WOOLWICH , OGMORE AND ST. ROLLOX .sx Cash Must Be Raised To Fight .sx By HARRY POLLITT .sx THREE by-elections stand on the order of the day Ogmore .sx St. Rollox , East Woolwich .sx These by-elections are far more important to the workers than St. George's or any by-election of recent date .sx Ogmore , a centre of the South Wales coalfield , where the great betrayal of the Miners' Federation leaders and the Labour Government has cut the wages of the miners 2s .sx to 5s .sx per week .sx St. Rollox , a great working-class constituency , a centre of the railway industry .sx Woolwich , a centre of the armament industry .sx To let these by-elections go by without revolutionary working-class candidates entering the fight to expose the Labour Government and their Tory and Liberal allies , to harness the mass disillusionment with the Labour Government to the cause of the working-class struggle , would be a crime .sx Pontypridd and Bristol reveal the situation clearly ; without revolutionary working-class candidates in the elections the workers are in a quandary .sx Many abstain from voting , all hate the Tories and Liberals , and rightly so .sx But the illusion remains strong that the Labour Party is different .sx Only if the banner of the revolutionary working-class struggle is raised high by fearless candidates of the Party of working class revolution , can this be overcome .sx Our Appeal .sx We appeal to the workers everywhere , to the readers of the DAILY WORKER , to every member of our Party , to face this situation with revolutionary energy and determination , with the will to sacrifice .sx We ask every one of these to contribute to our election fund , to collect for the fund , and to guarantee that a revolutionary workers' candidate shall go to the poll in each of these constituencies .sx Workers' selection conferences are being organised ; candidates will be selected .sx But the extent of the fight depends upon the raising of money - to finance it .sx Don't repeat Pontypridd and limit these fights to propaganda meetings .sx Let the whole Party , let every revolutionary worker , every one of us , do our utmost and guarantee decisive revolutionary blows for our working-class revolution - in Ogmore , East Woolwich and St. Rollox .sx Send in your donations at once to me at 16 , King Street , London , W.C.2. .sx Labour's Choice For Woolwich .sx By WM .sx GALLACHER .sx Every effort must be made by Party comrades and sympathisers to help forward the by-election fights in Ogmore , St. Rollox and Woolwich East .sx The latter constituency takes on a new significance with the selection of George Hicks , the arch-traitor of the General Strike , as Labour candidate .sx With the use of Marxian phraseology he deceived the workers into the belief that he represented something different from Thomas and used their faith in him to make the betrayal more complete .sx Perhaps during the election he will tell the story of how he , Thomas and the other members of the General Council met in the palatial home of Abe Bailey , the millionaire mill owner , and there , surrounded by the evidences of successful capitalist , and surrounded in turn by a table loaded with champagne , brandy and whisky , they took their cowardly and treacherous decision to make a complete capitulation .sx Maybe also he will tell how many members of the Council were lying beneath the table , " unable to bite their thumbs " when the decision was made .sx He will also have the opportunity of stating that he was the instigator of the movement for an alliance with the capitalists , at the 1927 Trade Union Congress , when he prepared the way for the entry of Mond .sx From this alliance has followed wage-cut after wage-cut for the workers , with the trade union bureaucracy openly supporting capitalism and deliberately breaking the front of the working class .sx Hicks represents all that is rotten and corrupt in the working class movement , and still endeavours to cover up his treacheries by the use of high-sounding " Left " phrases .sx The militant workers must be immediately got together to secure a real working-class candidate and on the basis of the fight for the Workers' Charter - a platform of real workers' issues - expose this creature of capitalism and drive him from the movement .sx Women and Charter's Housing Fight .sx AGAINST HOVELS AND BIG RENTS .sx Workers Herded In Noisome Slums .sx WOMEN & CONVENTION .sx ( From A Special Correspondent .sx ) WORKING WIVES and mothers should be strongly represented at the National Charter Convention on April 12 , for the Workers' Charter fights not only against wage-cuts and unemployment , but for lower rents , and the abolition of the pigsty-houses in which the working class is herded in every British city .sx During recent weeks our worker correspondents have made appalling revelations of noisome housing conditions .sx Slade Street , in Liverpool , for instance .sx Here there are three courts , and in each court three houses , and in each house two families .sx Each house is composed of kitchen , room and garret .sx There is no back-door , and but one lavatory and one water faucet to meet the needs of each court .sx So that 20 families have one common w.c. and one water-tap .sx In Birmingham , where a local capitalist newspaper conducted a series of stunt exposures , there is a street containing a seven-roomed house containing 27 people .sx Six families , containing 28 people , lived in another house .sx In one room an investigator found a woman standing in her stockinged feet drying clothes at an almost empty grate to take to the pawnshop for food .sx The total income was 15s .sx a week , out of which 13s .sx was paid in rent .sx In Sheffield , too , a capitalist Press recently investigated the workers' hovels .sx This is one of the things he found .sx In a court opening off a dingy little street , a family lived above a tumble-down , disused forge .sx The place was the haunt of rats and mice .sx In a small room two adults were cramped into a garret of approximately 10ft .sx by 15ft .sx ; and here the family had dragged out their lives for twelve years ever since the husband was demobilised after having helped to make England safe for capitalism .sx Some time ago two of the children of the family died