Purses and politicians

When historians of the future begin to sum-up the activities of
the majority of MP’s who have calloused their backsides sitting
in the House of Commons they’ll have to devote a special chapter
to hypocrisy and venality; that’s the only conclusion possible to
arrive at after listening to a Tory and Liberal tell a television
audience that they are unaware of the sources of their 1968 elec-
tion campaign funds.

In the case of the Liberal the amount involved was $68,000, the
source of which he seemed to think was rather vulgar to discuss
since, he said, he wasn’t aware of where the money came from.
The Tory was in a little better shape; he only spent $35,000 during
the 1968 campaign, and naturally it’s a higher form of purity to
not be able to recall where the lesser amount came from.

Obviously these fellows are without talent. If they had mulled
over the problem they might have come up with several answers.
Leprechauns, for instance. A group of these good natured creatures
left the money on their doorsteps. They did it because they ad-
mired them as progressive-minded candidates who agreed with
the abolition of serfdom.

If not Leprechauns how about senior citizens? That would sound

good: some several score of old age pensioners mortgaged their $80.

a month for the next 500 years because they knew the candidates
would fight for the rights of the poor and vote themselves an
increase in parliamentary salary.

Or how about prayer? The $68,000 man prayed hard for weeks
and his pleas were answered by an anonymous donor who left the
money in the back seat of the candidate’s cadillac. The $35,000
man also prayed but gave only a 50% effort and received only a
50% return.

According to both men one thing is certain: election campaign
funds supplied to capitalist politicians do not come from anyone
with an axe to grind. Corporations stay aloof from politics and
don’t care which of the old line parties is in power, which, I sup-
pose, is partially true in the sense that they know whichever side
wins will deliver the nation on a platter on command.

Perhaps some day one of these well-heeled political burglars
will, in a moment of madness get up in the House of Commons
and tell all: “I received several thousands of dollars in campaign
funds from the mining industry,” he’ll reveal. “But I realize now
that I hired myself out as a bone to a mastiff.” His colleagues will
then carry him out of the House and drop him down an elevator
shaft.

But until that happens you had better watch your step if a capi-
talist politician stops you on the street and asks what time it is.

~ He may be sizing up your watch to see if its worth stealing.

Slavery—root of racism

By ROBERT HUNT

“Canadians in search of sun-
shine and adventure should visit
South Africa at any time,” says
an item on travel page of Satur-
day Night magazine.

Using the vernacular, I was a
“Limey” engaged in the deep
sea merchant service travelling
to South East and West Africa,
the Island of Madagascar, among
other places in the equatorial
part of the world.

The Union of South Africa
first became known to the “‘civ-
ilized” world in the latter part
of the nineteenth century, as-
sociated with the names of Doc-
tor Stanley, David Livingstone
and Cecil Rhodes.

The story of David Living-
stone being lost in the jungle
was a_ successful _ publicity

stunt — one that would have
made our present-day experts of
brainwashing
with envy.
British capitalists were look-

technique green

ing for new worlds to conquer
and found in South Africa a
country ideally suited for finan-
cial infiltration and exploitation.
The discovery of minerals,
gold and diamonds, was the be-
ginning of a struggle between
the British and Afrikanders
(Boers) that culminated in the
horrible example of British im-
perialism, the Boer War.

South African labor, white
and colored, were being organ-
ized in the railway and mining
industry by militant socialist
labor leaders.

The railway strike in this per-
iod was the first challenge and
momentous struggle of organized
labor in South Africa . .. the
government reacted with unpre-
cedented force and violence, in-
stituting martial law.

The use of soldiers, machine’

guns and barbed wire in the
streets of Johannesburg, depor-
tation of English labor leaders,
jail sentences for South Africans,
white and colored.

The dreaded disease of sili-
cosis attacked miners without

BOOK REVIEW

Ireland and the Irish Ques-
tion — A Collection of Writings
by Karl Marx and Frederick
Engels. International Publishers,
$3.65 in Canada, Paperback.
Also available from Progress
Books Toronto, $3.25, Cloth.

* * s
The ranks of Canadian Marx-

- ists have been enriched, during

the whole course of this coun-
try, by the migration of working
class refugees from European
national and social battlefields.
Many came to the New World
direct from scenes of violent
struggles—lost battles against
exploiters; domestic, foreign or
both.

This 516-page book is a col-
lection in chronological order of
the writings of Marx and
Engels having reference to the
struggles of the first victims of
British imperialism, the Irish
people.

