OTTAWA. INANCE Minister Ab- bott’s “guns not butter” budget speech underscored the fact that the King gov- érnment’s domestic and for- eign policies are leading Ca- nada down the road to de- Pression and war. : With an all-time high sur- plus of $670 million for 1947 and an expected, surplus of $549 million for 1948, the government has _ callously Swept aside the needs of the nation and earmarked that Staggering total for depres- sion and war. “A substantial surplus will help to keep our powder dry,” was the cynical way Finance Minister Abbott placed government policy before parliament. Of the millions of dollars in government coffers wrung from tens of thousands of low-paid workers, farmers and professional people, not: one penny will be used for : food subsidies or tax relief. Instead, Abbott revealed that the government has adopted a depression and war fiscal policy. He spoke of “an expand- ed defense program” as -be- ing Canada’s main problem and admitted that the huge budget surplus was being hoarded with the expecta- “tion that at “short notice” there would be “a farge in- crease in expenditures on na- tional defense.” The budget speech — fore- Shadowed government fear of the approaching economic crisis by frankly admitting that a depression was on its way. -“Our surpluses now are temporary surpluses and will quickly disappear when we have more difficulty in. Selling our goods abroad and less capital expenditure by WINSTON CHURCHILL T)R. JOSEPH GOEBBELS, in his diary, expresses gYeat admiration for Winston Chur-— chill, “that veteran anti-Bolshe- vik.” Goebbels, for all his hatred °f Churchill as a rival imperial- ist, never forgot that Churchill Was the leading organizer of the first great wave of invasions of the Soviet Union in the nineteen- twenties (see Albert E. Kahn's -T ros. he nation’s business Abbott’s budget outlines ‘guns before butter’ policy Canada.” Abbott also revealed that part of the people’s money ‘will be spent in an attempt by the Canadian govern- ment to intérferé in the po- litical and economic rights of other countries. YETIS government and parliament must accept a considerable measure of re- sponsibility for influencing and directing economic trends insofar as that can be done within the frame- work of our political and economic principles,” was how he placed Canada’s con- tribution to the U.S‘ policy of Wall Street domination of the world via the Marsh- all plan. HE crumbs’ which “the government did allow to be dropped from a budget banquet. table which is Wismer on ‘democracy’ D°=Ss the official B.C. Liber- al concept of “democracy” count the mass murder of politi- cal opponents as a. “democratic” practice? Thousands of British Columbians asked themselves that question this week when Attor- ney-General Gordon S. Wismer announced his ideal of a great in- ternational democrat. “No man,” said Wismer, “has done more for the democratic world than Chiang Kai-shek in his leadership of the Chinese people.” ‘ This statement was made at a dinner jarranged by right-wing elements among Vancouver Chi- nese on occasion of the dictator’s installation as president of China. The revealing remark caused citizens to ponder whether the old-line party view of “democracy” stretches out to approve the beat- ing up, torturing, machine-gun- ning and burying alive of univer- sity students? Does it include the outlawing of all opposition parties? Does it support the maintain- ing of an army of secret Police and storm troops to club down opposition to mass starvation? These questions arose because all the activities mentioned are among those carried through by Chiang Kai-Shek, than whom, ac- cording to Wismer, ‘no man has done more for the democratic world.” They are the type of practices carried through by Chiang in his own Kuomintang-dominated ter- ritory, in addition to his bloody civil war launched against hun- dreds of millions of peasants who wish to establish ownership to their own land by democratic practices. Few in British Columbia will see eye to eye with Wismer’s characterization of Chiang Kai- shek as a great international de- mocrat. The Chinese Generalissimo is described as a “Ppower-crazy des- pot of a corrupt one-party gov- ernment supported by a Gestapo” in the memoirs of the late Gen- eral Joseph Stillwe]l, former U.S. commander in the Far East,, as published recently in the Ladies’ Home Journal. Washington, and Ottawa, faced with thousands of newspaper and government reports exposing the bloody nature of Chiang’s political dictatorship, scarcely trouble to preserve their original fiction that Kuomintang China is a democ- racy. They now proffer “expedi- ency” as the reason for continued shipment of arms and dollars to feed Chiang’s continuing slaugh- ter of his people. But if Wismer is prepared to have Chiang Kai-Shek accepted as his idea ‘of a democrat, then he is likely to fined people substitut- ing the word “dictatorship” every time he makes one of his fre- quent dedications to the cause of what he calls “democracy.” Profits before the people's welfare TORONTO, OMMENTING on the recent statement made by J. 8. Mc- Lean of Canada Packers before the Special Parliamentary Com- mittee on Prices that “one of the main objectives in conducting a successful business is to make the highest possible profit,’ Mrs. Rae Lucock, president of the Toronto Housewives’ Consumer Associa- tion said, “McLean’s statement -Churchill’s Memoirs book, The Great Conspiracy). When all looked lost for the Nazis in 1944, Goebbels confided to his diary the expectation that the “veteran anti-Bolshevik” would switch his course in mid- stream and make a_ separate peace with