Review

EDITORIAL PAGE

Fairy tales for farmers

OY habia ey farm journals in
their editorial columns express
' strong fears and suspicions on the
tabor-farmer-peoples “political al-
“ ternative” as projected by the 1958
~ Winnipeg convention of the Cana-
_dian Labor Congress,
. Some of these fears anent “am-
bitious labor leaders” and right-
. wing CCF social democrats who are
now trying a “back door” mano-
euvre to tie the trade unions to
the tail of a CCF political kite,
‘ have some small measure of val-
idity.

Such fears however should not
be permitted to become an insur-
mountable obstacle to farmers join-

ing hands politically with their

_ most powerful ally, organized labor,
against a common enemy—the ex-
ploiters of factory and farm alike,
and their subservient Tory, Liberal
and Socred governments.

Tt is a well-known fact, unfortun-
ate as it may be, that for decades
powerful monopoly concerns like
the CPR, machine and mortgage
trusts, and financial sharks of one
specie or anothtr have had ac-

united farmer-labor political alliance
which will ensure workers and farm-
eds alike of their own class spokes-
men in parliament and government
——or continue to remain the twin
victims of the old-line partisan gov-
ernments of Big Business.

In the process of building such
a labor-farmer-people’s alternative
the “ambitious” opportunists in the
ranks of labor — and among the
farmers — can be retired to the
bleachers. That could also include
some farm journal editors who, for
reasons best known to themselves,
continue to serve as propagandists
for the monopoly interests, and
against the farmers they are pre-
sumed to serve.

At this moment  crisis-ridden
farmers from Manitoba, Saskatche-
wan and Alberta plan an “On-To-
Ottawa” march to seek redress from
a Tory government for their legiti-
mate grievances.

How much better the results
would be, were there a Labor-Farm-
er-Peoples government in Ottawa to
listen, encourage — and act.

To SOCRED cabinet has a large
assortment of briefs from vari-
ous employer organizations. In the
main, all of these wordy documents

harp on one common theme; to

have the government bring down
legislation during this session of
the legislature, designed to “re-
strict,” “curb” or otherwise hogtie
organized labor.

The bosses’ objectives are clear
enough. They would like “media-
tion” instead of “conciliation” to
settle labor disputes. With a gov-
ernment doing a consistent job for
the bosses, one doesn’t require a
crystal ball to see how and for
whom such a “mediator” would
operate.

The bosses would also like to
have the trade unions “incorpor-
ated” by law, so that in every
strike struggle, the union or unions
involved could be bled to death in
the courts.

The bosses would also like to
have picketing “drastically limited”
by law, which, in Chamber of Com-
merce lingo means abolition of the

right to strike and picket. O}
course that’s not all the bos
would like. They would like
have “dog-collar” compulsory at
bitration covering all “public utili

ties,’ and which, in the opinion

a bosses’ government “imperi

the health and safety of the

eral public.” Let them have t
and “public utilities’ could be
stretched to cover every industry
from a shoemaker to a second-hand
car salesman! me
There is no end to the bosses’
wants in their projected schemes
' to hog-tie labor. in
If the government is wise (still
an unresolved question) it will con:
sign the employers’ schemes to hog.
tie labor to the waste-paper basket,

where they rightfully belong.

Meantime labor must remain ever
on the alert against such moves —
and begin to speedily build its best
defense; a broad  labor-farmer.
people’s unity to replace a bosses’
government with one of its own,
Then the straight jacket can be
fitted — where it properly belongs.
>

cess to farm journals to spread
their vicious “divide and rule”
propaganda, portraying the farmer
always as the helpless victim of la-
bor’s “unreasonable” demands.
To round it out they painted
(and are still doing it) a not-so:
nice picture of John Farmer sweat-
ing it out in the fields for 16-18
hours a day, while Joe Doakes,
fogger, miner, or what-have-you,
was living the life of Riley on
“high” wages and short working
time at the farmers’ expense!
Years of this diet of monopoly
tripe could have no other than a
detrimental effect in labor-farmer
unity relations. Added to this of
course is the bogey of “socialism”,
designed to frighten the farmer
away from his strongest ally —
thereby enabling the ‘monopoly
leeches who fatten on both to con-
tinue their gorging undisturbed.
Like labor however, the farmers
have little choice. Either build a

