HE war policies dictated by

Wall Street have already
brought to British Columbia
scenes reminiscent of the depres-
sion years. Long queues of un-
employed, soup kitchens, and oth-
er signs of acute hardship for
many of the 50,000 unemployed;
part-time work and part-time pay
for still more thousands, has serv-
ed to emphasize the fact that this
winter B.C. has gone through its
worst unemployment crisis since
the “Hungry Thirties.”

While there are _ indications
that with the usual upturn of in-
dustrial activity in the spring, and
the “election year” promises of
public works .and construction,
some of the slack will be taken up
for a few months, the govern-
ment’s wartime promise of “a job
and a fair income to everybody
able and willing to work” has van-
ished into thin air.

Marshall-Abbott policies which
have resulted in shutting off trade
between Canada, the source of
needed food and reconstruction
supplies, and the countries of Eu-
rope and Asia that suffer most as
a result of wartime devastation,

are directly responsible for that
situation.

A year ago the Labor-Progress-
ive party was the only party that
warned:

“The Abbott Plan, and not
not only the obvious shackling
ef our industrial development
and elimination of needed mar-
ket outlets, but the very politic-
al and military alliances with
Wall Street imperialism from
which it flows, spells ruination
for British Columbia, It’s hid-
den, but real meaning is only
now beginning to be felt, but it
is developing and if it isn’t de-

feated, it will develop further.
To British Columians, this ne-
farious scheme to contribue to
the vain effort to save capital-
ism in Europe means bread and
butter, jobs and agricultural
markets. But the fact is that the
Liberals and Tories are not go-
ing to be able to fit B.C. or any

other part of the Canadian econ-
omy into the Marshall Plan

without ruinous consequences.” |

e

Is that not exactly what has
transpired? Has not the Marshall
Plan been responsible for the
sharp decline in markets for Can-
adian agricultural and manufac-
tured products? Loss of British
lumber orders, which accounted
for about 40 percent of our entire
production, loss of apple and egg
markets, loss of the British out-
let for products of our important
Salmon and herring fisheries—
these are the direct fruits of Can-
adian participation in the Wall
Street-sponsored Marshall Plan
and its Canadian counterpart, Ab-
bott austerity.

What the Marshall Plan has
done to jobs and security for the
people of British Columbia is
clearly and frankly admitted in
@ recent issue of Western Busi-
ness and Industry, the house or-
gan of big business in this pro-
vince, It stated:

“The general outlook for the
lumber manufacturing industry
has greatly changed in the first
eight months of 1948, British or-
ders have been halted due to the
domination of the Wall Street
dollar. Markets have also been
hit in China, South Africa, New
Zealand, Australia and Japan,

Provincial Minister E. T, Ken-
ney was reported in the Vancou-
ver Sun of January 11 4s saying:

“The United Kingdom mar-
ket has been largely lost. The
Piling up of lower grade lumber
stocks is causing concern to the
industry and the government.”

Lumbering is British Columbia’s
meal-ticket industry, and the de-
cided slump which has resulted
from increased Canadian subor-
ordination to Yankee dollar im-
perialism cannot but have a far-
reaching effect on the whole pro-
vincial economy, its employment,
purchasing power, and general

what Wall Street dictates as f
as trade policies are concerned?
Only because we are being tied in
with aggressive military designs
of American imperalism.

The Abbott plan and the Mal-
shall plan have promoted the un-
dermining of Canadian industry
and manufacturing. If Canada is
to survive as a nation, if B. C.
industries are to provide jobs for

our people, then we must seek [|

out markets and develop new

ones, instead of restricting them [|
and eliminating others, as pres J
ent government policies are do

ing.
There are countries, including Bri-
tain and the rest of war-torn Eu

rope that would willingly ex |

change products, which we now
obtain from the U.S., for goods
which we are manufacturing oF
capable of manufacturing. Britain

urgently requires lumber and food |
stuffs. We require textiles, ma- —

chinery, pottery, and scores of
other manufactured items which
Britain has to sell.

The Labor - Progressive Party
calls for and will work for the

development of trade with all a

democratic countries; with Bri-

_tain and with the other countries

of Europe, with the Soviet Union,

-the new peoples’ China, and our |

neighbor across the Pacific.
The immediate development of

barter trade is an urgent and

pressing need if British Columbia

Condensed from

NIGEL MORGAN

Barter trade can
hold YOUR job

a report by

to the LPP eh
B.C.-Yukon
convention

well being. Of all Canadian pro-

vinces, British Columbia, which
depends to such a great extent
on the basic industries, lumber-
ing, mining, fishing, and agricul-
ture, will not only be the first

to be hit, but it is the one which .

will be hit the hardest.
The last few months have seen

‘similar developments in agricul--

ture. With normal orders from
Britain for three to four million
boxes of Okanagan apples cancel-
led, a reduction of 30 million doz-
en in British orders for eggs _an-
nounced, and loss of the United
Kingdom market for raspberries
and small fruits, B.C. agriculture
has received a hard blow.

e

British Columbia’s export trade
is facing increasingly serious loss-
es, as dollar-short countries con-
tinue to cut down on purchasing.

