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Crisis at

HE THREAT of Howe Sound

Mining Company of New York
foshut down Britannia Mine, throw
tight hundted miners and_ their
amilies,on the unemployed scrap
ap and turn Britannia Beach and
OWnsite into a derelict area has
highlighted the serious problems
acing workers in the base metal
Mining industry.

An emergency meeting called by
Mine-Mill and attended by half the

Ps for British Columbia wired
time Minister Diefenbaker as fol-
OWs:

“As there is serious danger of un-
*mployment in base metal indus-
ttles because of depressed prices
the following B.C. members of par-

lament urge that the federal gov- _

*tnment be prepared to take emer-
8ency action to keep the base metal
Mines operating.”

The telegram was signed by J.
- Taylor (Vancouver Burrard ,
Harold Winch (Vancouver East),
George McLeod (Okanagan Revel-
Stoke), A. MacDonald (Vancouver
Ingsway), Tom Irwin (Burnaby
Ichmond), George Hahn (New

estmister)) H. W. Herridge

Sotenay West), Frank Christian

Kanagan Boundary), James Sin-
clair (Coast Capilano), E. Regier
(Burnaby Coquitlam) and E.
Foome (Vancouver South).

The union’s ‘presentation to the
ederal government drives home
‘ome valuable lessons. Most im-
Portant of these is the exposure
®t the cold war policies of the late
t. Laurent government, now con-
nued by the Diefenbaker govern-
Ment, of subordinating Canada’s
*Conomy and markets to the dic-
iki of American monopoly, and
abelling the process, “economic in-
tegration,”

d When the U.S. base metals in-
pty began to sag, restrictive tar-

8 were placed against Canadian
The metals marketed in the U.S.

Ms, together with a drop in the
pace of copper and other base
: etals, gave Canadian mine owners
Be” excuse to threaten wage
a $ and production cutbacks. The
pete is the rise of new “ghost
Wns like Copper Mountain.
eee

Pacific Tribune

Published weekly at
Room 6 — 426 Main Street
Vancouver 4, B.C.

Phone: MArine 5288
A Editor — TOM McEWEN
Sociate Editor — HAL GRIFFIN

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EDITORIAL PAGE x

Britannia

In addition, Ottawa’s policy of
placing base metals in the category
of “strategic materials” has cut off
nearly one half of the world’s mar-
kets.

Now the Howe Sound. Mining
Company has decided to turn Brit-
annia into a ghost town, and the
Diefenbaker government has said
in effect that “nothing can be done
about it.”

As an immediate solution, Mine-
Mill has advanced a three-point
program which merits the broadest
public support. It calls for: re-
taliation against higher U.S. tariffs
on Canadian base metals by placing
taxes and other restrictions on Can-
adian exports of nickel, iron ore,
asbestos and pulp paper to the U.S.;
recovery of former overseas mar-
kets and development of new ones;
the government to establish floor
prices for copper, lead and zinc,
and to stockpile these metals to the
extent necessary to make these floor
prices effective.

In short, government ‘responsi-
bility to see to it that our hard-rock
communities remain thriving centres
of industry instead of becoming
ghost towns.

: Saeene

What price sovereignty?

N A MOVE tto circumvent the
legitimate demand of the Sea-

farers International Union for a
wage hike for its members on the
eight Canadian National steamships
on the West Indies run, the com-
pany, with the approval of the
government, has transferred reg-

istry of these ships to Trinidad.

Using the plea of “saving the
taxpayer” from the necessity of
having to pay for the cost of a
wage hike to SIU crews, the Dief-
enbaker government has scuttled the
last remnants of Canada’s mer-
chant marine. Nothing now remains

but a few freighters and tankers op
erated by industrial firms.

This change of registry will make
the Canadian National bondholders
very happy, while the poor Cana-
dian taxpayer who is “saved,” if he
happens to be a seaman, will be
saved the necessity of sailing his
“own” ships as a means of earning

the wherewithal to live — and pay

his taxes!