within a short time of each other .sx The coffins which enclosed their bodies had perforce to be kept for two days on a sideboard not a foot from the parents' bed , and almost on top of the table from which the family took its meals .sx And this is what the Sheffield Medical Officer of Health says :sx - " It is still impracticable to apply all the powers contained in the Housing Act , on account of the impossibility of re-housing those who occupy houses which are unfit for human habitation and which ought to be condemned .sx " London , the heart of British imperialism , has housing just as bad .sx The chairman of the L.C.C. Housing Committee reported on November 4 , 1930 , that 6,295 families were living four to a room , 2,266 were living five to a room , and 867 were living six to a room .sx The last census revealed that 22.7 per cent .sx of the population of London were living more than two to a room .sx And the latest report of the School Medical Officer stated that , in 1929 , 366 children died from rheumatic fever .sx Out of 345 cases examined , 66 proved to be due to the damp conditions of the homes .sx Sixty-six working-class babies murdered by capitalism !sx Working-class wives and mothers , therefore , no less than men workers , should be represented at the National Charter Convention .sx There must be delegates from working housewives , from Tenants' Defence Leagues , from Women's Co-op .sx Guilds , from every women's organisation !sx The By-Elections .sx A Big Effort Is Needed .sx FOR WOOLWICH , ST. ROLLOX AND OGMORE .sx THE necessity for a big drive in connection with the Ogmore , Woolwich , and St. Rollox by-elections is underlined by the fact that the Woolwich writ will be issued in the course of the next few days , and that polling is likely to take place on April 15 .sx The delay will be longer in the other two cases , death being the cause of the vacancies .sx WOOLWICH .sx - Arsenal workers and engineers faced with new attacks , on whom it is necessary to impress the danger of impending war upon the Soviet Union .sx OGMORE .sx - Miners , betrayed by their Federation and by the Labour Government , waiting for the revolutionary leadership that alone can lead them out of the morass .sx A constituency where in the difficult days of 1929 , 1,525 Communist votes were cast - a result that could be multiplied many times over to-day .sx ST. ROLLOX .sx - One of the largest railway centres in Glasgow - or in all Scotland .sx The importance of contesting here should be obvious .sx Preparations for the holding of selection conferences are now in hand - the sole remaining need is cash .sx A big drive is needed - and needed at once .sx Send in your donations to Harry Pollitt , 16 , King Street , London , W.C.2. .sx IMPORTANCE OF DAY-to-DAY ISSUES .sx By HAL WILDE .sx One of our shortcomings in South Wales stressed by the Political Bureau's resolution and admitted by all local comrades was " lack of preparation .sx " How many times have we been compelled to admit this ?sx Yet , with our relatively weak forces and such tremendous tasks before us , we cannot always send in a shock brigade of Party functionaries some weeks before an expected struggle .sx And , even if we could , that would not be the way to win the independent leadership of the workers .sx This is a question which can only be decided by party members on the spot by their correct methods of work among the masses .sx In laying stress on this fact the British Commission of August , 1930 , made one of its most valuable contributions ; in our failure to win the independent leadership from the reformists we slowed the measure of our failure to apply this in practise .sx While this shortcoming refers to all spheres of work , we find in the trade union field an amazing contradiction .sx Side by side with an underestimation of the necessity for day-to-day work in the reformist unions we find an overestimation of their influence over the working class .sx This state of affairs indicates the extent to which Right opportunism still exists in our Party .sx It is largely because an insufficient fight has been waged against small local and district manifestations of the Right danger that hesitation and opposition to the Party line arose at the critical moments of the struggle in South Wales .sx But the Right danger is by no means confined to South Wales .sx A survey of the pit and factory papers of our Party which give as true an insight into the local and district leadership of our Party as can be obtained from outside shows this .sx The struggle in South Wales should teach our Party the need for a more energetic carrying out of the Leeds Congress decision for :sx " A standing ideological campaign .sx .. carried on within the Party in order to systematically struggle against opportunism to get every member clear on the line of the Party .sx .. " and by paying still more attention to the day-to-day independent leadership in the small day-to-day issues in order to open up the way to success in the big issues .sx ANNUAL MEET OF RAILMEN'S UNION TO-DAY .sx Low Wages Being Challenged .sx By W. C. Loeber .sx The Annual General Meeting of the National Union of Railwaymen will commence its proceedings at Ipswich to-day .sx It is to be expected that W. Dobbie , in his presidential speech , will issue a grave warning to the companies that the railwaymen have reached the limits of their endurance with regard to wage reductions .sx But , far from advising the membership to organise resistance to further attacks , he will calmly inform them that their only salvation lies in giving added support to the Labour Government in the hopes that national control of transport , in the public interest , may be speedily obtained .sx It is further to be expected that C. T. Cramp , during debate on a public resolution , will soundly trounce the Report of the Royal Commission on Unemployment , but both will remain silent on the part played by them in signing the recent National Wages Board Award , which not only inflicted wage reductions but adds to the growing number of unemployed by the general introduction of a spread-over .sx These two officials were instructed on November last to fight for a programme of wages to improve the conditions of the lower-paid grades .sx