With its vast iron ore reserves and its coal, Canada can become self-sufficient in steel, providing jobs for thousands of its

workers,

Made in Canada - or U.$.A.?

by LEITH McMURRAY

not only an economic problem but a political one. The

Te present struggle to solve the “U.S. dollar” crisis is

Abbott Plan is having drastic economic and political

affects upon the Canadian people.

It ties us more closely to

Wall Street’s war plans, reduces the standard: of living of
sur people by increasing prices on our commodities and re-

duces the manufacturing poten-
tial of our economy in favor of
the raw. materials potential.

Economically Canada has the
materials, the labor and the skill
te balance and over-balance our
US. trade within one or two
years and far from requiring
present price increases in man-
ufactured- goods prices, that
. policy would lower them by in-
creasing the productivity of labor
because of increased output per
item, one of the ohief causes of
lowver prices.

The main field in which Can-
adian economic policy must and
can be altered is in the produc-
tion of steel, coal and machinery.
These are the basis of modern
civilization and a nation that can
develop these branches and does
not is either under the control
of a foreign nation or is in dan-
ger of falling into that position.

>))

UPL

‘subordination

HR ae m

mil
™ Heh;
sf a) KS

ell ( eseacesnea itil

In 1945, these three branches
involved the payment of $487,-
000,000 (U.S.) when our total
American trade deficit was only
$383,000,000 (U.S.).. A solution of
these three industrial production
problems would help the trade
question, but there are many
other items that offer chances to
lower U.S. purchases and increase
Canadian sales. But an examina-
tion of these three industries will
disclose both how we are being
subordinated to U.S. monopoly
capitalist policy and how we
can and should escape both the
and its  conse-
quences.

Canada produced 17 million
tons of coal in 1945 and imported
from the U.S. 23 million tons at a
cost of $102,000,000 (U.S.). This
is an anomalous situation since
there are enormous resources of
coal in the Dominion. 25,000

v

rer, ee

| ul { oy is
HOUINT IB ith }, BE

ast as ) [ivnadicanivrne ret

Friday, February 27,

1948

-@ Crusade against. progress

By Hal Griffin

@ Assassins of freedom
By Kuldeep Singh Bains _......_. Page 7

@ The plot against Czech democracy

Report from Prague -.........--------
business in the government

@ Big
By 3 Mark Frank

LIAM REGS SS

ERIDAY, FEBRUARY 2%, 1943

Page 9

Rage VW

coal miners worked in Canada to
turn out our output. Approxi-
mately 37,000 more workers would
have to be diverted to coal min-
ing to right that situation.

In the steel industry, there
needs to be employed only an-
other 10,000 workers to produce
the pig iron and steel ingots
which we now import from the
US. at a cost of, in 1945, of
$11,000,000 (U.S.).

In the machinery business,
there would need to be a diver-
sion of 54,000 workers into
machine plants to carry out a
production program -which cost
in 1945, $374,000,000 (U.S.).

Of this huge amount, bars,
sheets, structural steel, etc., cost
$54 million; castings, $7.8 million;
tubes, ete., $5.5 million, wire, $3.7
million; chains, $1.6 million; farm
tractors and parts, $32 million;
engines and boilers, $27 millions;
farm implements, 18 million; ma-

chinery (except farm), $90.7 mil-
lion.

e

‘(THE Canadian shipbuilding in-

dustry went up from a tiny
segment of national life in 1939,
to 17th largest in 1941 and then
to fourth largest within another
two years (by 1943) employing no
less than 75,000 workers ana
turning out $446 million of ships.

The aircraft industry went up
from no rank at all in 1989 to
23rd in 1939 and eighth in 1943,
employing at that time 69,000
workers and turning out $246
million of aircraft. Miscellaneous
iron and steel products; special-
ized war products, ete, went up
from nothing in 1939 to 36th in
1941 and to 5th in 1943, employ-
ing that year 48,000 employees
and turning out $364 million of
technical goods.

In a few years these three
branches of our industry put in-
to new work 192,000 workers
who mastered their highly skill-
ed new types of production. 101,-
000 workers put into coal, steel
and machinery produetion today

would divert, in 1945 prices, al-
most half a billion of U.S. dollars
and would make us masters of
our own household in these all
important basic industries.

From 1939 to 1943 employment
in Canadian manufacturing in-
dustries went up from 658,000
workers to 1,241,000 workers. The
most highly complicated firing
instruments, optical glass, radar
and wireless equipment, tanks,
machine guns, were mass pro-
duced in billions of dollars worth.
We have and can employ one
hundred thousand of these highly
skied Canadians to free our-
Selves from this incumbus of US..
imports and dependence for coal,
steel and machines.

t

N addition to this basic Can-
, Aadian need for national self-
sufficiency in steel] and its pro- .
ducts, with its by-product of re-
solving the “U.S. dollar” problem
of the moment, there are many
other steps that would be profit-
able nationally.

For example, we bought in
1945, $46,000,000 (U.S.) of  pet-
roleum south of our border. But
our market there is becoming in-
creasingly jeopardized as the
economic cycle there reaches the
end of its tether. We could buy
this oil from Romania and at
the same time sell: Romania ma-
chinery of every description pro-
duced-in our own factories. This
friendly international trade would
cement the peaceful nations of
the world. and tend sing wea
world division.

The same holds goods for the
$9,000,000 (U.S.) of gasoline we
bought from the U.S. in 1945.
Our purchases abroad would not
only save U.S. dollars but would
build up world markets for our
manufacturing industries.

We paid $36,000,000 (U.S.) for
American cotton in 1945. The
USSR and India can supply. this
product to a considerable extent
and they would welcome our ma-

chinery and other manufactured

.

goods instead of money and in-
stead of giving them the cold
attitude American manufacturers
now give them and will give them
in stronger doses within the fore-
seeable future.

e

NEW national economic pol-

icy for our country is needed
and unlike certain other nations
who have had to overcome the
difficulties of untrained workers
and engineers we in Canada have
had within. the past nine’ years a
complete course in and have fully
mastered every aspect of ‘the
needs of this new economic
policy. '

The reasons: for our
failure to . build. plants
out another billion tons
steel, to dig mines’ to prodticé
another 23: million: tons of steel,
to build plants.to roll and shape
another 200,000: tons . of bars,
cable, structural . steel, . chain,
electrical apparatus of a dozen
kinds now imported, tubes,.rad-
ditional farm tractors of special-
ized kinds, stationary : engines
and. boilérs, logging equipment,
steam shovels, » road-building
equipment, etc., must be sought in
the fields of the relations of

» present

to turn
‘of basic

. Canadian and U.S. finance and

political balance -of power: -

‘Not one of these products’ im-
ported’ at the cost ‘of half billion
dollars’ U.S.) is beyond our tech-
nical ability: | Far stricter limits
and far tougher problems were
solved on a mass scalé within
the last decade. ‘But the workers
who solved them’ are now “with
an axe in the bush or with a ‘drill
in the ore mines providing raw
materials for U.S. manufacturers
because of some agreement be-
tween the. financial. and political
ruling same of our oar: and
the US. oe :

‘Canada’s national economic and
political . interests. - require. our
turning once again to.-intensified
industrial output and internation-

al trading.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 5