' needs overhauling.
SSCs
1.—They should be centrally organised in the following respects:
(a)	information about them should be sent to all new students.
(b)	all elections to the SSCs should be held on the same day or week, having previously been fully advertised. The second week in the Autumn term seems best. Some SSCs work on the "all turn up" principle and so dispense with elections. .
(c)	because SSCs meet, at the most, twice a term ; they should all meet in the same week, again benefiting from prior centralised advertising.
BEAVER, Sept.	1974—Page Seven
Staff consultative 'system'
WE sent questions:
the following
1.	Has your Department got a
S.S.C.,?
2.	If it hasn't, why hasn't it ?
3.	If it has,
(a)	what is the composition of its membership ?
(b)	how regularly will it meet ?
(c)	when are the student elections going to take place this Autumn Term ?
(d)	how will these students be elected ?
(e)	when will your S.S.C. first meet ?
(f)	when will your S.S.C. elect from itself a student to go to the Undergraduate Studies' Committee ? (U.S.C.).
4.	If you don't have a S.S.C.,
(a)	does a student from your Department represent it on the U.S.C. ?
(b)	if you have a student representing you on the U.S.C., how does that student get the job ?
(c)	if you don't have a student representing you on the U.S.C., why is this so ?
... to the following people.
Group
1.	(a) Accounting — Pearl Bag-
gott .
(b)	Economics — Maria Tappers (secretary to Kurt Klappholz)
(c)	Statistics — Ann Usher
2.	(a) Government — Elizabeth
Schnadhorst
(b) Law — Angela White
3.	(a) Sociology — Ann Trowles
(b) Anthropology — Gladys
Rice
2(c) Social Psychology — Morag Rennie
(d)	Social Administration — Ruth Griffiths
4.	(a) Economic History — Joan
Lynas
(b)	Geography — Janet Fox
(c)	Industrial Relations — Diana Beydoun
(d)	International History — Nina Smith
(e)	International Relations— Ella Stacey
(f)	Language Studies — Elisabeth Johnson
(e) Philosophy — Anne Smith.
. . . and got the following
replies,
Pepartmental Groups ;
Group 1
(a) Accounting Department
1. Yes.
3. (a) Yes. Two students each from the first year and
the second year and three from the third year.
(b)	Infrequently.
(c)	Election in February, at weekend school. Confusion surrounds elections.
(d)	Only third years elected. No mention as to how first years get elected, if they do at all.
(e)	When they want to.
(f)	When the U.S.C. asks for a member.
(b)	Economics Department
1. Yes.
3 (a) Staff and one student from each of the following departments within the Economics Department in the first, second and third years.
A and D.
Mathematical Economics and Econometrics Monetary Economics. Industry and Trade. Economic Institutions and Planning. International Trade and ^development. No answers for 3(b), (c), and (f) were received.
(c)	Statistics Department
This Department is in a state
of confusion over Staff Students'
Committee.
Group 2
(a)	Government Department
L Yes.
3 (a) Composition includes elected staff members and elected student members from the first, second and third years, and from graduate students. But all meetings are open to any members of the Department, i.e. staff or students who wish to attend.
(c)	Elections organised by the student members.
(d)	Normally in two or three constituencies, i.e. first, second and third year, or second and third, and graduates.
(e)	Not yet arranged.
(f)	Two members. Keith Boyfield and Miss M. N. J. Alvares Menesis.
(b)	Law Department
1. Yes.
3. (a) Composition of Staff Student Committee consists of ten members of the Law Staff and ten Law students appointed by the Committee of the Student Law Society, a minimum of two students being selected from each year.
Two Joint Chairmen,
one appointed by the members of the Law Staff from among their representatives and one appointed by the Law students from their representatives. The Joint Chairmen shall take the chciir- alternately at successive meetings.
(b) Committee meets twice in the Michaelmas and Lent Terms and once in the Summer Term.
No further information.
Group 3
(a)	Sociology Department
L Yes.
3. (a) One student per degree.
(b)	Twice in the Michaelmas and Lent Terms. Once in the Summer Term.
(c)	? Don't know.
(d)	By the students.
(e)	The old Committee meets on October 8th. When the new Committee is set up, at the end of term both the new and old Committees meet to provide continuity.
(b)	Anthropology Department
1. Yes.
3. (a) No formal composition. Meetings open to all students.
(b)	Meets once a term.
(c)	Do not know.
(d)	Do not know.
(e)	Probably in November.
(f)	Do not know.
(c)	Psychology Department
1. Yes.
3. (a) 5 Staff. Dr. Gaskell is the Chairman. Two students each from the first, second and third years. One student from the Msc., making 7 students in all.
(b)	Meets every four to five weeks.
(c)	Elections within first two weeks of term.
(e)	Don't know.
(f)	Peter Ellis elected last session to U.S.C.
(d)	Department of Social
Science and Administration
1. Yes.
3. (a) Half and half (staff' and
students).
(b)	Once or twice a term.
(c)	Students make their own arrangements.
(d)	By the students themselves.
(e)	Mid-term.
(f)	At the first departmental meeting of the term.
Group 4
(a) Economic History
L No.
Two societies act as channels of communication between staff and students. The History Society and the Tawney Society performs this function. The Economic History Department is a small one and the students are in day-to-day contact with members of staff.
4. (b) The President of the Tawney Society, it is proposed, represent the Department. on the U.S.C.
(b)	Geography Department
1. Yes.
3. (a) Two students from each year of the B.Sc. and B.Sc. Econ. Degree. However the number of students allowed to attend the meeting is not limited.
(b)	Meets twice a term but this is difficult because of the varied teaching schedule.
(c)	Elections hope to take place in the first month of the Michaelmas Term.
(d)	Committee members are elected by each year of students. No date for the first meeting has been arranged.
(f) The Staff Student Committee will request the students to elect a student to go to the U.S.C. at the first meeting -whenever that is held.
(c)	industrial Relations
No undergraduates in the Department.
Staff-Student Committee for "Union" course.
(d)	International History
1. Yes.,
3. (a) Ten members, four Staff including the Head of Department and six students, two from each yean
(b)	Meets twice a term.
(c)	At the parties given the students at the beginning of term.
(d)	Students elected by a show of hands.
(e)	The Staff-Student Committee will first meet a fortnight after the elections.
(f)	It has already done so.
(e)	international Relations Department
1. Yes.
3. (a) Two student representatives from first year. Two student representatives from second year. Two student representatives from third year. Two student representa-
tives from M.Sc. Two student representatives from research students.
(b)	Meetings on Wednesday but not specified how many times in a term.
(c)	Elections held after the first lecture in each course. Advance warning is given to all the students.
(e)	First meeting of the Committee for the next session will be on the third or fourth Wednesday of the Michaelmas Term.
(f)	For several years the Department was represented on the Committee on Undergraduate Studies by both a staff member (Mr N. Sims) and an undergraduate representative, but as nominations to this particular Committee are on a Group, not a Departmental, basis the representatives are now members of one of the other Departments in Group 4, i.e. International History, Economic History etc.
(f) Language Studies Department
L Yes. .
3. (a) The Committee is composed of a Chairman, two students from each year and one member of staff from each language section and linguistics (total 5).
(b)	Meets twice a term. Attendance last year was slack so number of meetings cut down to one per term.
(c)	Elections take place in third week of the Michaelmas Term.
(d)	A meeting of the whole student body is called and elections are held on nominations.
(e)	First meeting somewhere between October 14th and October 25th.
(f)	A representative from the Staff - Student Committee to the U.S.C. is elected at the first meeting.
(9) Philosophy Department
Notices put up asking students interested in forming a staft-student committee. No response at all. Department too small as are the notices 1 1
A.M.
(d) there should be a vigorous soliciting campaign for items for discussion. In the past, student suggestions have been put forward at the last minute or completely lost "as time goes by."
2.—Any	unresolved items go forward to the USC.
3.—SSC	information, minutes, etc., compulsorily go to the following people/organisations ; the use, and on the students' side the SU Administrative Assistant (Emma), all Executive Committee members and Beaver. THE USC
1.—If it is to operate on the elective principle, be it from the body of a department's students or from the students that have been chosen to sit on their SSC, it should pro-
vide for full departmental representation, i.e. 17 student places.
2.—Two	photographs of each representative should be displayed, one in their own department, and the other outside the SU General Office.
3.—Elections	to the USC should be completed by a certain date, the third week of the Autumn term seems reasonable. This would ensure that the SSCs would be in existence and that they had met.
4.—USC	minutes should be sent to all SSC members, the SU Administrative Assistant (Emma), all Executive Committee members. Beaver and displayed in Departments, on the SU pre-
mises and in residential halls,
5.—Information	about the USC should be sent to all new students.
6.—A	vigorous soliciting campaign for agenda items GENERAL
1.—All	students should have the right to attend both SSC and USC meetings and it seems preferable that they should all have voting and/or speaking rights.
2.—There	should be some way of replacing an elected representative of both Committees. I
3.—The	revamped SSC/ i USC system should in no way be to the detriment of the other forms of communication between students and "the rest."
P.T.
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BEAVER, Sept. aSth, 1971—Page Eight
SIR WALTER ADAMS is the tall, gaunt man who from 1966 until the beginning of the present term is said by some, to have directed the LSE. This he denies. The job "most certainly is not to direct." By analogy, I think I would describe him as a sort of traffic controller. It's for him to guide ; he's the junction point at which interests meet. Externally "he does personify the School." Internally his power is exercised indirectly.
In order to exercise this power. Sir Walter maintains that a "Director has got to be clear in his own mind, what are the key things. These are fundamentally, I think, the pursuit of learning and the dissemination of teaching. Everything else must be subsidiary to this. Provided one's clear as each little detailed decision comes up . . . the central acadamic purpose... is served. That's why . . . you must be . . . devoted to scholarship."
This is not Sir Walter's idea but "comes out of a vast inheritance of the theology, books and essays, discussions that are public, private discussions with students, staff and administrators. You have to absorb Government reports or statements about it—see if these are relevant or acceptable." The continual testing of all events against this educational template is central to Sir Walter's reasoning.
Points of conflict, no. Points of tension, certainly
The example of Strand House will serve. "It was vital to the whole future of the School, in terms of space, in terms of the Library. This was the one thing that really mattered. I wouldn't claim any personal credit for this. It was clear to most people that this was absolutely vital."
What Sir Walter did, was to consult his template, find his project was a scholar's reward and "put aside, postpone or delay" other things that prejudiced "the one great thing that had to be done." His realisation has had much to do with the successful purchase of Strand House, although his habit of creating the "consensus of chaps working together," image has done much to disguise this. The present position on Strand House was, whilst not totally satisfactory, healthy.
"We are about £200,000 short of the actual cash price, £4 million, but by bridging finance, we went to Smiths and bought. So we own the building and they're our tenants. Our problem now, is to raise sufficient money to convert it, in a minimum degree, for Library use. There's a new deck to put on the first floor, we may want one more lift, we've got to paint and re-cable the place and put in a new boiler. It may cost another million, two million."
Sir Walter's consensusality emphasis is mixed with a liberal accent on individuality. He didn't think that the different groups in the LSE were in conflict. "Points of conflict, no; points of tension, certainly. I don't think you can draw lines and say it's Governors against staff or staff against students, or administrators against anybody else. It's just chaps, all of whom have passionate views about everything and different views about every issue that comes up. All right, one has one's own view and one . tries to guide the things towards something like a
consensus. In the end you carry enough of all the groups to achieve something."
He thought the representation of one of these groups, the Students' Union, had been a "dismal disappointment. They don't make clear what their needs, hopes and interests are. When this place was pretty small, the Union was more representative than it is now. Why this is, I've never quite understand but it seems to me that the general body of students have walked out, voted by their feet. At the start of the session very few students seem to care about it, or do much about it."
