WILL ' MR CUBE' ATTACK THE TORY - GOVERNMENT?
26th October 1973 from the Tribune Magazine Archive
Topics
PoliticsOrganisations
Tate •and Lyle Employees' Action Committee, European Economic Community, Conservative Party, French Government, Tory Party, Conservative Government, Tory GovernmentPeople
Cube, Napoleon, Tory Promises, JOHN HILL, Joseph •odberLocations
London, Liverpool, GreenockTHERE is considerable irony in the fad that Tate and Lyle, the massive sugar refiners, have been a regular and large contributor' to Conservative Party funds. In the years gone by they were more than that. When, in the fifties, Labour was in favour of taking the giant firm into public ownership, ` Mr Cube „ was invented to push the case for private' enterprise sugar. Indeed was often believed at that time that Tate and Lyle led the Tory Party by the nose.
Now, with the Conservative Government reneging on the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement which was supposed to keep a massive amount of cane sugar flowing into Britain to be refined at Tate and. Lyle, it looks, on the surface, anyway as if the Tory Party has desert-.
ed its old friend.
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But is that really so? The sugar workers certainly understand what the score is. In the advertisements placed by the Tate •and Lyle Employees' Action Committee they say' As a direct result of entry into the EEC, you will pay three times as much for your sugar within two years. Why? Because the British !cane sugar industry is being sacrificed for political purposes .. The Government does not care — all must be sacrificed for EEC membership, and where Napoleon failed, Pom pidou succeeds." But just what is the attitude of the Tate and Lyle management? Some very expert observers of the sugar scene believe that Tate and Lyle saw the present dilemma coming. First there is evidence that it has done little in the last two years to keep up the rate of investment in .
the Catibbean sugar plantations.
Secondly it is understood that one of the rowans that the management of Tate and Lyle did not kick up a bigger fuss about the terms of entry for Commonwealth sugar negotiated by the Tory Government when we entered the Cormuunity, was beamuse the Government had told them that they might get a bit of the beet sugar salon in Prance.
In other words, the : run-down of auk-refining in Britain (Which the workers are cornplaming about) would be repieced by extremely lucrative holdings inside the Common Market sugar beet industry. But the French Government was not having that. Year can invest foreign money in almost every French industry, but not agricu - ture. The French were determined to keep Tate & Lyle out.
The other day, Tate and Lyle brought " Mr Cube ". out of retirement, when it sent a. packet of sugar to every Member of ' Parliament. With an enigmatic smile on his face he announced: "'I'm back, watch this space?' • But there are doubts about whether in the future we will see him mouthing slogans like: "'Keep sugar cheap — get Mr Cube out of the Common Market," or Don't believe Tory Promises! As the Tate and Lyle Employees' Action Committee says, the chief beneficiaries of Tory policy will be French farmers.
But interestingly enough, British farmers who produce beet sugar will also get a increase in their incomes if cane sugar refining is phased out. One such fanner is Joseph •odber, the present Tory Minister of Agriculture. No doubt he will pay it all back into the redundancy fund for Tate and Lyle workers put out of cabs by his Government's politaes.
JOHN HILL, the London organiter of the Tate and Lyle Employees" Action Committee, tells me that it is the workers alone who are really organising the present campaign.
With their colleagues in Liverpool and Greenock, they raised the money for the advertisements in the national press. To take time off to organise the campaign they have had to mortgage their holidays for next year with the firm.