Fortnight Publications Ltd.

Notes: Nationalised StealingAuthor(s): Arthur LewisSource: Fortnight, No. 164 (Mar. 17, 1978), p. 7Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25546584 .

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Friday 17 March 1978/7

NOTES

NATIONALISED STEALING by Arthur Lewis MP

lite theft by British Steel of ?520 million out of our pockets may seem so vast a sum

of money that we might be expected to shrug our shoulders and dismiss the whole affair as nothing to do with us as individuals. We could say that there is nothing we can do about it, so we might as

well not bother. If a select committee of the House of Commons cannot prevent hundreds of millions of pounds of the taxpayers' money going down the drain, then what can the individual citizen expect to be able to do himself? Well perhaps ? can galvanise the

individual taxpayer into action if I point out that the Villiers ?500 million is only a red tag indicating the presence of hundreds of billions of pounds of losses. We do not stop to consider the difference between the vast profit which British Steel could be making and the loss it is in fact making. That difference is far greater than a few hundred million pounds.

There is nothing quite so expensive as secrecy when it is used to permit the perpetuation of incompetence in a State controlled industry. The collapse of British Steel and the vast increase in

unemployment which will follow in the wake of that disaster is going to be werf expensive. There comes a point at which the concept of welfare state becomes

impracticable. The more disasters created

by incompetent bureaucrats, the greater the army of unemployed, the greater the army of administrators required to operate welfare needs, and we are into a vicious

cycle. More and more welfare, less and less

production, and ultimately universal

poverty. The wild card in the pack is the Official

Secrets Act, which prevents even a Select Committee of the House o? Commons obtaining the information it needs tci safeguard the interests of the taxpayer, No man should be required to pay taxes unless he has representation in

government. The Official Secrets Act prevents the taxpayers" elected

representatives from carrying out their

duties, even when officially requested to do so by the House of Commons itself.

At one point we though that Sir Charles Villiers was going to take refuge in the Tower to escape the wrath of the people when they discovered the truth. I Watergate in Britain under the present law could not occur. Corruption cannot be

exposed in Britain. All we get are fleeting wafts of stinking fish.

There was a time when an Englishman's word was his bond, when one could safelj

assume that, whatever went on behind I closed doors in Whitehall, it was not I corrupt. But times have changed, Crime is the only growth industry in Britain today and permissive concepts are very convenient for bureaucrats.

Every individual in Britain is concerned to know that the money he entrusts to the Government out of his pay packet is managed wisely and well. Every individual has the right to expect that he, or his representative in Parliament, should be permitted access to the information required to monitor the wisdom of government housekeeping.

Every individual in Britain now knows that such a right does not exist, British Steel have shown him the red flag. We all need to restore our Right to Know in Britain. It is one of the most basic of all human rights, it is needed by every MP and if each one of us demanded Freedom of Information legislation to replace the Official Secrets Act we could go a very long way towards keeping the bureaucrats' hands out of our pockets.

Arthur Lewis is Chairman of the

Parliamentary All Party Committee for Freedom of Information

NATURE TRAILS For anyone living around Belfast

Lough, the plaintive credo that 'if it wasn't for the troubles, this could be the loveliest wee country in the world', is getting a bit hard swallow. The shores of the Lough are an indusrial desert as far as Kilroot on the north and Holywood on the south. The callousness with which the rest of the coast is being destroyed is the sort that can only be generated by a collection of smug minds working their own wee

moves.

On a clear day the Antrim Hills, the

Copeland Islands, and even Scotland are visible from the coasts fo North

Down, a very romantic backdrop to

the pastoral countryside of Down itself. Goodbye pastoral countryside.

Between Bangor and Groomsport, Groomsport and Orlock, Orlock and

Donaghadee, there are perhaps ten fields along the coast. The rest is

gobbled up by bungalows. A few hundred people are ruining the area

for everyone else. The monuments of the industrial zone, the M2 and

Kilroot power station, can probably only be removed by a holocaust.

Stopping bungalow building and caravan parking could surely be more

easily accomplished. The waters of the Lough are

becoming a cesspool at the same rate, and in the same way, as the shores are

being destroyed. Fifteen years ago it was possible to bathe at Hazeldene, a red bus ride from the centre of Belfast. Now only a few foolhardy souls would dare to bathe even at Holywood. As far round as Donaghadee filth regularly clouds the water.

Some obvious sources of this dirt are the rivers and streams which flow into the Lough from Belfast. God knows what the Farcet must be like (it flows underground), but the Lagan and the sinister wriggles of the Blackstaff and the Connswater have to be smelt to be believed.

The Connswater in particular grotesquely winds its putrid way

through industrial estate, cosmetically under the Newtownards Road, past unfenced children's play areas and the backs of neat terraced houses, down to the Lough at Sydenham. Along the

way it collects tables, chairs, beds, cars, distinctly worn out globs of

faeces, and, said one local resident,

'up to a hundred used contraceptives an hour in the peak period' (for some

reason, shortly after lunch). The banks

upon which the children of East Belfast gambol delightedly

? there not being a lot else for them to do ?

are coated with creamy clinging mud which is more than mud; the sewage pumps do their inadequate best, but to little avail. 'You can't sleep around here at night, especially not in the summer with the windows open. The stench is awful. If your readers think I'm exaggerating, let them try and live

here.'

The fatalism with which pollution is

accepted, here as elsewhere, is

depressing. Throwing stones at rats in the Blackie and watching shit float down the Connswater seem to be

thought of as an unchanging part of

the Belfast landscape. Yet legislation and a relatively few thousand pounds could bring fish back to these streams.

_m__WB?__ The Rambler

WW* BORDERING ON RIDICULOUS

The Save Ulster from Sodomy campaign claimed 70,000 signatures on their petition to keep Ulster out of line with British law. In fact NIO officials could only count 64,000 (but what's 6,000 between friends?). Even more intriguing is the revelation that

something more than a handful of these upright citizens reside in

Donegal ? which could be said by

cynics to stretch somewhat the *

We the

undersigned being electors of the United Kingdom' clause. Or could it be that Rev Dr Paisley sees Ireland as four provinces? Surely not.

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