Its tactics are repetitive and to some extent it's an exhibitionist aRair
Sir Walter didn't think that the financing of the Union had any bearing on its condition. "They've got some full-time staff and the amount of School support given to student activities is about the national average. You've got to add in the contribution to the Athletic Union, which is separate from the SU and the free services, be it rent of space, porterage and heating that is given free. But I don't think that those who get a lot of money are better off, better or more active than we."
He wasn't impressed by past Treasurers' arguments that other SUs get free services and a higher grant. "The figures are not comparable unless one has costed services. Money was not the problem. What was. Sir Walter thought, was that "the Union has become boring. Humourless, not amusing. Its tactics are repetitive and to some extent it's an exhibitionist affair with a few self selected people who like, doing that sort of thing."
Did this mean that Sir Walter disapproved of student politicians ? "No, I'm very much in favour. I don't think there is any other period in one's life at which one's got the chance of doing politics, either party politics or demonstration politics. as when one's a student. It's part of one's personal growth and education, and above all.
"No. On the selection of the individual, never. On the type of Staff, I've always welcomed, and I think all my colleagues would welcome, a view by students as to the type of person that was wanted. But the final selection must be by his peers, the experts. I just dont' think a student group is competent to judge the#iuality of an individual competitively for an appointment."
I've found it frightfully hard to get information across to students
Well, if students couldn't have much of a say in who taught them, could they have the fullest information possible about what was happening ? It was about here that Sir Walter and I became somewhat entangled. "I'm told by Shirley Chapman, the Information Officer, that the Staff are only allowed to look at about 14 of
If they'd take up the offer of the Court of Governors which is there. A terrific influence ; six students on the Governing Body. Our Governors, who meet once a term, almost never hear a student voice. They don't know what the students think about, talk about and so on. Six could have an immense influence if they'd only accept it and turn up. It isn't a question of numbers ; one could do it almost. But six, still more."
"I think some students v/ould argue that the Board of Governors has decisions more or less handed to them which- they blueprint ..."
"This is true, it must be so. I think the School must govern itself ..."
"... and the students would rather get in on the more basic conversations ..."
"Yes, I think this is true. But on the other hand, there are a hundred Governors or there-
campaign. "They inforaefMie public and the other medHast what the issues were, gavthe figures and the facts. ']lelce» Chancellors wanted ijier grants but didn't get it Per. They weren't being quol((<aU the time. In the end a (itsion had to be taken by Goveflient and I think we were tafde-quately represented in #di8-cussion." What was needj'was a spokesman to "speak MCh more openly, frankly, qiidy.''^
The Vice - Chancellors had regular meetings and a ceat deal of informal consillttion and. Sir Walter supposed,'.'ach Vice-Chancellor is equil in touch with his students ii !re-porting what they feel. Mchei* they report back to the staents what is being discussed 5 a matter for each to decidelThe problem at the L.S.E. liiged about the Students' Hon. "How do I talk to studai ¦ or keep them informed? Ifiere was an effective Unionine.
Sir Walter Adams Director
1966-1974
they politicise students, make them aware of the great issues, be it freedom, poverty, etc."
However it was done "without the appalling responsibilities that later come when they're in real office and decisions matter." But it was now the case that "we take the student views, however they reach us, their initiatives and suggestions, far more seriously than we used to. All of us have moved much closer to a sharing in activities than we were before. I think we are extremely democratic really."
As an example, Sir Walter talked about the Staff. "Every junior member of the Staff is a member of the Academic Board, and has as much freedom to speak, to move a motion as the oldest serving professor. This is an enormous change to have happened in the last 20 or 30 years." Could the change extend to students having some say in the Staff who were appointed ?
the Committee Minutes — there are about 34 — and students are only allowed to look at about seven."
"That's true, because they haven't taken up membership. If they took up membership, then their representatives would get all the papers as of right."
"But they're only allowed representatives on some committees. On other committees, like the Standing Committee .. . "
"Standing Committee they're not. But there was an offer, as you remember, that there would be a regular terminal meeting between the Student Governors and the Standing Committee as of right, at which anything could be discussed. But that they haven't taken up, which I think is a great pity. On the Standing Committee itself, and I think this is right. So much comes up in the way of intimate personal detail, things that I think must be excluded from discussion."
'¦'Perhaps if the students stepped out ?"
"Well, then you have your divided agenda, which I think is the most insulting form in which you ..."
"But at least you have your participation ..."
"Yes, taut why can't they . . .
abouts, and these are important, potential representatives of the School in external discussions. If they don't hear the student voice, then they are missing a whole factor, dimension of what the whole School's all about. Do you see ?"
"Fair enough." We untangled ourselves and plunged on, both consulting the list of questions and turning to the topic of the Vice-Chancellor. What sort of beast of the University jungle is the V-C ? Must he evolve into a new type ?
"Vice-Chancellors are now dealing with very large businesses ; after all, we're spending millions a year. We aren't trained for this; budgeting, financing, investments, property purchase, trade union negotiations, wages and salaries and so forth. We'i'e still there to be scholars but I do think Vice-Chancellors will be acting less badly than the ill-informed Civil Servant who isn't living with this thing day by day."
I regard a sit-in as a form of demonstration—it is peaceful picketing
Sir Walter illustrated his demand for more strong, collective Vice-Chancellor action by referring to the N.U.S. grants
But I've found it frigktully	den
hard to get information aross	picl
to students." This coii(atra-	thai
tion on the use of formal nan-	to £
nels of communication was	indi
highlighted by Sir Witer's	ing,
thoughts on Stafl^/Studentcon-	ope
tact.	sho
Some students thought here	T
was not enough. "Thii will	\vh(
always be said because it's a	froi
value judgment. But Itiink	of j
our staff have set a stancW of	not
accessibility which is ^ery,	poii
very high. I've never mt a	kee
student who feels he coidn't	of
call on a member of theStaff.	Uni
Most chaps have got prettjiard	Wh
businesses to do. They :an't	ces:
just be available immeiibly.	Sir
"Very often a student Deeds almost a parental guidanahe's not yet grown up enougiiHe's come from school whec his life-style has been dictate by
external forms. Naturals he	"
feels the gap. Well, partd our	cau
job is not to be availablei one	dec
sense — to allow the inMual	of (
to grow up and make his own	300
decisions." And the irfrmal	stui
discussions ? "It's a jmijittent	the
of relativity and it's paiUf'Our	the
physical condition. Weren't	fro:
got much in the way ofocial	vie
space. The Three Tuns is iretty	wo'
hideous as a place in wiiid to	pol
attempt to have anythinjlike	we'
a conversation."	we^
SI]
BEAVER, Sept. 25th, 1974—Page Nine
Ours moved back to Vice-Chancellors. Should they criticise each other in public? "I think they'd probably avoid personalities and depersonalise the discussion." People can "take the lesson that it may apply to 'X' place, but you needn't say so." Talking about Essex "you'd just say, we must not give way to physical violence or the obstruction of free speech. All right we'll have Mr Powell, we'll have Mr Jordan, anybody else speaking. We can beat him at his own game, I mean by talking him out of it obviously."
It's only when he goes mad, identifiably mad, that we should get rid cf him
This abhorrence of violence showed in Sir Walter's attitude towards sit-ins. "It involves some disruption but it mustn't stop the activities of the college. I regard a sit-in as a form of
The problem of definition was one that had to be made clear to Government. Sir Walter thought there was greater centralisation and it was understandable. "You can't have, as we've suddenly grown to 44/45 Universities now, huge expenditure, huge numbers without Government being much more interested and taking greater control. Our problem is to say, all right, yes in tefms of money expenditure and total student numbers you have rights to tell us how much. But you must not touch us on selection of students, what we teach and how we teach it, that is our affair.
"Unless we have our own voice. Government will slowly, inadvertently, to some extent, trespass on our own sanctities. We must get this much more clear. If we're clear ourselves we can say 'boo' to Government."


demonstration ¦— it is peaceful picketing, I take my stand on that. But once picketing goes to a point at which it stops the industry or factory from working, or the University from operating, then it's wrong." In short, the Law is to be obeyed.
The question of whose Law, who are the people who benefit from the way in which the rules of society are constructed, was not raised on this particular point. This attitude was in keeping with Sir Walter's view of the relationship between Universities and Government. What some have seen as a process of increasing state control, Sir Walter sees as a problem of definition and disagreement. He disagreed with the University Grants Committee in not letting the L.S.E. move towards more postgraduates.
"We deeply resent this because we think it's silly. As a decision we think it's a misuse of our great body of specialists, 300 staff in this one field of study, the greatest library in the world in this field of study, the best position in the world from the metropolitan point of view. The U.G.C., with this woodenish statistical, non-value policy has said, no not yet; and we're protesting and will jolly well go on^,otesting."
I don't think they are very
important compared to the trained Africans
If the Director of the L.S.E. felt he could say such rude things to Government, what expletives would he utter at his own staff" ? How was a lecturer appointed ? "There's a probationary appointment for three years and we then have a departmental review. This is very serious, is he moving towards publication, what is he like as a colleague, does he discharge his duties. We then reappoint for two or three more years if he's successful, and we then have what is called a major review.
"There we have all the evidence before us, of his publications, progress of his research, teaching ability; we interview his convenor, the head of the Department in a very vigorous way. We devote several days to this and if he passes his major review, then he has tenure for life.
"This is very important for a University man. He must feel free to control and regulate his own time, to pursue his studies at his own pace. He must feel free to 'publish, however controversial, however critical, however politically unpopular,
anything he wishes to say in his own subject. He must not be subject to some whim of passing fashion, or dismissal by some external authority.
"Now he may go stale, some do. He may be a bad teacher, but this, though important, is potentially correctable. Even that is not cause for dismissal. It's only when he goes mad, identifiably mad, physically is totally incompetent, or is in gross misbehaviour that we should get rid of him. Otherwise we've got to carry him until his retirement.
"The actual formal date now is 67 but we are beginning to discuss whether there shouldn't be some earlier retirement possible. Some men do go stale and, since we are now fixed in size for the next 10 to 20 years, there'll be a lot of men moving up the ladder whose way will be blocked by these old men at the top. I think the sooner some of them go, voluntarily, the better." Would student reports on lecturers be valuable ?
Sir Walter thought they "can be very useful and we do use them, although feedback from students comes much more quickly than by student reports." So to whom should students complain about bad lecturers ? "To be specific, the Dean of Undergraduate Studies. He will probably talk, either to that chap or the convenor of the Department and say, "could you have a word with him." I think most lecturers would welcome this:" ¦ And if "nothing had happened, they should go again." It was true this process of correction could take a whole Academic Year, or even longer, and students were only at the L.S.E. for three — but that seemed to be a genuine clash between two different time scales.
I think his external relations
will be much more vigorous
What was condemned out of hand was the practice of a minority of Staff who don't turn up to classes and lectures. "This is a very serious offence, and I do tick off people who have allowed outside engagements to take priority over their internal teaching." One of Sir Walter's outside commitments that won't disturb the L.S.E.'s internal functioning is the Honorary Doctor of Literature that the University of Rhodesia has awarded him. Sir Walter intends to be at the conferment in May 1975.
He spoke with great warmth about that University. "It was terrific fun to start a new University from scratch. Literally every building was custom designed. But most of the African parties, certainly those outside of course, more or less write off' the University as a Liberal do-goodish, but ineffective hingement. I think it's wrong. I think we can produce hundreds of thousands more well-trained people, black and white, ready to take over."
