"Stinking Fish"

A 17th Century English proverb posed it thus: "Does ever any man cry stinking fish to be sold?" "Stinking fish" is a phrase much heard in Britain these days. Those to whom Britain's present or future looks dark are charged with "crying stinking fish." Optimists and apologists for Britain's troubles bravely insist: "I'm not going to cry stinking fish." The sense of it: don't sell Britain short.

For almost 20 years, George Turner had worked dutifully as a policeman in London's stinking Billingsgate fish market. At last came a vacancy in the sergeancy rank, and Constable Turner got his reward --a sergeant's three hooks (stripes).

Last week George Turner's promotion stirred up a messy labor dispute. First, Turner's ten fellow constables at Billingsgate walked off their jobs (they are Corporation of London employees, distinct from London's police bobbies). Upping Turner, they insisted, was rank favoritism: each should have been given the chance to apply for the promotion. Out also went many of Billingsgate's cleaners. Conscientious Constable Turner, they angrily charged, had stooped unfairly to help the superintendent hose down a messy corner of the fish market.

Out without warning also went about 1,000 other Corporation of London workers--market and street cleaners, rubbish collectors, gravediggers. At 7 o'clock one evening the twin bascules* of Tower Bridge went up, but not because a Thames ship tooted for passage through. The 70 men who operate the drawbridge in shifts had also joined the wildcat sympathy strike over George Turner's three hooks.

The bridge stayed up all week. Central London had a monumental jam; traffic was tangled in three-mile snarls in some areas. London Bridge carried most of the added load, and it took 20 minutes for busses and other vehicles to crawl across it during peak traffic hours. Thousands of Londoners walked--and muttered Billingsgate curses on the Billingsgate strike.

By midweek many streets were littered, and the city's health authorities worried about uncollected rubbish. At the London Corporation's burial ground, funerals were postponed or detoured to other cemeteries; the diggers had left only a three-day supply of graves. Few strikes had caused more public inconvenience and discomfort. Londoners found the gates to public lavatories locked; the attendants had joined the strike.

Billingsgate's reputation for stench went to a new high; the cobbled streets around it were covered with fishy slime and refuse. Said one of its porters: "If this 'ad 'appened in the summer, we'd 'ave 'ad to wear our ruddy gas masks."

Navy v. Wildcat. Labor Minister George Isaacs (see cut) was up to his neck in troubles. British labor in general seemed as touchy as a wildcat's ribs. Less annoying to the public than the Corporation workers' strike, but more jolting to the national economy, was an unauthorized walkout by about 10,000 of London's 24,000 dockmen. They struck in sympathy with Glasgow's 3,800 dockmen who walked out seven weeks ago when the Ministry of Labor ruled that about 500 of them would have to be dismissed (there was not work enough to spread around).

Under Government pressure, union leaders got most of London's dockmen back to work after four days of shipping jams that threatened serious food shortages. The Glasgow strikers accepted a Government settlement. The Tower Bridge also was opened to traffic again: the Government moved in Royal Navy crews to operate it, and workmen redecorating the Guildhall for a "Welcome Home" dinner for the Royal Family walked out in protest. In Durham, 20 striking enginemen shut down 15 collieries which employ 20,000 miners.

The Labor Government, which has given itself powers to control almost everything in Britain except labor, was plainly worried over the spread of wildcatting. Deputy Prime Minister Herbert Morrison, in his first public speech after five months of illness, tried pleading. Said he: "Unofficial strikes are really strikes against trade unionism and against trade union democracy. If these adventures which are damaging our national economy continue . . . [they] will bring discredit upon the whole labor movement. To the trade union rank & file I would say: Resist the activities of men who bring you into conflict with your union."

* In a drawbridge, the counterbalanced movabale sections whic rise & fall on a seesaw principle.

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