Changing registry of Canada’s
ships, whether done by a private

ship owner or by a Tory govern-
ment, for the purpose of avoiding
paying decent wages, is union-
busting on a grand scale. It should
serve as a healthy stimulous for in-
dependent political
come next federal election.

labor action

A resolution passed by the B.C.
Federation of Labor convention
noted that Conservative members
of parliament, while they were the
Opposition, consistently advocated
the retention and later the building
and maintaining of a Canadian mer-
chant marine.

Now these same members are
part of the government, yet they
stand silently by while Diefenbaker
approves transfer of eight Canadian
National ships to Trinidad registry,
thus spelling the death of our mer-
chant: marine.

Tom
McEwen

N SCORES of ceremonies across

this broad land Monday of this
week, Canadians observed “Re-
membrance Day” in memory of
the nation’s 125,000 dead in two
world wars.

In many homes people remem-
bered a loved one, a father, broth-
er, son, an old sweetheart, an
old friend, who did not return.
Perhaps it is the crowning trag-
edy of this sacred day of remem-
brance, that in many of the of-
ficial speeches of remembrance
one could detect the old familiar
tory tubthumper, utilizing the
occasion with a fine flow of ‘‘free
world” demagogy — to promote
World War Three.

“Lest We Forget” cannot be re-
peated too often by those who
sincerely work for jobs, markets,
progress and peace.

* x *

It happened last year in the
city of Tientsin, China. “This will
be your home while you are with
us,” a Chinese friend told me as
he ushered me into the spacious
hall of a great rambling house,

once the residence of a swagger-
ing Prussian Junker. Everything
about the place was reminiscent
of the goose-stepping heiling Her-
renvolk.

In the morning before break-
fast I strolled through the vast
well-kept grounds. Down in a se-
cluded corner was a great tomb-
stone, built along the lines of a
massive Roman coliseum, with a
huge granite swastika perched on
top of the arched columns. In
letters a foot high cut on the
swastika was the name “Eck-
hardt.”

“Why don’t you remove that
damn thing from your lovely
garden?” I asked my Chinese
friend at the breakfast table. With
a kindly smile he softly replied:
“Tt does no harm now, and helps
us not to forget.”

“Lest We Forget.”

Back in the Hungry Thirties
we had a tory prime minister, a
CPR corporation lawyer named
Richard Bedford Bennett. A blus-
tering demagogue, a millionaire
(Eddy Match) magnate, endowed
with the mentality of a ruthless
slave owner. During his regime
Bennett won the well-merited
title of “Iron Heel’ Bennett.

When Canada had done with
him he took up his titled abode
in England as “Lord Bedford of
Calgary.” One of his last acts be-
fore he expired in his lordly bath-
tub was to chase Canadian sol-
diers off his English estate. When
‘Tron Heel” went down the drain

the best commercial press journal-
ist in Canada was hard put to it
to write more than six column
inches on his timely and unla-
mented passing.

Today; twenty years later,
Canada has a second “Iron Heel”
Bennett in the making. He is
Prime Minister John Diefenbak-
er, already Bennett’s equal in
tory demagogy and, given the
needed partisan power in office,
a promising equal in all else.

“Tron Heel” had a ready solu-
tion” for unemployment in his
20-cents-a-day “relief” camps,
which the unemployed properly
classified as “slave camps.” Up to
now Diefenbaker is less dramatic,
preferring to treat unemployment
as a simple problem of mathema-
tics. “Our labor force has grown,”
says Diefenbaker, so our present
jobless army “is no worse” than
before. Such “statistics” are poor
substitutes for jobs and pork-
chops.

Then, in almost the same breath
and with hypocritic tory sancti-
moniousness, *Diefenbaker closes
the door to recognition of and
trade relations with the People’s
Republic of China “until China
changes its evil ways.” Bennett
said the same thing with respect
to the USSR twenty years ago,
with the same “virtuous” tory
claptrap!

“Lest We Forget.” It is time
workers and farmers everywhere
compelled Diefenbaker to cut it
short‘on tory demagogy — and
begin acting on tory promises.

November 15, 1957 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 5