'The Abbot plan has placed Can-

adian trade policy under Wall
Street control, and because Wall
Street financiers have never been

‘noted for their philanthropy in

the business field, our foreign
trade is being carried on only
when, and where, it does not con-
flict with the hungry profit-seek-
ing of this same Wall
crowd.

Recently the president of the
Canadian Bank of Commerce
stated:

“With respect to our trade
with other countries, our ex-
ports to the British group de-

Street

clined by more than 100 million
dollars trom 1947, as the result
of smaller shipments to the Un-
ited Kingdom and substantial
reductions in those two other
markets in this group, particu-
larly Australasia. There is also
a marked falling off in exports
to continental Europe. The Eu-
ropean countries are now ob-
. taining goods from Canada
through the allocations made un-

der the European Recovery Pro-

gram, whereby purchases are
permitted to be made in Can-
ada and payment arranged in
U.S. dollars.”

More and more as U.S. industry
and agriculture are faced with
the problem'of disposing of “sur-
plus” production, less allocations
for purchase of Canadian products
will be’on the agenda. An example
of what can be expected was the
recent near-collapse of the Can-
adian sale of 140 million bushels
of wheat to Britain, because of
the approaching U.S. wheat sur-
plus. In the U.S. unemployment
has already reached the startling
figure of three million fully job-
less and eight million semi-unem-
ployed, or part-time workers. Un-
employment is not something
“local” and it is jobs that are
now “seasonal,” not unemploy-

ment. ,
/

During the last few days dem-
onstrations have been taking
place in Italy against U.S. mili-
tary and economic interference

in that country. Is it any wonder
when the Marshall plan director
there, J. D. Zellerback, can make
the bare-faced admission: “To ef-
fect the ERP plan in Italy, it is
not necessary to create’ superflu-
ous jobs. What is needed is to in-

to clear the factories of workers
who do not want to be laid off.”
Such is the key objective. of Wall
Street's Marshall plan, not only
for Europe, but Canada as well.

e:

The reduction - in exports has
seriously undermined the future
of British Columbia’s important
fish-packing industry. Britain,
which used to buy 85 percent of
the B.C. salmon pack, is unable
to place orders this year.

“ That means at best a surplus
of 700,000 cases for which federal

-

crease the number of policemen»

authorities see no market possi-

bilities.

In Britain and throughout the’

world there is great need for pro-
tein foodstuffs, yet in B.C. the
herring pack for 1948 was limited
to a mere ‘82,702 cases. The year
previous, for the same period, the
pack was more than ten times
that amount, 841,750 cases.

There are vast markets ‘in Bri-
tain for the fishery, agricultural,
and lumber products of British
Columbia—rot to mention the tre-
mendous needs of the devastated
countries of Europe and the mass-
ive requirements of Asia. Why is
it that Canada must harken to

%

is not to face immediately acuté

unemployment and deep goidf
economic crisis. {2

e

The present policies of contril-
uting to the division of the world
into two armed camps constitute
a betrayal of the true interest®

of every British Columbian. The —

establishment of friendly relations
between nations and not the pro
vocation of war is what servef
our province best. The develoP
ment of trade; and not confine
ment within the narrow bound®
of the Marshall Plan and its neW
military extension, the Atlanti¢
‘War Pact, is vital to the future
welfare of every British Colum
bian.

The warning signs of acute ec™
nomic crisis, the lengthening U2
employment queues, the layotfs
and speedup in industry, hav®

“been hastened by the concentT@
‘tion of Canadian policies on pre?”

aration for war.

Cyclical crises are an inhere®*
feature of the profit system, 4”!
cannot be eliminated under c@P*
talism, but full employment 2”?
economic expansion could have
been considerably extended if the
policies agreed upon at Potsd
and Yalta had been honored, 2”
if the promises of mutual aid ™
reconstruction of the terrible W2
time devastation in Europe 2”
Asia. and full cooperation petwee?
the big powers to eradicate ev’
last vestige of fascism, has bee?
adhered to.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — MARCH 25, 1949 — PAGE 4