Sir Walter agreed that an article in the "Observer" saying, "even at the valuable youth contact - point of Salisbury's multi - racial University, black and white students keep to themselves," was "still possibly true." However, "those white men are going to be very different chaps from what they would have been, if they had gone south to white Universities. I don't think they are very important compared to the trained Africans who will be ready to take over the Civil Service, private sector and business. They are there waiting, and I don't think it will be long before they're there.
If it could be done co-operatively and jointly, I think this would be best of all. At the moment Smith's going to see it through as a great fighter. All right, then the alternative is violence, destruction and non-co-operation in the end, a price that I think is needless to pay. A lot of whites will leave anyway, have left and no more are coming in to replace them. Rhodesia will still exist in May '75 but naturally the change in Angola, Mozambique is enormously going to affect the political future of this country. It will totally, in my view, change the time sc^ale and the present white domination can't go on; it's so utterly absurd. It was absurd anyway, but the chance of survival must have been greatly reduced now."
With the Rhodesian regime crumbling quite merrily in the south. Sir Walter turned his attention to the rise of a local one. "I'm very happy to hand over to Professor Dahrendorf. His is a very enterprising appointment, a bold act by the University. He was a student here, he knows it and is a very distinguished scholar in his own right. I just don't know how he'll play it. I think his external relations will be much more vigorous, perhaps even more publicised. I think he'll be far more newsworthy as a chap than I ever wish to be, have been or can be. He is obviously a man of great ability."
it is his politics that is open to criticism
And Sir Walter's greatest moment ? "Oh lor. I come back to Strand House I think. There was a moment when it seemed utterly impossible. The Government had offered us £2m. and Smiths had fixed a price and asked for £4m. How on earth could we guarantee or sign a contract with Smiths ? Well there was one afternoon when, I can't give you the name or give you any identification, but the Financial Secretary and I went to see a particular person, and he said, "I can't lend you money, but I'll underwrite the thing. If you don't succeed in getting your £2m., I'll take the thing over."
Well, we were home. We could.sign a contract, which we rushed back and did at once. Up to that moment we were absolutely blocked — we couldn't sign, Smiths said they'd wait another month but after that they must out it on the market. We were able to go back and say fine. We didn't need to pick up the underwriting, but it solved our problem. That was a great moment certainly.
"I remember the first meeting with the Students' Union. I'd just arrived and was being questioned about Rhodesia and racialism, and one of my former students there, a chap called Bashi, asked a question. Well it was so naughty, in the sense of inaccurate, that I was able to say to him, 'Oh Bashi'. And at once the student audience saw that what they'd been told was factually wrong, and one felt an immediate wave of understanding come back. It just happened in minutes. Moments of this kind, one looks back on."
Sir Walter then considered the future. "I want to write a little pamphlet about the history of London Universities" contribution to what was called, 'the special relationship'. You know, London helped about ten of these colonial colleges to grow up with London degrees, • and so on. Well that's all
finished now, they all award their own degrees. But it's a story worth telling and I want to write a pamphlet about that. So my first job will be that. After that, just nothing. ..."
So what could be an assessment of Sir Walter ? There is no doubt he is a very humane man. The stories Africans have told us of his actions in Rhodesia bear this out. There is no doubt within his own values and perception of the world he has acted well and fairly. As a person Sir Walter has been described as a humble man. It is his politics that are open to criticism. His political creed seems to reflect his background and his times.
Power seems to be left out of Sir Walter's model. Any agreement with him may not be because there was diplomatic guidance to the most popular decision, but because the weak could be overcome. This is why the "consensus of chaps" idea is wrong. That particular individualistic analysis ignores the common interests of "students" against "staff". That analysis would also deny that there is anything like a "student voice", which is what Sir Walter wants the Governors to hear. One can't have a "class" and "individualistic" analysis at the same time.
Democracy was not really for all (and thus ceased to be democracy). Students had no say in the selection of their lecturers and could only find out about the L.S.E. through minutes that could only be obtained by forced participation.
Sir Walter's attitude was parental which explained why students could not be trusted with "confidential" information although they can manage a Welfare Fund without any embarrassment.
Again, it is Sir Walter who places scholarship so highly ("see if these are relevant or acceptable"). This has much to do with his conception of what a University is. Politics are outside Universities. Politics itself can be decided into sections. From these conclusions it follows that student politicians, a small section of politics therefore unimportant and people who should be concerned with the great issues out there, do not make real decisions and have no responsibility. The question of free speech is seen in that context, as being academic and solveable by words alone. That is why a sit-in can only be a peaceful protest.
Two final adverse comments. The first concerns the fact that the Students" Union is democratic and can be seen making mistakes because its machinery is on view. The Schools Committees are not on view. Attendance at Union Meetings may not be crowded but it seems a fair supposition to say that Committees aren't greeted with eager enthusiasm either. Also because it holds that "at the start of the session very few new students'seem to care about it", could it not be the case that it is the students' prior training, not the Union that is the cause of the malaise ?
The second concerns a certain formality of mind. Sir Walter complained of not being able to talk to students because there was no adequate S.U. Could not a students' press conference be called? Or Director handouts be initiated ? Anybody can act — it just needs to be done.
I hope Sir Walter doesn't take . offence.
PETER TIMMINS (C) 1974
BEAVER. Sept. 25th, 1974—Page Ten
Italy-Britain: Between the mountain
Translated from Al-Alam, Morocco, 19th August 1974
ITALY has emerged afresh in the media more than it has done in the last 30 years because one group of its people is afraid of a new mountain of skulls, and another wants to regain the glory of Caesar. For the third time in contemporary Italian history, people are recalling the day when Mussolini was brought to power, and the day he fell.
Immediately after the First World War, the effects of in-^tion began to undermine the interests of the middle-middle, and lower-middle classes. Italian capital no longer controlled political life through the parliamentary system and liberal arrangements with certainty. Social consciousness and political trade union organisation started to advance up to the point where the seizure of power by the workers' class became, more likely than ever before. As these processes gathered momentum the Ruling Class had to resort to new arrangements that could protect its interests. Fascism was placed on the throne of Jupiter.
The role of the War and its effect
"Lenin's name," the liberal Herbert Fisher wrote, "became revered by the masses. The picture of this Russian commissariat was distributed everywhere : strike followed strike and the people mocked the demobbed soldiers in the streets." Another historian, M. Zaqzuqi, has observed : "When the fire of Bolshevik Revolution rampaged through the ruins of Europe at the end of the First World War, .-'t was impossible to contain completely and at once the effects of that social revolution. It spread among the Italians in particular, for they had suffered a great deal from the horrors of war, and found themselves achieving at the end, nothing but frustration, the crumbs of political conferences and international realignments, not to mention a miserable internal situation where taxes were heavy, food prices high and fuel scarce.
"Anger against the Government of the day intensified existing complaints. The crisis that brought Italy to the brink of Bolshevism without great effort, saw Mussolini blazing a new trail that future Social Democrats would follow. Instead of attacking the labour movement directly, he preferred to quote it and infiltrate its ranks. (An Introduction to Machiavelli's Prince pp 94-95).
"By the end of 1920, however," Mario Einaudi added, "Nationalism rather than Socialism became the essential driving force behind Fascism. The Government of the day led by the Liberal leader Giovanni Giol-litti believed, correctly, there was no revolutionary danger and a wise manipulation of the situation would be possible to achieve a peaceful solution without bloody conflict. However, the middle-classes in Italy, its landlords and businessmen, its Army and Crown, saw in Fascism that militant movement which would be able, if
well led, to make Italy a safe place from the Marxist ascendancy. Between 1921-22 hundreds of thousands of new members, mainly from the bourgeoisie, poured into the Fascist movement. Subsidies from industrial concerns were handed over and weapons from military centres given gratis" (Fascism, International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, Vol. 5, p 335).
The failure of Mussolini's Fascism
Just before the end of the Second World War, after Fascism ceased to serve the purpose of its existence at home (as it had been planned for it two years before it was brought to power), and after its aggressive foreign policy had similarly failed, the fundamental backup was removed when the sectors of finance, industry, landlords, the Church and the regular Armed Forces stopped supporting it. This withdrawal was further affected by three military events: (i) The partisan war, which the socialists spread in the northern sectors of Italy both as an application of the Bolshevik Revolution and the Republican side of the Spanish Civil V/ard (of. Nago trans. Darwell); (ii) the refusal of Italian regular soldiers working with the Nazi troops in Yugoslavia and Greece who suddenly ceased to support the aggressive policy of Germany (encouraged by the example of the partisans of the north); (iii) the landing of the Allies in Sicily which -helped to place political power into the hands of the economic ruling class which had already sacked the political form of Fascism and had set about to reshape Italian politics, albeit on the same socio-economic basis left over from Mussolini's era.
Yet Mussolini still had another chapter in his career. The Germans had rescued the Duce and set about to form a small state under his headship in the north of the country, named The Fascist Social Republic. It lasted between 1943-45, while the Duce tried, to return to his syndical origins and court the labour movement in a mock defence of the proletariat's interest. "But," Mario Einaudi adds, "it was much too late." (ibid, p 336). On April 28th, the socialist partisans executed him.
Fascism, a slow process
It must be observed that the middle class which invited Fascism to political power never lost effective control in Italy. Although Mussolini became an overlord, with the right of veto on everything, the rapport between the head of the pyramid and the real controllers of socio-economic power was never dissipated. Great events in Italy such as the ascendency of Fascism to power and the disappearance of its political form, rarely come suddenly or decisively. Nor did Fascism in the social and economic structure collapse when the Grand Council of the Fascists sacked Mussolini, and the Council itself was subsequently sacked.
The partisans started the process of transferring effective power into the hands of the
people, but the existence of the Allies gave protection to the transition of political power back into the trusted hands of the Social Democrats. This explains their re-emergence as the ruling party of Italy on a complex structure of patronage, links with US capital, a semi-fascist public sector designed to continue its special service to the private sector, and huge economic empires ruled by Agnelli, Pirellis, Marzotto, Pesanti and other such rich families.
The (xscendancy of Fascism occupied a period of time stretching from October 28th, 1922 (in another analysis, from 1919), to October 1926. It passed through a gradual process covering (i) the 1922 measures, denationalising those concerns taken into collective ownership under working class pressure after the War, and de-

leting the names of shareholders from the public register in order, to facilitate tax dodging; (ii) the 1924 Act conferring a third of the seats in the Legislative Assembly on that party or bloc of parties controlling 51 per cent of the electorate's votes; (iii) the 1925 Act officially announcing the dictatorship; (iv) the October 1926 Act abolishing opposition parties; (v) the long march to Rome (not to Hunan !); (vi) the campaign of terror and violence launched by the black-shirt brigades against the Left—particularly the assassination of the trade unionist leader; (vii) the manipulation of the elections and the treatment of those among the electorate who did not vote for the Fascist or Fascist-supported candidates.
The sources of Fascist support
The facilities granted to the Fascists under "democratic" rule helped the influx of young, middle class recruits into the iron party; invited subsidies from the financial, industrial and rentier circles ; allowed for gifts of arms from the army and volunteer centres and tipped the balance in favour of Fascism. The Vatican itself gave its blessing to the movement by sending abroad S. Luigi Sturzo, the leader of the Christian Democrat movement. Other preliminary arrangements also went into the establishment of the corporate state, to a great ex-, tent as "planned" by Mussolini himself, albeit on the basis of older ideas.
The Four Principles of Corporatism
Fascism (the direct dictatorship of the bourgeoisie) is a poli-
tical type which corresponds to formal democracy (the indirect dictatorship of the bourgeoisie), and to people's democracy (the dictatorship of the proletariat). The socio-economic mirror-image of Fascism is corporatism (monopoly state capitalism), which corresponds to competitive capitalism as well as to scientific socialism (with its emphasis on co-operative cooperation). The principles of corporatism have been summarised as follows:
1.—In	the corporative state "the state alone has the right to decide the national interest," including the interests of the property owners and the survival of the state, i.e. the grand executive committee of the middle class. This is in contra-distinc-tion with non-corporative capitalism where the private sector rather than the state a;; such, retains a lot of the decisionmaking processes, and to socialism which aims at the service of the working class, whist seeking at the same time the withering-away of the state, if the state is no longer encircled with enemy troops.
