RCMP law-’n-order

7 he exposure made last week on the role of the RCMP
during the joint union demonstrations at the Lenkurt
Electric plant in Burnaby, raises again a key question for
labor and the public alike, viz; is the presence of masses of
RCMP on a union picket-line dispute, designed to uphold
socalled “law and order’—or to provoke disorder, violence,
or worse?

In the long and stirring history of Canadian labor
struggles to win its rightful place in the scheme of things,
plus a greater share of the vast wealth it has produced,
there are many instances of RCMP violence and provoca-
tion against striking workers — and not a few cases of un-
armed workers being gunned-down in coldblood, whose
only “crime” was standing up for their rights as workers.

In the Lenkurt Electric union demonstrations it is

now known that while a sizeable contingent of RCMP of-.

- ficers in uniform busied themselves pushing peaceful pick-

ets around, and arresting those who strongly objected to

being pushed around, quite a number of RCMP officers in

~plain clothes mingled with the union pickets, acting in the

role of “agents provocature” and doing a spot of pushing
themselves just to steam things up!

These characters, seen changing from their uniforms
into plain clothes and back again, moved through the pic-
ket demonstration, spotting who “they” thought were the
prime instigators, and passing along “tip-offs” to their
uniformed colleagues.

For that brand of RCMP provocation and snoop ac-
tivities, carried out under the pretext of “law enforce-
ment”, trade unionists and all decent people hold nothing
but the utmost contempt. RCMP “Peeping Toms” snoop-
ing on the sexy and underworld shenanagans of Liberal
and Tory ministers and MP’s is a low vocation indeed, but
the Lenkurt brand of snooping and provocation is design-
ed for one purpose only—to create “an incident” whereby
violence and worse can be inspired and excused — against
organized labor.

The multi-numerous court “injunctions” and the
massing of police to give these “legal” effect, thereby pro-
hibiting workers from picketing their jobs, securing ad-
justment of justifiable grievances, or winning a decent
wage contract, is now assuming a distinctly sinister pat-
tern; that of a government-monopoly conspiracy to smash
labor—with the aid of police provocateurs.

2 cy
TUE Commonweal

“If | weren't a jackass I'd buck this load off...”

Keep profits here

acMillan, Bloedel and Powell River lumber

barons have brought yet another U.S. firm
into their expanding international cartel, the St. Regis
Paper Company of New Jersey, which specializes in
corrugated paper box products.

MB & PR are also launching out on a big forest
products complex in Alabama, that one in partnership
with the United Fruit Company, kingpin of the U.S.
monopoly exploiters in all the countries of Latin
America and the Caribbean. In Alabama MB & PR
hope to find their own sure-fire cure for “‘inflation”—-
cheap labor.

And in Franco Spain MB & PR are planning a
big expansion of its forest products cartel, hopeful no
doubt that as in Alabama, the fascist-ridden workers
of Spain, unlike lumber workers in B.C., will be happy
to accept anything MB & PR cares to hand out in the
way of wages; thereby providing a ready lever with
which to pressure the “home base”’ workers down to
the same substandard levels.

To most B.C. people, union or non-union, the mil-
lions of dollars MB & PR are spending or planning to
spend abroad, should be invested in/and for the bene-
fit of the province and people from whose natural re-
sources and sweat these millions of super profits were

extracted. Meeting the modest wage demands of the
IWA in 1966 would be a good start in that direction!

Worth
| Quoting |

Salisbury (Rhodesia) hotels are full
of industrial and commercial represeni-
atives from nations pledged to help
Britain — West Germany, France, Italy,
Scandinavian countries, Japan, and the
rest. They are willing and able to buy,
or barter anything, and are doing so.
“If you're going fo tell Britain about
the naughty West Germans,”’ said a
businessman, ‘“‘tell her to investigate
the activities of some of her own firms
—business is business.”

—WM. J. Pomeroy in NATIONAL
GUARDIAN, May 7, ’66.

*

Portugal and Spain have proved to
be ‘‘true friends of West Germany,”
stated foreign minister Gerhard Schroe-
der when he returned to Bonn after
visiting Franco and Salazar.

Schroeder was reported io have — :

negotiated with the two fascist states
for closer military co-operation when
France leaves NATO.

—DEMOCRATIC GERMAN
REPORT, April 15, '66.

*

Four soldiers of the U.S. First Cavalry
Division in South Vietnam have been
-charged with illegal possession of
drugs and 20 more are under investi-
gation.

The Division's assistant civic affairs -
officer, is reported to be hoping to
open next month “‘an amusement cen-
tre’’ near Ankhe, with 48 bars with
eight girls each.

While the Americans recognize, said
the N.Y. Times that ‘ ‘quasi-official
prostitution will not be popular in the
U.S., they consider it the only alterna-
tive to rampant veneral disease.”