The exploitation of this col-
ony, because of its very fertile
soil so close to England, took
the form of seizure of the arable
land areas and their sale or
grant to English aristocrats and
others loyal to the
crown. The conquered people
were allowed by some “new”
owners to cultivate small hold-
ings at high rentals—a form of
exploitation that in time re-
duced the Irish people to beg-
gary. This process since the first
successful Anglo-Norman on-
slaughts of 1169-71, met until
present times with bitter resist-
ance from the Irish.

Frederick Engels (married
into the Irish Burns family)
knew the country well and com-
pleted 139 pages of a “History

British °

®

hy = . es

STION

AWD THE!
QUE

: Ss ue
% sy

*

:
pate
a

O

FREDERICK ENGEIS

of Ireland” which are included
in this collection together with
a further 60 pages of detailed
notes toward the completion of
the unfinished chapters. Some
comments from Engels will help
estimate the content of this
valuable collection:

“These people live in the
most wretched clay huts
searcely good enough for cat-
tle pens; have scant food all
winter long . . . they have
potatoes half enough for 30
weeks in the year and the rest
of the year, nothing ... In
the spring . . . wife and chil-
dren go forth to beg and
tramp the country with their
kettle in their hands. Mean-
while the husband, after
planting potatoes for the next
year, goes in search of work
either in Ireland or England
and returns at the potato har-
vest to hid family. This is the
condition in which nine-tenths

of the Irish country

live . . .” (Condition
Working Class in Ef
p. 40.)

In a matter of months (

ber, 1847), Engels in a neWy

{J

per article, had to descridl gy
(ep

onset of the famine of 1
like earlier ones, a result 0
of Irish land control: A
“Starving Ireland is ©
ing in the most terrible”,
vulsions. The workho

overflowing with begge® J

ruined property ownels
refusing to pay the Poot
and the hungry people #
in their thousands to ™
the barns and stables
farmers and even of thé
olic priests .. . It
though the Irish

ter as they did last
Irish immigration to

is getting more ala :

day. It is estimat rf
average of 50,000 arrive
year is already ove
(p. 44)

The historic guilt of

eA : t
administration of tha jest

spelled out in the mani the

those ships that carried
fugees. Their holds wer
with scores of tons of It
stuffs—shipped by the
“Jandowners” to thell © iii
in England, while oa fl,
Irish died of starvation: © iyi

sh {0
ni

cause one vegetable, init
and the only one the yh

people could afford. t0
grow on their tiny P t h
struck down by I

years, but the dying be
nied that food.
What of the fight-ba¢
Engels (p. 211):
“The English kn0

diverse races WI

The Welsh, who held & it)
ciously to their fh

“ne

and language,
completely with fj

tish

Empire. The Scott’ ss ir

though rebellious ™%
and since almost
exterminated first bY uh
ernment and then )
own aristocracy, The
think of rebellion.

of the Channel i

bitterly against Fran.)
‘

the Great Revoluti

‘)

Only with the Irish yp A)

lish could not cOP® | oft
son for this is the sist
resilience of yas? }
After the most 59 ott y

pression, after ev® them,

to exterminate a
Irish, following ef
spite, stood stron’

ever before.” we

will 10
of hunger as calmly 1"

so fat © 7
year; the number °° 00,08)

aril)
perio

mar

1s,
other food growth on ie a
flourished during thosé re |

a
w hoe

f uy oe
reconcile people 0 the

anne
fol,

af
In the adult yeat 5 im,

respect to color of their skin, rrent | 40!
due to the British mine owners’ and Engels, the CU Gq @ ii
disregard of their workers’ wel- rectionary movemen enthag
fare. White miners were sent list of such efforts, ? «gem )

by generation) was the 100

back to Cornwall, England, to en
Irish Republican Broth’ fol

die at home. Native miners were

sent back to their compounds was betrayed by ated Nl

and villages to die. and the leadership J at
Mine workers, white and col- brutal conditions. first at

ored,- were under a labor con- of Marx through the © qavb jf

national, -and J. oct
Jenny as a tireless & 10
and reporting journ@ = pig)
circulation Europe?” ives

tract and could not leave of their
own volition. Colored miners
received less than half the pay
of their white brothers, classi-
fied as unskilled and forbidden
to use the machine tools then in
use, thereby creating an unlim-
ited supply of cheap labor whose
status was, and is today, that of
virtual slaves.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, MAY 12, 1972—PAGE 10

de ae ee ei

At a territorial folk art festival in the Trade Union House in

Khabarovsk (Soviet Far East). 100 native dancers and sj

b d sin -
ented samples of the folklore of the small nationalities inhabiting
this ter itory—the Nanais, Uichi, and Udegeis. Amateur art groups
regularly function in the numerous villages where these nationalities
live. — Photo: Ulchi “Bear Holiday” dance.

e stoly’ at?
ters, reports, i
here with the analy
takes of strategy 4