2.—In	the corporative state, "the conflicting interests between the property owners, the workers, the technicians and the state are unified." (Notice that Mussolini doesn't specify they are abolished, but simply unified !).
3.—This	unification is done through "the total ban on strikes as well as lockouts to which the workers or the managers might resort." (Does it remind you of the 1971 Industrial Relations Act, save for loading the, dice even more against the workers ?). Unemployment and inflation are prevented at the cost of making labour work to the maximum extent and get minimum wages. While management get maximum benefit at minimum risk. Thus allowing the state to steer a course of full employment and price stability and maximum growth, regardless of income distribution and the accumulation of wealth,
4.—In	order to eliminate, totally and completely, the differences among people "that politics create," the principle of the priority of the politician above the expert is replaced by "national unity.". This is based upon experience and dexterity above everything else. Thus the state can achieve its ends without any control or participation on the part of the masses, "that great enemy loathed by liberal intellectuals," among whom Ortega Y. Gaset is a prime example. (Fascism, Int. Enc. of Soc. Sci. Vol. 5 pp 335-336).
Where Does Fascism Stand Between Capitalism And Socialism ?
Many people have confounded the essence of fascism with that of other "schools". This is perhaps due to the fact that Fascism, and its daughter Nazism, have been called National Socialist, or seen to be a nationalistic form of socialism. (Nazi is an abbreviation of Nazionale Socialist). Professor
Seton Watson has identified in Fascism five characteristics :
(1)	Ultra-nationalism with a heavier dose of colonialism or opposition to de-colonisation than is usually expressed by conservatives,
(2)	Racialism. It has been argued that the term "race" in Chamberlain-cum-Milner's literature, that forms the theoretical foundation of the Conservative Party of Great Britain^ is cultural rather than material racial ism. But the point was never proved in practice, hence Powell-ism and anti-Irishism in this country and in Northern Ireland.
(3)	Militarism.
(4)	Anti-communism and by extension, anti-socialism
(5)	Anti-democracy, with its two variants: Boudjadism in France and in modern industry, ' Corporatism. However, anti-parliamentarianism remains the most important variant of anti-democracy in political] Fascism. This is when parliament draws nearer to working-class interests than those of the middle-class, which undermines the whole purpose of its existence. Otherwise we have Mosley's modern stand designed to prepare this ground for the Fascist movement to work within a parliamentary framework with a democratic face in the service of fundamental bourgeois interests. In fact, when Heath raises the question, "Who is to rule ; the Government or the Unions ?" Mosley would go even further and ask, 'Who is to rule : the Parliament or the Unions 7" The end product is the same, for then the property-owners control the course of the Conservative and Liberal parties; through manning and finance they will necessarily control the selection of candidates blessed to stand for parliament • and, when in majority, control the parliamentary processes and the whole effective power of the government.
In particular. Fascism was qualified as national socialism, in order to debase the patriotic content of socialism and accuse it of working against the nation. This is why all CEills for national governments usually come from the right. The last. time we "pulled together," we, on this side of the equation, ended in the poorhouse.
Let's go a little further. Capitalism, as Adam Smith defined it, "is a social system in which competition between individuals and groups of individuals dominate their struggle for surplus-value and its transference into private property. For capital is the purchasing power that governs labour and the products of labour within marker relationships." (The Wealth of Nations, pp 26-27). Socialism, on the other hand, is a social system in which private property and the private ownership of the means of production are extinct and those means of production are transferred to public property, competition to emulation and the struggle between people into one between man and nature. If these definitions of the two great social systems stand, then corporatism.
7
r
BEAVER, Sept. 25th, 1974—Page Eleven
of skulls and the Glory of Caesar
which forms the economic expression of Fascism, is a subsystem rather than a genuinely different one, and to which com-I)etitive capitalism draws nearer as the dialectics of competition and monopoly create state monopoly capitalism. Socialism is so far removed from this. Yet, Once state capitalism is reached, Lenin tells us, the system becomes less difficult to be brought into state socialism : Straight away.
Obviously the whole set of contradictions becomes then so complicated and the class con-8ict so unmanageable that the whole thing will have to break down. Resort to political Fascism in preference to total paralysis becomes more necessary, but may be introduced earlier by panic. Fascism, therefore, is an attack on the future heirs of the social system as a method of defending the existing order. Conservatism has always been seen as a rearguard action, which explains much of its bloodymindedness.
After Balfour's incompetence, the Conservative Party relied more on attack as a form of defence, the more the rearguard action became desperate. The introduction of Whitelaw, a tough Scottish gentry farm,er, to the colonial management of the I.R.A. first, and then to the colonial management of the Industrial Relations Act, is the epitome of this slippery slope; Walker, Rippon, Chalfont and more to come.
THE ENEMIES OF FASCISM
The historical precedent is that corporatism is, at once, a product of slow evolution and a deliberate policy in desperate situations. One might say the former is economic Fascism and the latter the economic policy of Fascism, a policy which is more political than economic. When monopoly capitalism feels the social upheaval threatening the advantageous political balance of forces, it will resort to corporatism while the workers, politically and organisationally, are not yet in a position to carry this upheaval to its logical conclusion, i.e. to a complete transformation from the system of privileges into creativeness and productivity, viz.; socialism.: Yet monopoly capitalism has, in the past, found other enemies. When the economic contradictions it faces become so intensive in the home market, when the fierce competition becomes disadvantageous to her interests in external markets, its bullets iare directed first to the chests of the workers at home, and then to everyone abroad, class comrades and the common enemy alike.
This two-fold enmity cannot be carried too far. Thus we saw the alliance between Mussolini and Hitler, then the rap-proachment between these two and a number of western capitalist governments in the appeasement period. The attack on the Soviet Union, as a symbol of socialism and working-class politics, became the unifying force of Fascists and non-Fascists in the capitaHst camp. It was thanks to Churchill who envisaged the suici-
dal middle-dass alliance under Hitler, from tlie point of view of British intwests, that led him to come to terms with the Labour Party and start the western offensive at a time when Hitler was then marching eastward with almost certain likelihood of smashing the Soviet State. In any case Fascism had made generalised chauvinism and total military "effort" new weapons in its armoury against the workers. Its suppression at home and its external warfare culminated into a World War verging on the extermination of all the forces in order to save the interests of those 20 per cent of
tion the idea of courage, which happened to . be also the title of the first leader in his paper.
THE SUPPORTERS OF FASCISM
Still, the whim of Fascism could not be turned into a methodology and remained a nightmare not a dream. When Mussolini stood on 16th November, 1919, for the elections of the Milano seat, he couldn't get more than 5,000 out of 346,000 votes. The Duce could not seize his life's opportunity until early 1921, when an open alliance between the property classes, industrialists, financiers
Tho svay to tackie inflation is the wzy wz ladciad him.

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IraO-Q _ Union-bashers on the move
the population who own 89 per cent of its wealth. "We only want torule Italy."
At the outset Fascism was an idea rather than an ideology. "Our programme is simple," said Mussolini, "we want to rule Italy. They ask us if we have a programme. There are innumerable programmes. But salvation of Italy doesn't need programmes — only men and will. (Fascism, Encyclopaedia Britannica). The appeal to people's instincts and their abilities of fear and faith, was not sufficient, however. Soon intelectual luminaries were recruited to provide a theoretical base" and cook up an ideological justification.
?	From Pareto, the Italian economist, was taken th^ idea of the elite.
*	From George Sorel, the
French revolutionary syndicalist, was derived the idea of "direct practice" based upon the spirit of violence.
?	From Charles Moras, the
French journalist, came the concept of integrative nationalism.
*	From Izier Cordini, J;he idea of fighting natipjaalism and colonial expansion, itself based upon the success of the Italian aggression on Arabian Libya in 1911.
*	Gabriel Danonzi, the poet, contributed the idea of Italy's victorious mission and the call for the love of danger, adventure and war.
?	Blancjui was frequently mentioned as saying, "those who own steel, own bread."
?	Napoleon quoted as saying, "revolution is an idea that found bayonets."
*	Mussolini made his contribu-
and landlords was forged (Fascism, Vol 8, Enc. Brit.). In the following year he "totally got rid of his original programme which opposed the monarchy and Catholicism ; then came the process that "started" with the march on Rome and ended with the corporate' state.
FUNCTIONAL GROUPIES
AND THE WORSHIP OF
THE STATE
Fascism was, therefore an attack as a form of defence, an aggression instead of the expediency of normal, parliamentary arrangements. With it, fear took the place of faith; obedience, of argument; authority, of reason; authoritarianism, of law. No wonder, H. Wilson and Mick McGahey talked of Fascism and the Corporate state when the Industrial Relations Act of 1971 was introduced by the Heath Government. The formality of elections and political manoeuvring was too cumbersome and slow for the exigencies of economic and social management in the interests of middle - class Management.
Where (1) individualism, (2) dialectical idealism (Plato's trend) and (3) competitive Capitalism failed to continue the realisation of their class objectives ; where (1) collectivism,
(2)	dialectical materialism and
(3)	socialism were naturally ob-horrent in their effects on property owners and where the ruling class was desperately in need of a suitable expedient to continue the enjoyment of its privileges, fascism was called upon to replace what existed with (i) functional groupism (a kind of functional representation of group elites harnessed on the Fascist Parliament with relations bringing back feudal corresponding attitudes and patronage and Middle Age
Christian corporatism (as explained in the Enc. Brit. u:.ider corporatism, (ii) the worship of the state based upon a hybrid of mechanical materialism and vulgar idealism. (See M. Zaq-zuqi in his study, ibid, comparing the ideas of Mussolini and Machiavelli), (iii) corporatism in the service of monopoly capitalism in its decline and dissolution.
THE POLITICAL FORM
Despite all that. Fascism remained, in general design, a sheer holding operation. Formal democracy has been the First Best political form of capitalism but the stringent general crisis undermined the capabilities of formal democracy of achieving its main purpose, political manoeuvring. Fascism came as a Second Best political form to manage the executive affairs of Capitalism within its state as well as between it and other similar, and not so similar, states. From the perspective of the middle-class in Italy, as in Germany, Vichy France, Japan (and Sir Alec Douglas Home's Britain), this holding operation was resorted to, amidst the tempest, until it had to subside. If Fascism went beyond the contours drawn for it, it was only because Nemesis, the goddess of vengeance, can be controlled only at a substantial price. (See Bennett "The Nemesis of Power").
ECONOMIC ORGANISATION
In p r a c t ic e, Corporation proved to be a negative rather than a positive economic system, for it has deep-seated contradictions that cannot be eliminated by any means. It aims at the removal of competition between the corporations by means of raising the level of monopolisation to the maximum at a time when the capitalist system can move only through a continuous, dialectical process : competition leading to monopoly creating more intensive competition and then further monopolisation until the point of maximum concentration is reached which is also maximum paralysis.
It aims also at placing the management of these corporations in the hands of the central-state apparatus, administering it with compulsory directives and controls. This is in contradiction with the fact that capitalism requires sufficient degree of spontaneity and voluntary actions, i.e., economic "freedom"—the freedom of purchase, sale, contract and explanation.
Here capital is neither nationalised, nor expropriated, nor subjected to popular control, while economic activities are far removed from being planned to serve the social, cultural and economic good. Within the Fascist compulsory arrangements, however, the hope was that the capitalists would cease to be capitalists and instead, despite their structural contradictions, form a class : again capitalist but now united, cohesive, homogeneous and co-operative.