Pacific Tribune

: Phone MUtual 5-5288

: Editor — TOM McEWEN
Managing Editor — BERT WHYTE.
Published weekly at

Room 6 — 426 Main Street
Vancouver 4, B.C.

Subscription Rates:
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Tom
McEwen

N ITS SIMPLE meaning “in-

flation” is to inflate, to blow
into, like inflating a flat tire or
a set of bagpipes. A Tory poli-
ticlian or a monopolist Scrooge
orating about the necessity of
“holding-the-line-on-wages” as a
cure for inflation, is invariably
himself well inflated with conceit
at the sound of his own inflated
verbosity.

Thus we could regard one
aspect of “inflation’’ as defined
in our modern dictionaries, as
being purely wind!

But there are other and more
dangerous elements. than wind.
Money, (which most of us “lower
orders” never have enough of)
can also be inflated to the point
where the purchasing power of
a 100-cents dollar is reduced to
“49 cents or less; a dollar con-

taining. 49 cents purchasing
value and 51 cents wind, as is
now generally the. vogue *in
Canada.

To put it another: way. The
Missus goes out Saturdays to

do her shopping at one of our
popular price-fixing chain stores,
bringing home much less for $20
than_she did ten years ago for
ten bucks. ;

Had she been in the market

to build or buy battleships,
$8 million dollar jet bombers or
such gadgets, the government
would readily put its printing
presses on extra shift work to
supply the paper dollars needed
to finance her purchases. Since,
however, the family can’t eat,
live in, or clothe itself with
battleships and bombing planes,
she must buy the family groc-
eries with an “inflated” dollar,
from which 51 cents more or
less has been extracted to prop
up a useless non-productive arms
dollar.

Of: course, as Heaven forbids,
the “Flim-Flam” Flemings of
modern capitalism would never
hint, let alone admit, that their
bond “conversion” schemes, their
suicida] armament spending, their
go-ahead green-light to monopoly
price-fixing, their ready agree-
ment to freight, telephone, tran-
sit, soaring tax hikes and simi-
lar public gouging had any-
thing to do with ‘inflation’ and
the low purchasing power of the
housewife’s dollar.

Our top brass bankers, who do
very well in the inflationary
business, neyer tire of telling
the people that if they want
“a stable dollar” they must make

“sacrifices.” These are neatly
packaged with a nice banker’s —
homily that Johnny Canuck must

“forego short - term economic
gains for the long-term benefits
of a currency which retains its
purchasing power.”

Thus if working men and
women, regardless of skyrocket-
ing prices, will just forego seek-
ing wage increases, become.
amenable to wage cuts, follow
the boss’ “‘hold-the-line” chorus,
everything will come out fine
and dandy. The wind will go out f
of his purchasing dollar, it will ~
become “stabilized,” etc., and the
wife can go out shopping, confi-
dent that she’ll still get 49 cents
worth of goods for a 49 cent
dcllar. :

‘Of course, capitalism has
some basic laws (as well as con.
tradictions) which inflated ‘‘econo-

~mists” just love to obscure. One

of these is that wages — not
even in the most “prosperous”
times, ever kept pace with prices.
If they did it wouldn’t be capi-
talism. Thus the argument of in-
flated spouters that “high wages
cause high prices” is just so
much wind, designed primarily
to hide the fact that inflation
(as applied in economics) is just
another method, approved by
monopolists, bankers, and their
subservient governments, of ex-
tracting 51 cents from the work-
ing man’s dollar, then telling
him he must work for less —
in order to get more. ;

year. i

January 30, 1959 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE