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.to their well-to-de patrons.

* for 1,000 tractors.

Land, not bullets, may tip scalein China war

YENAN—The stepped-up land reform that has
will count more in determining the outcome of China’s ci
Take North Kanasu, which lies just north of Na
than six. months ago. Sticking pins on the

from there to Yenan give a dif-
ferent picture. Chiang, they say,
is penned up in the towns. Elected
administrations of peasants rule
the countryside.

The peasants, who are armed,
are defending the gains they made
while Communist-led armies were
there, No less than 15 million.
peasants in this thickly populat-
ed region acquired land.

‘Then, big holdings of ordin-
ary landlords were reduced to
the size of the average farm.
Patriotic landlords who had
fought the Japanese actively
could keep double. Landlords

whe had = squeezed excessive
rent out of their tenants had to
pay them back in land. Land-
lords who had been fair got
money in return for their prop-
erty.

Chiang’s armies moved in when
the job was in its last stages, Re-
distribution was often completed
within sound of Kuomintang gun-
fire. When Chiang gained control,
the peasant committees carried on
secretly and one township actually
changed the titles to land on which
one of Chiang’s strongpoints was
built.

The peasant who got it may
have to wait a while before sow-
ing but he is sure that it will be
his in the end.

By ANNA LOUISE STRONG

given land to 60 million farming people in North China and Manchuria in the past few months
vil war than the temporary military movements of Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang troops.
nking and Shanghai. It was one of the first areas attacked by Chiang, with 300,000 men, more

map into the names of towns captured by Chiang, North Kansu looks conquered. But people who have come

Toil

Modern industrial methods have not yet reached
the far corners of China. Baskets on bamboo poles
are used by workers to carry rocks cut from hillsides to
build runways, roads, etc. In the fields the peasants are
still bound to primitive methods of tilling the soil. But
the Chinese peasant is sure that in spite of Chiang Kai-
shek and foreign imperialism, he will win the last battle.

Nova Scotia miners’ strike issue
affects entire trade union cause

SYDNEY, N.S.—Evidence of country-wide backing is growing daily as the 13,000
Maritime miners go into their third week of strike for a wage increase of $1.40 daily. A
barrage of anti-union propaganda from the offices of the Dominion Coal and Steel Com-
y papers, and the union is preparing to offset this with a

pany is flooding Canadian dail
national campaign which will
have a twofold purpose (1) to ex-
plain the issues at stake (2). to
get financial aid for the 60,000
men, women and children  in-
volved in the strike.

The main point of dispute still
remains the means of getting
the $1.40 increase for the miners.
The union, District 26 *of _the
United Mine Workers of Amer-
ica (CCL), wants a blanket in-
crease to bring maritime miners’
wages more in conformity with
western levels. Dosco demands
that any such increase be based
on higher production of one ton
per day per man. The union it-
self is in favor of increased pro-
duction, and points to the sug-
gestions it has made in the past
for increased technical efficiency.
Any production bottleneck now
in existence, it charges, results

Ballbearings in
lieu of caviar

BUCHAREST. — The Romanian
government has introduced price
control and rationing in restau-
rants. Without it, a gd¥ernment
spokesman explained, miners were
going into the pits with nothing
more than cornmeal in their sto-
machs while restaurants were
buying up meat and other essen-
tial foods to sell at sky-high prices

From now on ,restaurants can
serve meat, fish, game and chick-
en respectively only one day a
week. The restaurants have been
divided into four catgories’ and
price ceilings have been fixed for
each.

The government figures that if
half the black caviar consumed in
luxury cafes were exported to for-
eign countries, Romania would
quickly have the foreign currency
necessary to import ballbearings

FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 1947

‘jthe government

antiquated _tech-
labor-manage-

from Dosco’s
niques and poor
ment relations.

Coal mining in Nova Scotia is
one of the oldest industries in the
maritimes. At one time the east
produced most of the Canadian
coal, but with the growth of
western coal fields, and the use
of modern equipment, western
mines are now out-producing
those in the maritimes. Subsidies
from the federal government have
been keeping the maritime mines
in production, but only an insig-
nificant amount of the taxpayers’
money has gone into moderniza-
tion of equipment.

An indication of how impor-
tant Canadian labor considers the

miners’ strike can be seen from

the flood of wires being received
by miners’ leader Freeman Jen-
kins. The pledges of support, both
moral and financial come from
AFL and CIO unions. The ur-
gency of financial support from
the labor movement for the strike
~-the most important since wage
controls were abolished—has been
stressed by Pat Conroy, secre-
tary-treasurer of the Canadian
Congress of Labor. Mr. Conroy
stated that the full financial sup-
port of the CCL and its affiliated
unions will be accorded the strike.
He revealed that a letter from
the Congress stressing the ur-
gency of such support has been
sent to each CCL affiliate.