This would face the workers at home and the competitors abroad as one front, a strong Fascist front with no weaknesses or flaws. Indeed, with the might of the state, the differences of the capitalists
throughout the world would also be eliminated, and could then face the workers, in unison to emasculate their trade-union and political powers; while the workers themselves would also be incorporated in the state capitalist machine as troops, fighting each other with their own determined "will", for the sake of "adventure" and "courage".
Fascism in fact incorporates aspects of co-operative organisation (which is differently sought under socialism) into "private property with which capitalism is identified. In re^ turn for this administrative concession of competition, Fascism promises the capitalists the solution of their compelling crisis and the structural contradictions that periodically cause it. The solution it envisages is sought by placing the dictatorship of the state instead of formal democracy ; the division of external markets by the weight of military power in the place of voluntary economic exchange ¦ and the beast on the throne of man.
Imperialism, through the other four characteristics of Fascism identified by Seton-Watson, thus becomes at once organic and comprehensive. But if the capitalists' wills are weaker than the acceptance of the sacrifice, the sacrifice of their administrative manipulation of competition processes, then necessity will force them into it cap in hand. Fascism promises an early salvation system before the ultimate paralysis or the sudden eruption of the proletariat's takeover.
Professor Mario Einaudi explains : "Perhaps the most important feeling that seized upon Mussolini was the crisis of modern capitalism. Time and again he posed the question without offering any answer. In 1932 he asked : "Is this crisis which has been strangling us for the last four years a crisis "within" the system or "of" the system ? He felt at the time that he couldn't reply to the question, but in November 1933 he reached it.
He said : "My reply today is that the crisis has gone so deep into the system that it has become a crisis of the system. Today we can be sure that the capitalist mode of production is antedated.
"Why? Because capitalism, by its very size, has turned into a social phenomenon (a vulgar intellectualism indeed) and at this very moment the capitalist enterprise falls as a dead weight in the arms of the state." (See ibid Vol. 5, p.338 and also Mussolini's four speeches on the corporate state, pp.10-11 and 16).
Mussolini believed that he was the legitimate heir of capitalism. He was in fact, only its obedient servant and he served it well. The outcome was atrocious and colossal yet the inviting class failed even then to achieve anything except its survival. The Partisans alone were destined to inherit the mess and build afresh, but for the fact that the Americans were there to give the Italian bourgeoisie another spell of life.
BEAVER, Sept. 25th, 1974—Page Twelve
RADICAL_
Not in Front of tiie Students
"BECAUSE of the Welfare State," wrote one of our first-year students, "there has been a great increase in participation." (She had been reading a textbook). I asked her; "On what public issue or what public debate have you personally ever participated, even just by writing a letter to the editor ?" Answer: never.
This is surely "the student problem" — the depressing fact that so many of the top four per cent of the generation are political eunuchs, with no conception at all that public issues are their business ; that they have a right so to define them; and that this right carries With it the concomitant obligation to ensure that in the words of C. Wright Mills, they equip themselves with "the disciplined and informed mind that cannot be overwhelmed."
It is said that it is difficult to involve "the poor" in public issues. It is even more difficult to involve the bulk of the student body (even by proxy in seminar arguments) and this is surely astonishing as they, a predominantly middle - class group, are the major beneficiaries of the post-war era of free education, free orange juice, freedom to travel, freedom from poverty and insecurity and yet like "the poor" they have a clear image of society as divided into "Them"
—	the proper wielders of power and influence — and "Us" the passive well-fed semi-detached people, with no sense of history or conflict, operating mainly in the middle-range slots of the middle-range "referee" bureaucracies of the Welfare State or private corporate structures and regarding politics and public issues as a spectator sport. This, not long-haired revolutionaries, or neurotic drop-outs and pregnant sophomores is what is terrifying about the end product of our educational system ; why do we get such large numbers of students who are, as David Willings says, "conditioned to a lack of interest in what they are doing" ?
My answer is that this "lack of interest" is precisely what *" the educational system, as at present organised, is both most likely to inculcate and that such an attitude is positively (if latently) functional both for that system and for the occupational system into which so many of our students go. I know that I can be accused of over-generalising from limited data — if twenty-five of British education can be called limited
—	but it seems clear to me, as student and lecturer, that there are elective affinities between certain facets of the education system and a range of rather pathetic attitudes which characterise too many of our students.
Briefly ; my argument is that prolonged experience by pupils of the educational system results in a lowering of self-esteem and self-confidence and a consequent "failure of nerve". This in turn leads to a refusal
—	or inability to risk oneself in ventures into public argument
and debate, to the internalisa-tion of a sense of impotence and inadequacy and to the acceptance of the dichotomy of the world into "the public sector", in which, both in the education system and later on at work, one accepts frustration and manipulation by others, and "the private sector", the source of satisfaction and fulfilment to be sure, but a devalued fulfilment because it is a refuge from the endless humiliations in the public sector rather than a decent and autonomous pleasure in its own right.
For too many "ordinary" students, therefore, the experience of education is an introductory course to second-class citizenship, the mass manufacture of other - directed people. The basic mechanism whereby students' self-confidence is undermined in the continuous demonstration to them of the fact of their own lack of power, lack of competence and lack of authority. Conversely, of course, the demonstration proclaims very clearly that the staff — as schools and universities — have a monopoly of power, competence and authority, and that this can — and sometimes is — used to deny the pupil or student access to the desired end ('A' levels. University entrance, degrees). Educational institutions are perpetual proclamations of the dependency of the pupil or student on the staff. The cumulative effect of such proclamation is the attrition of the pupil's self-esteem and self-confidence. This — as Morris Rosenberg has pointed out, results in an inability to operate effectively in the public sector. In the main, our schools and universities produce people who have neither the self-confidence of intellectuals nor the weighty authority of the scholar. The destruction of the students is accomplished by the following mechanisms.
1—THE PRINCIPLE OF PERPETUAL APPRENTICESHIP
"Social order", as H. Dalziel Duncan says, "... is a drama of social hierarchy in which we enact roles as superiors, inferiors and equals. . . . Status is won by successful appeals to . others who . . . determine our success and failure." All institutions structure the distribution of power and authority. Schools and Universities are almost totally autocratic, with Headmasters and Staff in complete control of the definition of the institution's goals ("Learning") and of the assessment of each individual's success in attaining those goals (Examinations, references). (See for example, Anne Corbett, "The School Bosses"). The relationship is fundamentally non-reciprocal' — the performance of staff in relation to goals is never effectively assessed by the student: all he has is grumbles, an early version of the retreat to privacy, an abandonment of the right to criticise.
The student or pupil is permanently on his knees, placed there initially perhaps by parental pressure and self-
induced anxiety, but certainly kept there by the clear revelation of the power of those in control, (see e.g. F. Musgrove) Schools and universities are, to use Dahrendorf's phrase, characterised by "dichotomous authority" as opposed to the "continuous authority" demonstrated in the hierarchical arrangements of classical bureaucracies.
Schools and universities are like industrial organisations — a line divides the aggregates of those who dominate and the aggregates of those in subjection.
/
NOfHlHCf tt> PO N/TH AfC WiW/
".J
There is no natural mobility upwards. This makes "participation" extremely difficult, (for this see the question of "Pseudo Gemeinschaft" below). Here just note that both as far as the goals of schools and universities are concerned, and as far as the power system in them is concerned, pupils or students have virtually no chance of op-ward mobility: they are perpetual apprentices. Graduation means leaving — still in a position of inferiority — the social system within which they interact with staff: B.A. means Goodbye.
2—THE PRINCIPLE OF INEVITABLE IMCOMPETENCE
This attack on the self-confidence of the pupil and student is reinforced by another device which turns what could be a temporary and even necessary form of apprenticeship — a status which does, after all, carry a very proper sense of inferiority — into a permanent form of self-degradation. "The , authorities", having defined the goal of the institution then proceed to organise the system in such a way as to make it impossible for any pupil to attain that goal. Ends and means are in fundamental dissociation (see R. K. Merton, "Social Structure and Anomie"). The devices employed are the time-table and the exams. Certainly at school, with the insistence on three or more 'A' levels, but also at many Universities, with an even wider range of subjects, the pupil-student is kept in a state of inevitable incompetence.
Some time ago I carried out a survey into the working of students who were doing five subjects in their first year. The total number of hours worked was, on average and including contact time with staff, 32.3. The average number of works worked per subject was as follows: Subject A, 10.1; Subject B, 5; Subject C, 4.3; Subject D,
8; and Subject E, 5.1. Even if' these students worked an extra 20 hours a week (and for some reasons why they won't, see Cynicism The Highest- Virtue, Enthusiasm The Greatest Vice, below), they would still be putting in only 10 hours per subject per week. Ari earlier survey, carried out at another university, showed that even if students did nothing other than eat, sleep and study for 7 days a week, they would still be able to put in no more than 4 hours' reading time per hour of contact time. Sunday, for example, would look like this; 8-9 a.m., getting up, washing, eating; 9-1 p.m., reading ; 1-2 p.m., eating ; 2-7 p.m., reading; 7-8.30 p.m., eating; 8.30-12 reading.
It must surely be clear that under-specialisation leads to Inevitable Incompetence. In the latter case, of course, with reading in fact coming out at 1.75 hours per hour of contact time, the lecturer or seminar becomes the major source of information. This further emphasises the authority of the lecturer and also inhibits acquaintanceship with alternative facts and interpretation. There are ways of "dealing with" the timetable —e.g. skewing one's reading to establish a de facto specialisation, and, at the same time, increased and punished Incompetence in the neglected subjects. The point here though is that at no time is it possible for any pupil or student to know as much as — never mind more than — a member of staff, and this inevitably reinforces the super-subordinate role system, and further undermines the self-confidence of the pupil or student. (And don't say : "Ah, but I went through this very necessary phase of being inferior, and then I did my M.A., then my Ph.D., and now I'm a lecturer" . . . Remember! for the bulk of pupils and students, B.A., means Goodbye).
3—ALL THINGS HYPOTHETICAL and 4—KNOW-NOTHING MORALITY
There is, pupils are told, a distinction between facts and values. Each discipline has a great body of facts, and essays or statements must be based on them. Very true—but see the Principle of Inevitable Incompetence, which, now allied with the idea of the existence of a "body of facts", merely reinforces the position of the pupil as one of perpetual ignorance, and re-emphasises the authority of the staff, who are assumed to possess large sacks of these important facts. (This is not always true : I remember stories —accurate ones — of a junior member of staif forced, at short notice to give a course about which he knew very little. He ensured that he stayed wise, i.e. wiser than the students, which is what matters — by taking all the relevant books out of the library).
Deprived then, by under-specialisation and lack of time, of the opportunity of arguing from the facts, pupils may attempt to argue from moral or value premises: these efforts are usually introduced by "but
I think that ..." or "when I was at ... " Sympathetic members of staff' (though for more on such members, see "Pseudo Gemeinschaft'' below) may encourage these faltering efforts: but too often the staff member, tending to regard an incursion into moral arguments as a flirtation with propaganda, has come to regard the distinction between facts and values as a reason for ignoring values altogether. Moral premises are only too easily described as "opinions" — i.e. chatter "unsupported by the facts", and as the pupil, according to the Principle of Inevitable Incompetence, has very few facts to present, that is the end of the argument. The pupil who over the years has come to have a grossly exaggerated respect for the facts, is left with the feeling — highly necessary in the occupational world that his "opinions" are irrelevant, suspect and even — horror of horrors ! — subjective. How many schools, allegedly on grounds of style, put a veto on the use^ of the first person pronoun "I think that ?" Opinions introduced in this matter may elicit a relatively sympathetic re-' sponse : "Well; that is quite interesting, Mr Jones, but you're scarcely a representative sample are you, and you might perhaps care to think about it from this point of view or perhaps go and read Furstwanger's (900) page book, not to mention Katzipsky's article in Zer Archive D e r Sozienwisses-chafte". The tentative comfort of a long-cherished opinion is demolished by the revelation of a bewildering relativity in values and the terrible paucity of one's own bibliography. From being wrongly sure one becomes passively confused.
