CANADIAN ARBUNE st th APOLOGIE © TORONTO AUTOMOBILE DEALERS ASS°N FLASHBACKS FROM THE COMMUNIST PRESS 50 years ago... SAWING OLD TELEPHONE POLES EDMONTON — The unemploy- ment question here has become acute and developments have taken place with remarkable ra- pidity. : One fine morning citizens were astonished to read a flamboyant statement by the mayor to the effect that the warkless would now be given work cutting wood at $1:50 per cord — and that the loafers would be compelled to work. The woodyard was started and evidence proved that the average wage received for a day's work was one dollar. Expert bushmen can make one dollar and a half — a wonderful remuneration for sawing fifteen vear-old telephone poles! State- ments collected show that the men, in many cases, receive only ten cents an hour. They are de- manding a decent return for work done. : The Worker, Feb. 21, 1925 25 years ago... 1,000 DELEGATES The decision of the Canadian Peace Congress to call the Second National Peace Congress in To- ronto, VE Day Weekend — is an encouraging sign of the growth of this mighty movement. Less than a year ago the Peace Congress was established on-a na- tional footing. Since then hund- reds of peace meetings have been held and thousands of pieces of literature have been distributed. The idea of the Ban the Bomb petition is seizing the imagination and gaining the support of more people with every passing day. People should gather names and work to set up Peace Com- mittees everywhere so that 1,000 delegates — fighters for peace — will attend the Second Canadian Peace Congress in May. Tribune, Feb. 20, 1950 Profiteer of -the week: aS TER Remember the full-page newspaper ads last July, asking: Does anybody out there give a damn if the mining industry is taxed to death? They were sponsored by the Min- ing Administration of Canada and appealed that we should not “destroy” the industry with taxes. Profit reports “can be mislead- ing,” the ads said, “and can give the im- pression of excessive profits.” Worried that perhaps mining had indeed been wiped out by tax men, our award judges investigated and found that good old Noranda Mines Ltd., for one was still going. After-tax pro- fits in 1973 — $121,000,000; in 1974 — $154,900,000. : an ott Roonas SSS ie, Pacific Tri reletetatetetetetete Editor — MAURICE RUSH Published weekly at Ford Bldg., Mezzanine No. 3, 193 E. Hastings St., Vancouver 4, B.C. Phone 685-8108 ‘ : Lesti, Business & Cir ger, FRED WILSON Subscription Rate: Canada, $6.00 one year; $3.50 for six months; North and South America and Commonwealth countries, $7.00 All other countries, $8.00 one year Second class mail registration number 1560 PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1975—Page 4 Edttorial Comment... A fight for a million new jobs One million new jobs — that is the calibre of response called for when al-’ ready 817,000 of Canada’s workers are unemployed, and forecasts for the deep- ening crisis go as high as a million to a million-and-a-half. is One million new jobs is the demand of the Communist Party, as workers, deprived of jobs by the machinations of the capitalist system, begin to express cee anger, begin to find ways to fight ack. The recent United Auto Workers’ delegation. to Ottawa to demand gov- ernment attention to hard-hit auto- working communities, is an indicator of concern — and anger. Robert Rene de Cotret, vice-presi- dent of the Conference Board of Can- ada, is one of those who thinks the U.S. - recession will be one of the longest on record and ‘will. result in a cumulative output loss of some $180-billion by the fourth quarter of this year.” Well, there goes 1975. Can Canada, which has been tied by successive big business governments to U.S. economic and foreign policy, ex- pect any better, if it is left to the forces of monopoly capitalism? Unemploy- ment here will reach 7.5% before mid- 1975, the Conference Board estimated last fall. Others now confirm this. (That would mean about 1,000,000 out of work.) But January’s 6.7% figure sug- gests we may have reached 7% in Feb- ruary. The Royal Bank, indexing 11 leading economic indicators, sees an upturn in the economy by year-end or early 1976. Little comfort for workers who are un- employed now — or waiting for the axe to fall. : Car] Beigie, executive director of the C. D. Howe Research Institute, .ac- knowledging the present crisis as “more than the traditional cyclical instability” of capitalism, declared that the “gov- ernment must accept the necessity of a higher unemployment rate. . .” The government is the kind that could do just that if workers allow it, despite Mr. Turner’s yappy denials. The decisive question is: will workers ac- cevt sucha “necessity”? ~ The call of the Communist Party for one million new jobs. both rejects the “necessity” of unemployment and con- tains immediate and long-range meas- ures to cope with the iob crisis. The CP program to stop layoffs and fight for a ‘Price discipline’ Some people get into a nasty mood when workers withhold their labor be- cause they need more money for the basic necessities — food, shelter, etc. But when bosses withhold the means of production, and put workers out of a job, that is called “price discipline.” Abitibi Paper Co. and Domtar Ltd., makers of papers for building materi- als, packging, etc. shut down some of their operations earlier this month, arbitrarily laying off workers, because the price wasn’t right for their profit desires. This was reported in the press on Feb. 11. Fittingly, Abitibi’s profit for 1974 was reported Feb. 12. What Abitibi wants, it seems, is prices that will boost its after-tax profit of $45,880,000, by 50%, as was the case last year. plan of full employment can become the program of every worker — employed — and. unemployed. (Unity of employed | and unemployed workers is an essential. — element in the battle for jobs.) ‘ A jobs program can be won through — the broadest unity of working people, — in their unions, in the New Democratic | and Communist parties, with ways of — involving the unorganized and the un- ~ employed. The enemy is monopoly. But the gov- ernments which in their devious ways protect monopoly interests are answer- able to the working people; and when it comes to soaring unemployment, the answer to be wrung from governments must be — jobs! Police wiretap spying menaces civil rights — Wiretapping legislation enacted to abet government spying on its citizens, through the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, has been condemned before in these pages, as a serious infringement of rights and a pernicious invasion of | privacy. Passed in January 1974, the legisla- tion to legalize such spying as of last July, has now been reported on — sketchily — by Solicitor-General War- ren Allmand. : It appears the police were not much interested in criminals, having used their spy powers in what they termed, criminal cases, only 140 times. They arrested 210 people Allmond says, yet there had been no prosecutions. Almost as if it were window dressing. To what ends are the state police using their spy powers then? To bug “subversives”; 339 warrants were ap-- proved under the Official Secrets Act — and such warrants and their extension were never refused. The average watch was 148 days. Were they trying to combat the West- ern Guard or other purveyors of vi- cious racism? Not judging by that gang’s unhampered spewing of its filth. - Neither does the solicitor-general show evidence that electronic peeping toms in Canadian living rooms, :bed- rooms, offices, or wherever the police choose, have done anything to make life safer or more stable. In fact, Canadians may well see it as the starting point of — the all too familiar abuse of police pow- ers. : z Certainly they have not been shielded from probing by foreign agents of the USA’s Central Intelligence. Agency — (CIA) and Federal Bureau of Investi-— ‘gation (FBI) to whom the “revresenta- ’ tives of the people” readily sell out our — sovereignty. Police-state methods are repugnant — to Canadians as a whole. The creation — of lists of “subversive organizations.” from trade unions, to fraternal organi- — zations, to political groups has. an alarming ring to it..The threat of de- — struction of such listed opposition orga- — nizations in times of stress, is a threat — we can do without. o. It is for the labor and democratic — movements of Canada to become alert- ed to this sinister drive against their democratic rights. The sharpest vigi- lance is called for to protect the civil and political rights of Canadians.