Aussie union puts the
‘rinso’ on price racket

SYDNEY, Australia — The crusade against tattle-tale
gray shifted from the kitchen sink to the waterfront here,
as union longshoremen rushed to the defense of angry house-
wives unable to launder the weekly wash of an artificially

created washing, soap shortage.

Until the wharfies enlisted in
the battle for the snowwhite un-
die, manufacturers were cleaning
up handsome profits by exporting
laundry soap and tallow, instead
of selling to the lower-priced
home market. Having pressured
into granting
them export licenses, the pro-
ducers were shipping abroad tal-
low used for Soapmaking at $520
a ton. Ceiling price in Australia
is $110 a ton.

But the bubble burst when the
Waterside Workers Federation
announced that its members
would refuse to handle washing
seap exports, a move _ that

brought cheers from the irate
public, The dockers placed an
embargo or a load of laundry
soap destined for British troops
in Palestine, although overseas
Australian troops were exempted
from the ban,

The union boycott, is expected
to- force the government to see

that manufacturers stop hoarding |

for export and supply the Austra-
lian public.

Meanwhile, frustrated house-
wives are trying vainly to take
the B.O. out of hubby’s socks with
Lifebuoy. There is plenty of toilet
soap to be bought, because this
brings a high profit margin on
the local market.

Arabs, Jews treated
as pawns in Holy Land

By ISRAEL EPSTEIN
NEW YORK—Few situations seem as confused as that

in Palestine, as the headlines reflect. it.

One day British

Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin asks for U.S. help there. The

next he blames President Truman for

troops fight a war against tor-
tured Jews from Europe who try
to get into Palestine. Terrorist
groups, a minority of the Zionist
camp, shoot down British soldiers.
Pipelines carrying oil to the Pal-
estine port of Haifa are blown up.

Zionists call for a Jewish state.
The Arabs, who form two-thirds of
Palestine’s population, don’t want
this. The Arab League, composed
of the feudal rulers of neighbor-
ing Arab states, seeks control for
itself. Underground armies, Jew-
ish and Arab, speed up _ their
training. But Arab and Jewish
workers strike side by side against
the British administration and
against both British and Jewish
companies which refuse to pay
them a living wage.

The real reasons for the Pal-
estine crisis are neither Jewish
nor Arab. What has turned the
country into an armed camp is
the development of British and
American foreign policies, These
seem united in regarding Pales-
tine as a_ strategic outpost
against Russia but differ over
whether the U.S. or Britain will
call the moves. Both countries
are flirting now with the Arabs,
now with the Jews, |

A constantly increasing number’
of Jewish and Arab organizations
are now calling for a complete
withdrawal of the British, who
have had a lease on the country
since 1920.

Progressive Palestinian labor
leaders of both nationalities,
watching the maneuvers in Brit-
ain and the U.S. are beginning
to argue that everybody would be
better off if all the great powers

were out of the country and the’

meddling. British

Jews and Arabs could deal with
each other directly.

However, ruling elements in
both Zionist and Arab camps stil!
Play for foreign support. Even
those Zionist groups that have
“declared war” on. the British
Make it plain that they would ac;
cept British rule if it became anti-
Arab,

Arab chiefs, on the other hand.
are soft-pedalling independence be-
cause the British now support
them, and are actually building
up an army for them in Trans-
jordania, across the border. So
long as the two groups think they
Can pressure the British into tak-
ing their side, Britain can con-
tinue to play both for suckers.
This situation has created a setup
for much bloodshed, which now
seems unavoidable. As in India’s
internal strife, the result may be
that everyone but the British wit!
be weakened.

Bevin’s offer to turn Palestine
over to the United Nations sounds
good on the surface. But Bevin
does not propose to place Pales
tine before the security council,
which is in session all the time
and can deal with every “threat
to the peace.” He wants to wak
for the UN general assembly,
which won't meet till September
and can then do little more than
appoint a commission of inquiry
to report to it when it convenes
again—in 1948, ;

Meanwhile, British troops can
remain in the country virtually a6
UN. trustees, which would
strengthen their position. A lot
can be done by an armed force in
a@ year or more.

Guerilla

Hitler turned Spain into a

This Spanish girl fought Franco during the
axis invasion of Spain. Today she is probably
part of the great underground movement now develop-
ing again in Spain to finish the tottering fascist regime.

shambles under the pretext

of ‘saving’ it from communism. Anglo-American imperial-
ism backs Franco on the same pretext.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 2