The ensuing refusal on the part of the pupil to identify himself with his essays and the statements they contain also reflects a very sensible awareness that, as a second best option, it is indeed advisable to keep himself private, for he is being asked to reveal himself in a situation in which he has no power to control what happens after the revelation. As Bernstein says, "(When) more of the pupil (is) made public . . . more of the pupil is available for control. As a result the socialisation may be more intensive, more penetrating".
In addition to all this, even such facts as the pupil may have been able to scrabble together are bound to be only a small part of what is — allegedly the great mountain of slowly accumulating data, and he has therefore to face the realisation that his views are , always . . . and inevitably contingent and questionable — the "All Things Hypothetical" Principle. Indeed, it becomes reasonable to be diffident and to avoid making any decision or adopting any stand-point for only those who know all the facts (where are these creatures ?) are entitled to have opinions. As C. Wright Mills says of our self-effacing students : "They are acting as if they were disinterested judges, but they do not have the power
BEAVER, Sept. 25th, 1974—Page Thirteen
of judges. Hence their reasonableness, tolerance and open-mindedness do not often count for much in the shaping of human affairs". The above four Principles of Education have an elective affinity with a fifth, that of
5-CYNICiSM THE HIGHEST VIRTUE, ENTHUSIASM THE GREATEST VICE
"What was the point", said one of my (my?) students, "of doing the geography of the Urals for my 'A' levels ? I wasn't interested in it and I still don't see the relevance." 'That", I replied, "is the whole point. You were not interested but you did it, and by doing so prove the efficacy of the institution which requires you merely to do what you're told, not to be interested in it. Indeed, the greater your distaste, the more successful your school can claim to be, as you reluctantly spent days of your life dutifully boring yourself. You were — and are — being trained in the occupational style to which you will become accustomed, trained that is, to separate your private interests from your public actions and to allow the latter to be controlled by other people — the mass manufacture of the other-directed personality. Be cynical. Pretend, by writing essays, sitting examinations and by taking us seriously, that our ways of doing things are what interest you. In exchange, you will be allowed to have legitimate personal problems — as long as you ignore C. Wright Mills and refrain from turning them "into social issues and rationally open problems". We realise that pupils do not easily accept perpetual humiliation, whether in schools or universities,- and we realise you will have problems. But we insist, they will be private, psychological problems, to which you are entitled and for which we will provide help — University Health Centres now, mortgages when you go to work. Just keep those problems private, that's all".
(See, e.g. Student Casualties, by Anthony Ryle, The Penguin Press, 1969, Nine Chapter Headings are: How many fall ill ? Who fails and why ? Psychiatric illness in students. Psychotic illness. Neuroses and personality differences. How do psychiatric disturbances interfere with academic work ? Suicide and self-injury. Illegal drug use. Student sex and student pregnancy. A comment on student protest and politics).
Cynicism — defined as doing something (such as writing an essay) not because one is interested but because one has been told to be interested by someone in a position to penalise lack of interest — becomes the highest virtue, the necessary condition of survival. How else to describe the mentality of students who, finishing one essay turn hurriedly to the next—and have forgotten what's in the first one within five minutes of its completion ? And what value can the student indeed place on such work, produced on demand, based on inadequate reading of the standard text, immune to personal experience, untutored in tone or purpose, an endless offering of junk? The only way out is to minimise the pain and humiliation by minimising the personal Importance of these public per-
formances ; enthusiasm is bad for you. Small wonder that subject "learnt" for "A" levels or essays are so readily forgotten the minute the degradation ceremony of public presentation has been undergone.
There is a fast and sensible self-abstraction from "the community of scholars", for this in itself has been transformed, from a group based (ideally) on a decently distributed and reciprocal flow of power, information and respect into a branch of the mass society, with a few talkers wearing the uniform of authority and using it to impress upon their many listeners that scholarship is not for them and that passivity in public matters is their proper role in life. A hundred other tricks proclaim authority. There is the business of Gracious Dispensation leading to Compulsory Gratitude. Staff devise, or at any rate operate' within a system which humaliates and elicits dependence. Students who react by, for example, getting upset about exams are then reassured and given help — personal sympathy and support, gratefully received ! Giving is controlling: and what a gift! First, I chop your leg off. You fall down. I "help" you up. You're grateful. I win. Next please. In addition, in cases like this, there is the additional statement of the power of the staff to effect a little "personalisation" of the rules; never mind, we'll see if we can get you a re-sit on grounds of illness . . Dependency graciously offered and gratefully received.
The "help", of course, is not to change the system which made the student need help in the first place, but by defining the problem as a personal and psychological one, to leave that system very much intact and to stress and perpetuate the pupils' need of staff help in order to deal with it. (It often amazes me how enthusiastic are the "rescue teams" of our educational establishments. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to drop out as the first sign of dissidence rapidly mobilises' a very efficient and well-intentioned group of rescuers — tutors, counsellors, psychiatrists — all of whom frenetically attempt to re-recruit the would-be farewell-sayer. SuQcessful rescue attempts become part of the folk mythology of the school or university, trophies proudly displayed, the most difficult material graciously and grimly socialised). Then there is the business of Pseudo Gem-einschaft — the surface statement of common interests and mutual friendliness, the underlying statement that you'd better believe it. In face-to-face encounters in schools and universities, as in other places, interaction can only persist when well lubricated by the ordinary canons of courtesy and friendliness. Such expressions are doubly necessary — and doubly false — when the genuine bases of the interaction are in fact the almost total subordination and dependency of one of the partners, and when institutionally-induced anxiety is the dominant emotion in the minds of the subordinate partner. In such an atmosphere, relatively minor expressions of friendship — the occasional (and non-reciprocal) use of a Christian name — achieve the status of major
proofs of decency and interest: crumbs become a feast, and gratitude — and the subservience it denotes — knows no bounds. Often the expressions of concern are tied to specific anxiety-provoking devices, such as exams: "Look don't worry about exams, everyone passes and there's nothing in them that we haven't covered in class. ..."
Once again, the relevation is of the manipulative power of the teacher or lecturer, the insubstantial nature of the worries and thoughts of the pupil, and hierarchy of "the community".
There we have it then.
Perpetual Apprenticeship, Inevitable Incompetence, All things Hypothetical, Know Nothing Morality, Cynicism the Highest Virtue, Enthusiasm the Greatest Vice, Gracious Dispensation, Compulsory Gratitude and the Pseudo Gemeinschaft— all of them combining to produce students with minimal levels of self-esteem and self confidence but students with self-conceptions and values well suited to promote their careers in the middle-range slots of the public and' private corporate bureaucracies in which most of them will find employment. They will accept frustration in their work and will find satisfaction not in their jobs or in the public sphere, but in the private and defensive sector: they will not question the ultimate goals or purpose of the system for which they work, but will let such matters be settled by "Them", and will confine themselves to the unquestioning and efficient execution of their own specific task — and referee the system in its impact on recipients : "Look Lady, I don't make the rules, I just administer them. Sorry". (This stance, of course, equates reasonableness with conformity). Politics will be experienced vicariously via television or — see, e.g. Jackson & Marsden's Education and the Working Class, via the autobiographies and biographies of "great men".
"Extremism", i.e. any form of argument, will be avoided and all views will be tentative.
There is no doubt that the English educational system is the most efficient in the world.
HOUGHTON STREET
THE return of, not son of Houghton Street, father or grandfather, but great-grandfather of Houghton Street. Throughout the years, LSE's favourite thoroughfare has dwindled from two-way, to oneway—when would it finally succumb to the patter of tiny revolu< tionary feet not harassed by the mobile auto ?
At the end of April, under 8212 of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1971, as applied for by the Westminster City Council, Houghton Street nearly became closed but for three objections that rolled in before the end of the month. These objectors, the police, a local law firm, and the GLC, by their disagreement with the way of the world, at least in its conduct near the LSE, prevented its automatic closure and set the wheels of justice and peace, grinding towards a public inquiry.
At some stage between then and now two things happened. The Police withdrew their objection and the GLC made overtures to those running, perhaps walking the case, the Department of the Environment, in the person of Miss G. E. Hart. One supposes that the GLC's reasoning went so; if they lost the public inquiry Houghton Street would no longer be a fully fledged road for perpetuity. If they could delay the process and, better still prove the whole scheme a disaster, then they would be invincible in an inquiry.
To this end they suggested that the public inquiry be put in cold storage and that a GLC "temporary traffic order" close the street for a trial period. The D. of E. agreed and by Tuesday, September 17th, Houghton Street was still the short cut, the cheap rate road for the taxi driver anxious to chop the fare for his Japanese tourist from a straightforward £5 to a confusing back-street £8.
What happened in the interval was that Mr Hudson, of the GLC Transport and Planning Section, sent a letter to Miss Hart, of the D. of E. on June 7th, asking for permission to officially ."take over". Miss Hart did not receive the letter and not knowing what the reminders were referring to, ignored them. Meanwhile, , Mr Hudson continued to fire reminders across the Thames that ended in Miss Hart's bin or- filing cabinet. Because of this he could not proceed with the printing of his order in the "London Gazette," under S9 of the Road 'Traffic Act, 1967.
Until the order had been printed, Mr Hudson could go no . further. He continued to fire. Miss Hart continued to file and they both ignored the telephone. But thanks to numerous and persistent phone calls, mainly by Maggie Egotrip, the frustrated parties to the unhappy affair were brought together on Tuesday, September 17th, 1974. "They agreed that Mr Hudson would send a copy of the June 7th letter, and Miss Hart would try to clear it as quickly as possible.
Does this really mean that Houghton Street will be able to permanently rest its weary tarmac in the near future ? Not really. Although under S9, Houghton Street could look forward to a possible 18 months of experimental closure, it happens to be GLC's practice to review after nine to 12 months and then reopen or close "permanently" under S6. "Permanently" means that the GLC won't have to worry every 18 months that the closure order has lapsed and it's time to get a new one. But they will be able to reopen, in say, N years' time if they so desire.
What is of greater importance is that the staff of the "London Gazette" are on strike and have been for about two months. So Mr Hudson can't get his order printed, and if he can't do that . . . We'll keep you informed.
PETER TIMMINS,
COMMENT
MR JON DAVIES is worried about our students. He is not interested in the 95 per cent who never reach Higher Education or have any chance under the present socio - economic structure. Rather his concern centres upon that group of University students who have no chance of penetrating the upper class barrier of effective leadership.
Yet, as always the argument is presented as the real issue, an issue involving Social Order, the Welfare State, student participation, the future of the country, virtue, vice, cynicism, etc. In sum, the parties to the struggle are minorities: the ideological protagonist is middle-middle class; the ideological antagonist is upper • middle class; while the essence of the whole is the grievance of the former against the greed and
stubbornness of the latter, all in terms of economic and political avenues to the commanding heights of society.
Doesn't it recall in miniature the main features of the English Revolution ? We think it does, albeit on the partial issue of education. But history is never lost on some of us; when independence wanted to press a peoples' solution to the crisis at the time, when Monmouth's rebellion attempted more directly to bring about the general solution, when all the forces party to the struggle within the opposite class faced the true enemy, the people, then all differences assumed their real proportion and the governing forces united to stand in one front against the people.
