Peace or war...»

WO weeks ago the

;

big business men in Toronto.

deliberately,

nech.

et In view of the fact that

those made in the draft resolution.

QUESTION: The daily papers
report Graham Towers as saying:
The fundamental policy clearly
must be the fiscal one of reduc-
ing spending incomes by increas-
ed taxes, to the extent that the
available supply of gocds is being
reduced by the demands of the
defense program _

“So long ‘as ‘rearmament ex-
penditures go on increasing, I be-
lieve government revenues should
anticipate the future level or re-
“quirements dather than merely
try to keep pace with current re-

‘ ~

quirements” \

Do. You attach any particular
significance to those statements?

ANSWER: Yes, they are very
significant. Read them again and
note how carefully they are phras-
ed to assure the well-to-do repres-
entatives of industry and com~
merce at that meeting of two
central aims of the government’s

(a) that increased taxation will
be designed specifically to take
money out of the pockets and pay
anvidlopda jof the workers and
farmers. . ? i

(b) that the government's aim
should be to systematically reduce
the purchasing power of the thas-
ses of the people in favor of war
production whether or mot the
government needs the revenue..

‘

_ Whata ‘doctrine! It’s the devel-
oping for of neo-fascism. Hitler’s
lieutenants were simple people by
comparison with Governor Tow-
ers: théy put it bluntly: “Guns
before butter.” e ; etic:

QUESTION: Didn't Brooke
Claxton, the minister of national
defense use that slogan in the
House of Commons last Septem-

‘per? : ;

ANSWER: Yes, Claxton told
_the members of the House that,
in his opinion, Canadians can’t
have the choice between “guns
and butter”. He emphasized the
idea that’ the government’s war
‘program is going to hurt some
people. Governor Towers is now
assuring big business that the
hurt is for the workers—big bu-
_ siness will get the war contracts.
' But brazen statements, such as
those of Claxton are not encour-
aged now. The government’s iron

of the preparations for that party's fortt cing
few days after that document was published, Graham Towers, governor

of the Bank of Canada, delivered a prepared address to an audience of

' But, while the governor's address
the central thesis of the LPP resolution,
argument which completely contradicts the thesis of the
concerning the inevitability of econamic crists.

: Trade Minister Howe and other members
of the government harp upon the same queston, all with the same intent ds
Towers’, and in view of the fact that these two related issues, peace and
war and economic crisis or prosperity are de
Tribune interviewed Tim Buck, LPP national leader,
tion of the apparent contradiction between the statements of the governor
of the Bank of Canada and the minister of .trade and conynerce, and
The interview with Tim Buck, in the

form of question and answer, follows:

Pacific Tribune published the text of the draft res-

olution submitted to the members of the Labor-Progressive party as part
rthcoming national convention. A

The main argument of Towers’ address was ©
along the line ‘‘guns before butter”. One of the most striking effects of
the address however, was an emphatic confirmation of the correctness of ©
the central thesis of the LPP convention resolution. —
Indeed, the emphasis upon war preparations in the governor's ad-
dress made it abundantly clear that the war divic
decisive element in the St. Laurent government s policy. Towers confirm-
ed also the correctness of LPP warnings that the government ts planning,
fo foist the burden of the cost of its enormous war program
on the masses of the people—with the low income group getting it in the

drvie is the central and

testified to the correctness of
he put forward in addition an
draft resolution

decisye for Canada, the Pacific
for an explana-

_ Saying:
- part, on fear of deep depression

tant raw materials and so on.
That sort of gambling is a sanc-
.tified feature of capitalism.

QUESTION: But, the govern-
or of the Bank of Canada assur-
ed his Toronto audience that
the economic system is in good
.shape. The press quoted him as
“Policies based, even in

are not justified by: the facts of
the post-war world, nor do I

think they are really consistent

with certain other policies such

as those for mutual defense and

economic cooperation as exem-
plifiéd in the Atlantic Pact.” Is
that assurance well based?

ANSWER: The first part of
it—“the facts of the post-war
world” simply is not true. The
second part—‘“certain other poli-
cies .’ is no more and no
less than an implied assurance
that the contradictions which
generate economie crisis can be
overcome by expenditures for —
war. :

QUESTION: Can they?

ANSWER: No, of course not.
Capitalism cannot abolish the
operation of the law of the cyc-

~ An interview with
‘TIM BUCK

new policy.. Those two points are: ,

a

hen iae:

fist is now being masked’ in vel-
vet glove propaganda.

QUESTION: Are the industrial
results. of that policy to be seen
as yet or are we still in the pre-
liminary stages? :

ANSWER: . In the main we
are still in the preliminary stag-

es. For example, propaganda to
the effect that governmental war
expenditures are creating a boom
is mainly government publicity in
support of its war aims. Aggre-
gate employment in the eight
leading industries on August 1
was only one-tenth of one per-

- cent higher than it was in Dec.

1948—before the decline through
1949. There are still 150,000 un-
employed and recently there has
been an actual decline in employ-
ment. The “war boom” of which
there is so much propaganda, is
as yet, very largely , speculative.

QUESTION: In

anticipation
of war contracts? ;
Reig

ANSWER: That is a factor.
But others are more immediate.
For example, a very large num-
ber of shrewd men figure that
the U.S. and Canadian govern-
ment’s deliberately inflationary
policy is bound to result in a
tremendous increase in the gen-
eral price level, perhaps even ‘re-
valuation of gold. With the aim
‘of cashing in ‘on such a trend
those men and the interests they
direct have been putting their
money into “real values”, (pro-
ducts or claims upon products)
extending their credit to the li-
mit with the idea of being able
to pay the debts later with mon-
ey that is worth less, and so
on.

QUESTION: But isn’t the gov-
ernment restricting credit?

ANSWER: Not the credit of
those fellows. The “restrictions
of consumer credit” is aimed to
make it even harder for the
average worker to buy a home,
refrigerator, an automobile.
People with substantial incomes
don’t need that sort of credit.
The restrictions don’t touch the
use of bank credit, the accumu-
lation of huge stocks of impor-

lical ecdnomic crisis and remain
capitalism. As Marx demonstra-
ted, and as the history of the
profit system has reaffirmed con-
tinuously ever since, the contra-

“dictions which generate econo-
mic crises are inherent in capi-
talism. To get rid of them in-
‘volves getting ‘rid of capitalism.
Let me illustrate:

Consider the, general contradic-
tion between social production
and private appropriation; That
central all-persuasive contradic-
tion is now an anachronism; it
has to be abolished. We-suffer
continuing deepening crises and
imperialist wars as a result of
it, but the capitalists won’t abo-
lish it — or even admit its evil.

\

Or consider the inherent con-
tradiction which finds expression
in the fact that the capitalist
. class always expands the capa-
city of the industries to produce
faster than it allows the purch-
asing power of the masses of
the people to increase. An ines-
capable result is that during per-
iods of economic expansion the
proportion of workers, raw ma-
terials and industrial equipment
that is devoted to expanding pro-
ductive capacity increases much
more rapidly than does the pro-
portion devoted to the produc-
tion of goods for immediate con-
sumption; that, in fact, is an
important factor in creating boom
condition, If, for any. reason
whatever, boom conditions are
interrupted by a halt in the ex-
pansion of capacity to produce,
an economic crisis ensues, (That
isn’t the only factor that will
bring a crisis, of course; it is
one example).

_Apparently Towers assumes the
government can solve that in-
herent contradiction by spending
upon war preparations to fill the
gap between our total capacity
to produce and the demands of
. privately-owned investment capi-
tal upon the “producer goods in-
dustry.” Furthermore, he seems
to figure that, through the use
of war propaganda and the as-
sistance of the leaders of the

‘ing bigger profits than ever for -

C.C.F., the working people will ©

be persuaded to accept less, leav-

the monopoly corporations.

Towers is mistaken, The out-
break of an economic crisis may
be delayed somewhat by that
technique, but only at the price
of deepening still further the
contradictions that he pretends
are being overcome.

Fat war profits will revive the
recently lagging demands upon -
the “production goods industries” ”
—But, the only way the demand
could be kept equal to the more
rapid expansion of capacity would
be by steadily increasing the
size of the armament expendi-
tures.

It is a gruesome fact that, im-
plicit in. Towers’ easy assurance |
to his Toronto audience was the
thesis that the Truman and St.
Laurent governments will have
the third world war in full swing
before economic realities compel |
them to stop expanding peace-
time war expenditures. The pa-
rallel with Nazi Germany dur-
ing the thirties is startling. —

QUESTION: Do you mean
from this that their policies make
a third world war inevitable?

'
ANSWER: Their policy is bas-*
ed upon their idea of the inevi-
tability of a third world war;
that is its purpose. But, I think
it would be entirely wrong to
suggest that their policy makes—
a third world war inevitable. It
can still be prevented. :

QUESTION: What should be
done to prevent it? ;

ANSWER: The main task is
Canada is to bring home the fact
to the masses of the people, show
them the danger and convince
them of the need for action. The
people must reject the St. Lau-
rent government’s war program,
‘must insist upon a peace pro-
gram, a

QUESTION: Is it possible to
have , full employment without
war or war preparations?

ANSWER: Yes, definitely.
Jobs and peace go together as
related results of the peaceful’
coexistence of the capitalist and
socialist systems. As Stalin has

Prosperity or crisis?

emphasized more than once, the
peaceful co-existence of the cap-
italist and socialist systems is
fully; possible provided there is
a “will to peace’. Until they
choose the policy of deliberately
seeking war the leaders of capi-
talist economy in Canada and

the U.S. also agreed that peace-

ful co-existence was possible and
to the advantage of both. They
agreed that the productive capa-
city of North America could be
kept fully employed for 25 years
at least producing the « goods;
needed by the Soviet Union and

China alone. ‘

.Don’t you remember Donald
Nelson, the wartime “production
tsar” in the United States, As
the war reached its crashing
climax the president sent Nelson
to China and to the Soviet Union
to study their probable post-war
needs and the extent to which

“they coincided with the probable
‘post-war interests of U.S. econo-

my. Donald Nelson returned
from each of these trips enthu-
siastic. He discovered in both
China and the USSR needs for
goods from North America and
needed goods for North America
both in quantities which, to use
his own terms, made it possible
to plan the post-war entirely on
the basis of reconversion-accord-
ing to what we need.

Those needs, and a million new
ones are there today. As we
point out in the draft resolution,
the Soviet Union and the peo-
ple’s democratic republics would
gladly buy from Canada, for —
peace, a great deal more than —
the St. Laurent government can
spend upon war preparations
and stay out of war. ee

Two weeks ago, in;a conversa- —
tion with Jacob Malik, St. Lau-—
rent declared he believed the
people of the Soviet Union want
‘peace—he added the significant
hint: “that ... if our leaders —
didn’t make fools of themselves _
we would have peace.” i

Every Canadian should demand
of the St. Laurent government —
that it pursues policies which ©
correspond with that statement
instead of the policies now being
introduced, a

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — DECEMBER 3, 1950 — PAGE 5