“The U.S. magazine Newsweek re-
ported that Saigon had become “a
boomtown for U.S. businessmen.”
“Never before,” if said, ‘‘have U.S.
businessmen followed their troops to
war on such a scale.”

—NEW AGE, New Delhi,
India, Feb. 6, ’66.

Tom |
Mc EWEN

mmediately following
China’s successful testing

a warring nation, already on its
knees in defeat, It was not the

Weapons of war and mass des-
truction, ‘*conventional” or other,
are not made not to be used,
If the lessons of. two world wars
taught us anything atall, it surely
taught us that simple lesson,
True, we spend billions of dollars
in the production of war wea-
pons which may be (and oftenare)
declared “obsolete” and thus
never used; but these are re-
placed by other weapons with “a

world’s peoples “once” will be
more than sufficient,

In that terrible stockpile also,
the lurking menace (and tempta-
tion) of a “first” is ever present,
as the tragedy of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki so brutally illustrated,
Obviously its destruction would
lead directly towards an end to
the manufacture, testing and pro-
liferation of all such weapons,
The McNamaras of Washington

of its third experimental nuclear
bomb blast, Chinese leaders as-
sured the world ‘‘we’ll never be
the first to use it.”

The USSR and the U.S., have
given like assurances — while
they keep on making and testing
these terrible weapons of mass
destruction, We haven’t heard
of such assurance from France
but perhaps we missed it. Quite
probably somewhere along the
way it came from there too,

These assurances on which nu-
clear power “won’t be the first”
are largely academic, The
“first” is already well recorded
on the blood-stained pages of
human history by the United
States’ first A-bomb destruction
of the cities of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki,

_ Moreover, this “first” which
_ history has doubly condemned
since, was a wanton act against

act of a nation, desperate and
hard-pressed in battle, driven to
throwing anything and everything
it had at the ‘‘enemy,”’ butacold-
blooded act of revenge — plus a
warning to all others of its
acquisition (and monopoly) of a
really “big stick,” by which they
too could be made to knuckle
under, should the necessity arise,
So don’t let us be drugged into
insensibility by this “we won’t
be the first” tranquilizer.

U.S. Pentagon warhawks have
repeatedly announced their
‘capability’ of blowing the Soviet
Union, China, or any other nation
off the map with their nuclear-
bomb “superiority.” It follows
that in such an atmosphere of
menace and threat, other nations
concerned with their own defense
and survival, seek to “balance
off” the threat by the production
and perfection of similar horror
weapons of their own,

greater killing capacity” accord-
ing to the “experts,”

Hence it won’t really matter
a great deal who was “first”
or not “first” in the use of nu-
clear bombs against mankind,
What of humanity that may sur-
vive such a catastrophe, will
have much greater problems on

_ their hands than trying to deter-

mine who unleashed the “first”
H-Bomb, ;

It is we who live in this pre-
disaster twilight who must de-
termine — and soon — that there
shall be no more “firsts” or
**seconds’’? in this insane bac-
chanalia of contemplated H- Bomb
destruction and death,

It is periodically boasted by
those who should know, that the
stockpile of nuclear bombs on
hand is now sufficient to blow
the whole universe to hell and
gone ten times over, For the

or the Nazi revanchists of Bonn
would undoubtedly feel very un-
happy about the quick destruc-
tion of these stockpiles of nuclear
death, but balanced against the
peace of the world and its peo-
ples,. such war maniacs are
readily expendable,

Finally, in a determined effort
to make sure there will be no

Editor —- TOM McEWEN
Associate Editor — MAURICE RUSH
Circulation Manager — JERRY SHACK :
: Published weekly at
Ford Bldg., Mezzanine No. 3, 193 E. Hastings St.
Vancouver 4, B.C.
Phone 685-5288
Subscription Rates:

Canada, $5.00 one year; $2.75 for six months. North and South America
and Commonwealth countries, $6.00 one year. All other countries, $7.00
one year. Authorized as second class mail by the Post Office Department,
Ottawa, and for payment of postage in cash.

“firsts,” seconds or thirds, the
people in their million-fold

struggle for peace, must begin

to give more attention, — and

greater pressures — on the big

monopoly “Merchants of Death,”

in Canada and elsewhere,

The monopoly manufacturers
of all those “essentials” that go
into the highly organized game
of killing — for a fat “cost-plus”
profit, We have them in our own
midst, filling fat Liberal gov-—
ernment contracts “to help U.S. —
needs in Vietnam,” 3

A bit more attention in that —
direction would speed up the
elimination of ‘‘assurances” |
about who “won’t be first? —
and make doubly sure there will
be no more “firsts,”

Tribune

_ May 20, 1966--PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page