We on this side of the society bypass such petty conflicts with the neglect they deserve.
R.S.A.A.
BEAVER
YOU could join these people in producing BEAVER. (See page 14). Peter Timmins (Editor), Peter Capel Annice Mahmood Abe Oppel Maggie Urry Caroline Grace.
~ %.U ; Scty^
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EEAVER, Sept. 25th, 1974—Page Fourteen
AND she is there at six in the morning, already working, the sleeves of her black dress rolled up, broken shoes on her feet. She sees me and covers her face with her hands and gives out something crossed between a screech and a cry of welcome. For the last seven years she has been for me all the poverty, rage and injustijce that Greece has endured. If she tells me that she is free, then Greece is truly free.
She tells me no such thing, but what she told me I heard in other parts and from other people. The dual state, the para state, still exists. Greece is not yet free from the enemies within, btft there is a real opportunity for them to establish a democratic state for the first time since 1944.
• But first let me deal with the fall of the "Christian Greeks." On July 20th, the Turks invaded Cyprus and Athens ordered a general mobilisation. The Greeks, always intensely nationalist, flocked to barracks all over Greece only to discover that the army that had so brutally suppressed them for so long was incapable of either feeding them, clothing them, housing them, or most criminal cf all, of arming them.
A regime, based on force and military fervour could not at the critical time arm the conscripts it had called upon, for the arms, the "raison d'etre" of American support, had been sold to African and Arab States for foreign currency. When boxes were broken open in the armouries, they were found to be full of stones. Never can an army have so betrayed its country and compounded its original treason of April 21st, 1967.
The centre of power shifted to Thesolonika, where the Third Army Corps, which was responsible for the defence of Greece's, eastern border, had their H.Q. There General John Davos, the C. in C., found himself in an impossible situation. The Turks had 400,000 troops poised to strike should the Greeks make a -wrong move and General Davos was only just beginning to find cut how hopeless his position was.
On learning that he had no guns, he closed all communications down in Thesolonika, leaving, one supposes, a line open to
Athens, for at this point it is not yet possible to discover what went on. A few days later Kar-amanlis flew into Athens.
So what happened in Thesolonika? That the Generals fln-a 11 y reasserted themselves against the colonels is now obvious, so one can guess with reasonable accuracy that Davos must have threatened to turn his tanks away from Turkey and point them at Athens, or perhaps set up a provisional government in Thesolonika, call in the King (he is a known royalist), and split Greece in two, as Venizelos did in 1917. The tragedy is that Davos had to wait until an innocent Cyprus was invaded before he seized his chance.
But where does Greece go now ? What do the Greeks want ?
Firstly: The closure of all American bases in Greece for what the Americans have done to Greece since 1967 is unforgivable and, if there are people about who still do not believe that the Americans fixed the Colonels' Coup, the recent revelations about Kissinger's role in Chile should dispel that.
Secondly : The death by whatever rneans the reactivated 1952 constitution lays down, of all those serving army officers who, on April 21st. 1967, betrayed their country by committing treason.
Thirdly: The death of all
those serving army officers who plotted the wilful murder of Archbishop Markarios and the Cyprus Republic.
Fourthly: Free elections by a free people for a free parliament.
I think they are asking for the moon, for they are at pre sent led by a man who in 1961 led an election so fraudulant, that even the trees were accused of voting. And of course it is not forgotten that it was during his period of office that the horror of the Lambrakis affair took place. However, many Greeks have told me that the years of exile in Paris have changed Mr Karamanlis. I am more sceptical and I am certainly not fooled by his bluff of stamping out of NATO, then saying that the American bases are difl:erent, they must stay. Pulling a few office boys out of their warm offices in Brussels is certainly not enough to appease the Greek demands for the closure of all American bases.
So far it has seemed to me That only Andreas Papandreou has come anywhere near to the demands that everywhere can be heard in Greece, and as the old lady said to me ''They will make a Lambrakis of him," and if the Greeks do not take care of their para-state I am afraid they will, for when the old Greek power base reorganises (the King / Karamanlis, the army, the Americans) he will be their most dangerous enemy.
PAUL BOSGHER.
Florrie retires
Junta Gives Up
3T is said that when the Greek 1 juftta saw the total chaos re-' suiting from the general mobilisation orders, they resigned in despair, helped on by the threats of army officers from Northern Greece, belatedly led by Gen. Davos, a recent confi-<lant of the U.S. Ambassador (they met a few days before the military government resigned). In any case, from what I saw of the mobilisation, en the little Aegean island of Jos, chaos is a polite word to ¦use. When it came to painting EOKA-B slogans on the walls cf Athens (and later obliterating them) the police seemed to be pretty efficient, but when the radio announcement finally came, after hours of demotic songs and martial music, the police didn't really know any jnore than anybody else. Perhaps the los police were dif-
aferent, though a rumour had ^ flown round the island that they had been supplemented by twenty-five plain-clothes cops.
They couldn't find any of the proper forms, apart from a couple of old-looking official proclamations, which they sello-taped on the wall outside the police station. A few tourists tried to photograph the crowd of men destined for the army, but were shooed off. No couleur locale that day. All males within a certain range of ages had to report to the police that day, otherwise they would be liable to be shot for desertion. A group of peasants arrived: "This is bloody fantastic today, isn't it ?" observed one of them bitterly. In the end everyone was given a handwritten slip of paper with a police stamp on it, and the police said that
the ferryboat might come in the evening. Maybe: who knows ? Martial music continued on the Greek radio all day.
In the evening at the port, the police boat transmits the Greek propaganda to us, but a crowd gathers to listen to Deutsche 'Welle or B.B.C. An announce-• ment on the police loudspeaker — this ferryboat is for Greek soldiers only — no women — no tourists — only Greek soldiers going to the war. And into the port comes the ferry, crammed with draftees for the long journey to Athens.
Then it s gone. The bus stops running, its drivers gone to the army. The village runs out- of bread on the next day, and the peasants start arguing about the best way to get rid of the junta. There's a blackout at 10 o'clock, and a curfew at midnight. Rumours start flying around : is it true that there are demonstrations in Athens? Are
AT the end of September, Florrie retires from active service at the Bar. Fifteen years of trading coffee, tea and buns from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. is to be ended—Florrie, who celebrated her 70th birthda/ this year, will now come in for a few hours every morning.
The Students' Union collected £176 from her fans, made it up to £250 and gave it to her last term. The Union is also adding to the pension that the School is providing by investing £2,500 of the Union's reserves. Is this the reason why Florrie is now serving in a fur coat ? We all wish her a happy semi-retire-ment.
P.T.
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BE A VER INC.
BEAVER NEWSPAPERS INC.,
the producers of this newspaper, have found that the enthusiasm of their staff has waned recently. This benevolent company has not reduced the pay or impaired the conditions for its staff. Thus the managing director has concluded
Karamanlis and the King back ? Is Pappas of the Velos back to fight ? Is Britain blockading Cyprus ? Is there an uprising in Athens ? Has the 3rd Army rebelled against the Athens regime ? Will the boat come tonight (Monday), at 5 a.m., 8 a.m., in the afternoon, at 5 p.m., or some time tomorrow ?
It comes at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, and all the tourists and non-drafted Greeks (i.e. students and women and policemen) are ferried out to it. Then it sets off for Athens. It reaches ftraeus at about 6 p.m. Two uniformed KS.A. bully boys are on the quay, carrying sub-machine guns. They look like what they are: colonial military police.
I just have time for a bath when the government announces its end. There is a gap of a few minutes, then all hell breaks loose. A cacophony (sic) of car hooters fills the air. The streets fill with hundreds of thousands of celebrating Athenians. The Greek flag waves everywhere. One old
that overwork is at the root of his' production difficulties. Consequently jobs, usually filled by much older and more experienced men, are being advertised. Young men ol energy and determination and young ladies will be considered for the posts. Please contact "Beaver".
man runs along a main street carrying a huge Greek flag, applauded by those in the roadside cafes. Cars scream down the roads with people on their roofs waving flags. The victory-V is everywhere : taxi-drivers (hard-hit by Greece's inflation-rate) make Vs out of red warning triangles. Syntagma Square is packed with demonstrators: "Junta to the jail!" "The people remember November!"
In the middle of the night, Karamanlis returns. The next day, Athens returns to normal. Celebrations come only with a cause (such as the emptying of the Y i a r o s Concentration Camp), but Karamanlis is a known quantity and no cause for popular celebration. He was Prime Minister when Lambrakis (Z) was killed, and he left Greece years before the C(Jup d'etat, with accusations of corruption being hurled after him. But there is a freer press, and Greece has partly pulled out of N.A.T.O. As in Portugal, things are better, even if the millenium has not arrived. Especially for the former political prisoners,

Sicilian Avenue
SICILIAN AVENUE lies on one of the more Attractive routes between the LSE and the halls of residence of north Bloomsbury. It is a row of shops with offices above, in a ridiculous, yet romantic. Italianate style, using glazed terra cotta tiles as facing that was built to the design of R. J. Worley in 1905. The portico entrances lead into a gentler world of small shops and cafes which stand in proud contrast to their "chain" counterparts on Southampton Row and High Holborn.
BEAVER. Sept. 25th, 1974—Page Fifteen
W/O.-V
The range of goods any one shop can carry is obviously limited but this is adequately compensated for by a standard of personal service which is far from common nowadays. "The Burlington Arcade of Blooms-bury" would be a rather too fiambuoyant description of the Avenue but like its expensive counterpart on Piccadilly, Sicilian Avenue stands out from the
functional uniformity of the area. Both add character to what would otherwise be a drab environment. Consequently, both must remain.
The future of Burlington Arcade is not in any doubt, nor is the external structure of Sicilian Avenue for it is listed as a building of national and historical interest, yet at present a storm of protest surrounds plans for the Internal refurbishment of the shops and offices. The buildings may not possess much peculiar architectural merit of their own, but they are an integral part of the area.
Thus it is unfortunate that the row over redevelopment is motivated solely by self-interest.
The managing company, D.O.B. Estates Ltd. (a subsidiary of the Hammerson Group of Companies), say that they intend only to carry out essential repair work (Curing rising damp in the basements, replacing lifts which date from 1905 and meeting fire and other safety regulations) and internal reconstruction. The Tenants' Association recognises the necessity for the repair work but takes issue with the plans for internal recon-
struction. They claim that the plans show a degree of reconstruction which will, by enlarging the shops and offices, both deny them the opportunity of returning and replace the main features of the building, thus detracting from the character of the area.
Naturally, such claims are refuted by the property company, who say they hope to see many of the present tenants returning after the refurbishment work has been completed. The rents will be increased but to a level that still makes the small shops and individual offices econornic-ally viable.
Such are the facts. Both sides confront each other, the Tenants' Association launching a petition to "save" the integral heritage of the area and the property company establishing an exhibition in response to show the quality of their previous redevelopments in the Bloomsbury area in a vacant shop unit. Will the rents go up astronomically ? Will "open-plan" offices replace smaller ones ? Will the leaded-light windows stay, go or be replaced ? These are all questions which bring differing answers from the two sides.
Two things only seem concrete. The managing company's plans are coming up before the Planning Committee of Camden Borough Council in approximately three weeks' time and then when there is a decision one way or the other there will also be a greater public access to the plans.
Secondly, as happened with a proposed redevelopment in Sussex Gardens, • Paddington, the Tenants' Association (efficiently organised by a P.R. company which occupies some of the offices) seem to hide their own self-interest behind the smoke-screen of protection of our architectural and historical heritage. The case in Paddington was particularly spurious with the tenants of a once-beautiful terrace of Georgian houses (now ravaged by cheap bed-and-breakfast hotels, many of whicli were gaudily painted, others having defaced even
SENNET, the ail - purpose London student weekly, is one of the few newspapers in the world with a staff of two. This is why they are organising 'informal Sennet lunches at which a few editors can
their frontages) claiming that they were protecting our architectural heritage against the onslaught of new flats and hotels, etc.
The same hypocrisy is not true of the Sicilian Block Tenants' Association for they privately admit their self-interest and the buildings have remained mostly unmolested since their construction. Rather, it is perhaps those who sign the petition who are, however well-intentioned, acting hypocritically.
PETER GAPEL.
get together' so that they don't get bored v/ith each other's company, can recruit more staff and get others to pay for their feed.
So please read it with compassion.
SENNET BLOW OUT
Graduate Opportunities 1975
IN spite of, if not simply because of, its despicably trendy titic G075% this year's bible for all budding executives, does not make the most enjoyable reading. As usual, it is a rather tame affair; a turgid, £5.50-worth (though for undergraduates unfortunately free) of various indexes and guides to almost every frustrating middle--
management post that the biggest and best of the British manufac-»
turing and service industries can offer.
Graduate Opportunities 75 has a lot of faults and one rather serious shortcoming, and, incidentally, despite its abbreviated title, no connection whatsoever with GB75. Although I do not doubt that the wreckage of some unspecified future holocaust in which Colonel Stirling's blimpish brigands will scratch about for any Surviving vestiges of the state, will have been caused in no mean measure by the very intrepid people about to read this book.
To begin with, let's dispose of-the niggling items. The book is big, fat and boring. An 800-page orgy of dull and repetitive adverts of graduate openings. Accompanying the book is a small pocket-guide, GRID75. described as a quick reference guide to career opportunities, whereas all it does is reproduce the index and a precis account of the firms appearing in its more illustrious partner, with a "degree required" section which is also available in the blown-up version.
Just like the free student bank account adverts, all the companies in the directory who trj^ miserably fail to inspire me with their homely photographs and montages of the graduate at work in the arteries of society. He stares out at me, a stern hard-faced, fashionably cut young man, always about to board a plane for that vitally important meeting in New York or Scunthorpe. Handsome, determined, single-handedly grap-
pling with the problems of industrial life. Cajoling production figures, counselling workers ; getting the best out of everything for the benefit of all.. And all for £1,700 p.a., L.V.s and half an hour on the firm's squash court, as long as you book up three weeks in ad-vance^not unlike LSE in many respects.
There's a .tremendously hollow ring about it all. The world is my oyster, CK) out and take it; British Leyland : Britain's No. 1 Exporter—Help Us Keep Things "This Way; '"Lawyer, Diplomat, Teacher, Researcher, Sociologist, Psychologist, Traffic Engineer, Security Expert," your life in the Metropolitan Police; Esso, "Drilling into the Past—to Fuel the Future." New horizons, new friends, big men, big decisions all yours—but all I want to do is fester off the Charing Cross Road.
That's the major shortcoming. The guide didn't help me to find
a job! It failed in its stated aim.
Now it could be . said that I'm hard to please, don't want to work or am studying an irrelevant degree (vocationally speaking). One or all majr well be true. But if they apply to me, they also apply to a lot of other undergraduates and so I think I can rightfully claim that the book falls down on its intentions because nothing in it appeals to me, and probably
won't appeal to a lot of other potential graduates, either.
Of course, it would be all right if I wished to become an accountant, a personnel officer, an engineer —• civil, chemical, mechanical, electrical, production and genetic, also if I looked hard enough, or if I wished to join any one of endless management training schemes. AU these occupations are tediously documented so that, if J wished, I could relive the glories of throwing the M62 across the Scammonden Dam with Sir Alfred McAlpine, wear my St. Laurent while retailing fashions for C & A, or even face the pros-

pect of beginning in the vacations with The Wellcome Foundation Limited, "'a major international manufacturer of medicines, vaccines and drugs ; British owned with subsidiary-« companies throughout the world."
But unfortunately, that isn't the sort of opportunity I'm after. It's not because, like any other self-respecting vodka-drinker, I wouldn't touch any of these jobs with a 10ft. Volga boatman, because I don't drink vodka, and, that's not the sort of thing I'm remotely interested in or particularly want to do. That sort of thing—well, it's not me. Fm not qualified for them, I don't cut the right image—and they don't pay enough!
I suppose I'm a romantic, but what I wanted help for was in finding an opportunity in wine-tasting, or an introduction to Sotheby's, as an authority on George III teaspoons, or even an opening in a little second-hand • book and original print shop on the Charing Cross Road.
These opportunities for gradu-, ates don't appear in this book. Perhaps they don't exist but I prefer to believe that they do. Instead of my chosen careers I suppose I could take up the suggestions of G075 and settle for Watney Mann, British Steel or Reed International, but, somehow, I do not think that overseeing the production of your toilet paper is really what I want to do with my life. And that's the way I would prefer to keep it.
P. J.G.
* Graduate Opportunities 1975.
The New Opportunity Press, £5.50.
BEAVER, Sept. 23th, 1974—Page Sixteen
Resurrected
APATHY and a knowing cynicism are highly commendable and, more often than not, correct responses to the news that yet another student newspaper is, under the guiding hands of its latest batch of cherubic guardians, undergoing a renaissance, a revamp of style or redirection of content. Such a reaction would be more justified if "Sennet," an unwieldy newspaper for all students of London University, yet claiming the loyalty of none, than of a purely college newspaper ; but it is "Sennet" that has undergone a transformation, and it is one that can succeed and could be to the benefit of all the students in the Greater London Area.
What could-decide the success of this venture is the energy and determination shown over the long vacation by Richard Cow-per, an SOAS post-graduate and news editor, and our very own Jeremy Clift, this year's sabba-
Clift (left) and Cowper
tical editor. They have taken a ULU financed, ill-produced and little-read bull of a newspaper squarely by the horns and broken it into a self-financing weekly v/ith a doubled circulation of 40.000 (estimated readership—100,000) that will reach all the universities and all the polytechnics, colleges of technology and of education in the metropolitan area.
This has been achieved by the editors contending with the" problems of economic and administrative management. Not
for "Sennet" a "re-orientation of editorial policy" or "new socio-political commitment" for such is the stuff of the euphoric and pitilessly short-lived aspects of most student newspaper rebirths.
Their first problem was the aquisition of advertising. To meet it they produced a professional prospectus of cliches which has been circularised to over 2,000 advertising men. The cliches of this document may be appalling (see picture) but they have had the necessary effect on the men who determine the economic viability of all newspapers—and these men are used to dealing in cliches!
Coupled with this recognition that advertising that is available, is to be used to pay production costs and for more adventurous projects rather than as space-fillers, is the desire to plug an important hole in inter-college information. Namely, telling students what is happening in other colleges as well as their own and in London generally. This will be done by student society adverts at reduced rates and by an extensive week-by-week diary of events.
The creation of a classified ad. section is another innovation. It will provide space for inter-collegiate adverts by students at rates which undercut all others and including a free (to advertiser) "spare-room" column in an effort to try and help surmount the annual problem of student accommodation.
But the greatest problem of this little lot is that chasing advertisers, collating the diary, etc., and then amassing the rest of the paper's contents, the news and articles, will require a great deal of organisation and patient work.
The aim, creating an organ of communal expression for all the students in London, is exciting and worthy. The prospect ahead for the editor and the core of his staff is quite daunting; but this time it might just possibly work.
P.J.C.
YOUR INSURANCE PREMIUMS: CASH REBATE
£45 is the average Cash Rebate students get by taking Life/ Endowment Assurance (with their chosen company) through S.L.A.S. (est. 1951), the original and best student concession. Continued support of thousands of Graduates makes this possible. Enjoy lifelong FREE ADVISORY SERVICE and MORTGAGE HELP from old-established and qualified Brokers, Univ. specialists. And now : A Cash Rebate which could repay all your premiums up to two years! Before signing your life away, get the facts of this important concession. — S.L.A.S., HARRISONS, ROUND CHURCH ST., CAMBRIDGE.
(Sorry, this cannot apply to no7i-S.L.A.S. policies already in jorce)
Moral Economics and the Economics of IIAorality
MUCH controversy was provoked by the resignation of Professor Harry G. Johnson from all his functions in the L.S.E. and his decision to leave the British Isles for good.
Beaver has always refrained from interfering with inter-staff feuds but this event transcends "internal warfare in the enemies' camp" to rather more fundamental issues of Higher Education and the future of the L.S.E. The following letter concentrates on the moral issue.
Dear Editor,—I would not have been moved to write this letter had I not been appalled and rather shocked on reading a letter in "The Times" regarding the resignation from the School of an ex-teacher of mine. The author's name may resound in Oxford University but is not worthy of mentioning here. His attitude towards the man, however, is an epitome of the most prevalent moral conduct in the economic profession of this country. Past contacts with the pack assure me that this attitude is widely shared by Professor Johnson's ex-colleagues.
To say "good riddance", as this Oxford author does, is not just a matter of tact and decency when a phrase like this is thrown, with "The Times'" blessing, on the back of a man who is leaving the country for good ; it is also an apt abbreviation of their vulgar intellectual-ism and base morality, both in general, and in relation to the "Giant" (Professor Peter Rauer's term who caipe to the School after partial recovery and stood with the help of a stick, still half invalid, to give them a reassuring lecture. What a contrast between his courage and their cowardice.
However unscientific their discipline has become, their envy of his superior and wider
grasp of Economics is at the bottom of their behaviour. When he was stronger, they did not dare to challenge him to his face and sufficed themselves with petty gossip among themselves ; when he had a stroke, they pulled out their knives. One of them described to me the whole psychology as "bitchiness". More recently someone pointed out, as the reason for the jealousy, his superb literary style : its content may well be bourgois, but all the same it is clear, comprehensive, deep and full of insight into the workings of the system. None of that obscurantism and meddling which parades in their literature as social science when it is, in fact, no more than eco-scien-tology or theological economics.
Of course, it would be difficult for an ex-student of his to claim total objectivity. It would
PROF. H. G. JOHNSON
be difficult, furthermore, to find a Left-wing basis for defending his Economics, Politics or Sociology. But perhaps the L.S.E. paper would defend morality where "The Times" failed; perhaps the Left would voice the truth which the tiny minority of decent ex-colleagues of his is too shy (?) or feeble to pronounce. '
One thing remains clear, all the same. Among most of Johnson' ex-colleagues, he re-
mains the one man who never failed to do his best to be genuine and creative or to help a student understand the messy web of Economics somewhat better and encourage in him the retention of a critical mind. Indeed, among most of his students, he shall always be remembered as the best fellow in the School, the most helpful and the least undemocratic. His antagonists, on the other hand, and those who accepted the resignation shall be forgotten or even despised.
We would disagree with a lot of his ideas but to him I, at least, would like to say a good farewell.
R. SHAIKH AL ARD,
Lecturer.
Polytechnic of Central London.
New unrest
THERE seems to be some inequality in the treatment of the Staff of the L.S.E. The Secretarial Staff that are members of N.A.L.G.O., so our contact tells us, have for the past two months refused to work with "temps". These are the non-unioniged people who get much higher rates than the unionised permanent staff.
The porters, whose union is the T, & G.W.U., are girding their loins to stop any attempts to deduct their threshold rises from the increase in their London Allowance. They are casting an eye at the Secretaries' and Lecturers' pay claims, which the poor L.S.E. can't afford, whilst calculating and getting ready to move.
Our contact said that the Lecturers want a 40 per cent increase in their basic pay. He had thought of becoming a Lecturer, until he heard that the new Director has had "The Anchorage", L.S.E.'s own house for The Director, refurbished as his study. That makes two homes he has. Ask a Secretary if that is unequal.
N.B.: See page one.
P.T.

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