Nazi ‘Germany “rather than see Europe bolshe- vised.” Goebbels made a mistake. He properly estimated Churchill as a relentless enemy of socialism who had organized one wave of wars against the first land of socialism, the USSR, and would take the first opportunity to or- ganize a second wave of wars to crush socialism if he could. Where Goebbels miscalculated badly was his hope that the ‘“‘vet- eran anti-Bolshevik” Churchill would make a deal with the Ger- man imperialists before they had been so badly beaten as to cease to exist as a rival to British imperialism. ‘ Churchill was quite content to watch the Russian lose 7,000,000 troops crushing the German war monster (in the meantime, he shows clearly that the high price of meat is directly due to profit- eering on the part of the packing houses.” “McLean boasted before the committee,” she said, “that his firm buys cattle as cheaply as possible and sells beef for as much as they can get.” “It seems clear that these prof- iteers intend to keep raising the prices until the people reach the was scheming to delay or, post- pone the Second Front invasion of Western Europe indefinitely, and invade the Balkans in order to make sure that when the Germans went no Left govern- ments would arise in _ their place). - Churchill built himself up as the great enemy of appeasement during the menace of the Ger- man-Japanese fascist axis. Com- pared to Chamberlain, he was, of course, an opponent of ap- peasing the axis; but Goebbels keenly understood that at bot- tom Churchill was no less a warmonger against people’s de- mocracy and socialism than the Nazis. With Germany out of the way as an imperialist rival, Churchill now figures to marshal the power of American imperialism to crush world socialism. e WITH this record of arch-vil- ; lainy against the Soviet Union behind him, Churchill’s testimony to the enormous strug- point of starvation through in- ability to buy, and I believe the housewives of-Canada will be ful- ly justified in any action they may see fit to take to combat this wholesale robbery of their pocket- books.” “In the interests of the health and welfare of the nation, and particularly the children,” said Mrs. Lucock, “the government must take the necessary action to _curb profiteering.” its weight: will never even reach groaning under own the floor. Removal of the eight percent sales tax from canned, packaged and pre- pared foods will mean no de- crease in the prices of these commodities. Instead, prices will rise, for the increase in freight rates which is to be passed on to the consumer will not only wipe out any benefit which might have accrued from the dropping of the sales tax it will also dig into pocketbooks a little deeper. Manufacturers,- _ retailers and wholesalers are already warning the people not to _ expect any price relief as far as the sales tax removal is concerned. Federal taxes on theater and dance hall tickets have been removed but, like vul- tures, various provincial governments such as “Boss” Johnson’s in British Colum- bia are already stepping into the field. The kids will still pay tax on their chocolate bars, pop and gum. Federal succession duties formerly levied on all es- tates of $5,000 and over will now be levied only on estates of $50,000 and over. How much effect this will have on Canada’s working people can be»seen from the fact that approximately 2,735,000 Canadians receive less than $700 a year. some 1,620,000 get between $700 and $2,000 a year. These citizens have never had to worry about. succession duties. If you can afford to go to the races you will not have to pay a five percent pari- mutuel tax—unless the pro- vincial governments take over that field, which is probable. refute ‘the big lie’ gle to save the world from the Second World War is all the more significant, : Chuchill’s Memoirs (running now in Life) give an indelible picture of the Soviet Union striving with limitless patience and perseverance for an anti- Nazi coalition to prevent the’ out- break of World War II. From 1933 onward, the Soviet Union pleaded for a military alliance with Britain, France, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Ro- mania, etc., to stop the Nazis the . minute they attacked anywhere. As we know, these offers were sabotaged. Churchill tells us (New York Times, April 20) that despite a hundred rebuffs the USSR made still one final offer: “They made a formal offer, the text of which was not published, for the. creation of a united front of mutual assistance be- tween Great Britain, France and the USSR . The alliance of Britain, France and Russia would have struck deep alarm into the heart of Germany in 1939, and no one can prove that war PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MAY 28, 1948—PAGE 7 might not even then huve peen averted ... Hitler could neither afford to embark upon a war on two fronts, nor to sustain a check. It was a pity not to have placed him in this awkward | position which might well have — cost him his life.” But the anti-Soviet mania blinded the capitalist leaders. “Hitler penetrated with ease the frail defenses of the irresolute coalition against him,” Churchill writes, failing to mention that it was “anti-communism” which — helped Hitler paralyse his vic- tims, ; Churchill’s words—written by an arch-conspirator for war against the Soviet Union—wipes out the Big Lie spread by the warmongers and a thousand — newspaper and radio liars, that — the Soviet Union “started the war.” ce The truth is that the Soviet Union single-handed tried to save mankind from the war, and then, nearly single-handed, had to put an end to it by crushing the German armies.