Year of the Child

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25 years ago...
McCARTHY TO
VISIT CANADA

Senator Joseph McCarthy is
being sent to Canada with the
backing of the powerful U.S.
“China Lobby” group in
Washington to try to whip up
Canadian public _— opinion
against the recognition of the
People’s Republic of China.

McCarthy is a leading backer
of the China Lobby which gov-
erns U.S, Far East policy and
which includes in its ranks most
of the pro-fascist figures im the
United States, among them Col.
E.R. Wood (Simpsons- Sears),
Col. McCormick, Herbert
Hoover, Gen. McArthur, Ran-
dolph Hearst and others.

50 years ago...
15 MINUTE LUNCH
AT FORD MOTORS

DETROIT — Only a 15 mi-
nute lunch period is allowed at
Ford Motor Co. plants. It is the
only intermission — the only
time the power is turned off —
during the 8-hour day.

The men cannot get out of
the building in 15 minutes
much less eat and get back to
the machines. To stagger the
lunch period, allowing the
workers to go out in relays
would slow down the belt. So
each man remains at his
machine standing or sitting on
the floor while he eats lunch.
There is not one seat at the
Detroit plant.

Tribune, The Worker,
March 29, 1954 March 30, 1929
Profiteer of the week:

This week it’s a double feature. It would be
pure bias to select only. Royal Bank for our
award for its after-tax profits of $77,074,000 in
the three months ended January 31, 1979.
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce did
chalk up $50,076,000 tax-free in the same
three months. For RB that was up by
$25,358,000 from the same period a year ear-
lier; and for CIBC a jump of $7,659,000.

Figures used are fram the company’s financial statements.

. Editor. — SEAN GRIFFIN
Associate Editor — FRED WILSON
Business and Circulation Manager — PAT O'CONNOR.

- Published weekly at Suite 101 — 1416 Commercial Drive,
‘Vancouver, B.C. V5L 3X9 Phone 251-1186

Subscription Rate: Canada $10 one year; $6.00 for six months;
: - All other countries, $12 one year.

Second class mail registration number 1560

EDITORIAL
COMMENT

Skimpy vote for Lougheed

Not all the capitalist media were happy
over Peter Lougheed’s Tory victory in
the Alberta Provincial election. His suc-
cess, after ladling out portions of the
wealthy Heritage Fund just before the
election, looks to them too much like
building up his own princedom at the
expense of others.

What needs to be kept in mind in this
“landslide” or “stampede” as it has been
called (Tories getting 74 or the 79 seats),
is not only that they picked up five more
seats this time with 4.4% less of the popu-
lar vote.. What is startling is that it was
58% of the 40% of the electorate that

voted, which put the Tories back into
office. Some people would call that a
minority government.

And to think we hear criticisms of elec-
tions in socialist countries where no one
sits in office by such default, but where
trade unions, farm organizations, wom-
en’s, youth and other organizations have
the wherewithal to put up candidates
who, when elected have a mandate from,
and represent, the whole electorate.

The absenteeism from Lougheed’s
show indicates the sham it’s considered
by voters. .

U.S. fortress in Mideast

The USA is setting up a massive
fortress in the Middle East to try to halt
the liberation of peoples from feudal,
racist and imperialist rule. Success of
the plan would guarantee U.S. imperial-
ism access to oil and other resources, or
the military clout to acquire them by
acquiring governments.

That is the essence of the so-called
“peace” treaty worked out by Carter,
Begin and Sadat. The price tag for U.S.
tax payers is reported at $5-billion, and
that may be the tipofthe iceberg.

For-starters the exparisionist Zionist
state will receive — in the interests of
peace — two'new airfields in the Negev
desert built by the U.S. Army, delivery
of 75 F-16 fighter planes, tanks, artillery
pieces, television-guided air-to-ground
missiles, and heat-seeking air-to-air mis-
siles.

Put that together with Israeli Prime
Minister Begin’s pronouncement that
Israel has no intention of giving up
large tracts of Arab land taken by
genocidal aggression. He declares that
Israel will never allow a Palestinian state
on the West Bank — land taken by
Israeli military force from Jordan. Oc-
cupied Jerusalem, he says is from now
on Israeli, despite world-wide outrage.

As well as the sophisticated weaponry

operated by its Israeli proxy, the U.S.
has promised Sadat planes in addition
to F-5s already agreed upon, plus possi-
bly some U.S.-built destroyers. The U.S.
is reported to have “bought” the port of
Haifa for its own use. With Egyptians
replacing Iranians as a Mideast police
force, United States imperialism will
attempt to stop, and roll back, future
and current liberation moves. Imperial-
ist agents are hard at work to wreck
Iran’s difficult progress, and to reverse
events in Afghanistan.

The UN and world opinion have
called, not for an American fortress
straddling the Egypt-Israel border and
occupied portions of other Arab states,
but for genuine peace actions: Israeli

troops out of all occupied territory,

reconvening of the Geneva Middle East
Conference with the recognized
spokesmen of the Palestinian people,
the Palestine Liberation Organization,
participating.

It is not surprising that Carter’s trip
has been compared to Britain’s Cham-
berlain’s visit to Hitler in 1939 — when
Czechoslovakia was thrown to the nazis.
Much of the danger of the 1939 sell-out,
is felt again by the people of the world
who see the need to respond to it.

Basis for Native rights

The ruling powers in Canada over the
decades have tried consistently to evade
their responsibility to the Native peoples
of this country. Federal and provincial
governments alike took the stand that
the Indian, Inuit and Metis peoples
could be relegated to reserves, northern
ghettos or, occasionally assimilated.

Now, every such reserve and north-
land must be ransacked for profit-
making resources, particularly energy
resources. And: so “negotiations” with
Native groups have been adopted, and

from the point of view of the corpor-

ations involved, and the governments
which do their bidding, such negoti-
ations should go on simultaneously with
the digging up and pumping out of the
wealth of the land.

Native peoples are saying: No. They
are better organized, better informed,
and better prepared than ever before to
demand a say in what happens to the

lands on which they live and have lived
historically.

The recent demands of the Dene
people of the Mackenzie Valley in the
Northwest Territories, presented to the
federal government, March 15, show
the urgency of the matter. The ten-
dency of governments to drag their feet
on land claims, and to attempt to get off

the hook with a one-time cash payment, .

comes face to face with Native political
demands.

_Asa starting point, governments must
recognize and respect Native autonomy
with regard to regional self-government,
to culture, language, education, and not
least, a voice in determining economic
development and its fruits in the areas
occupied by Native people. They must
be guaranteed full power of decision-

making on all questions pertaining to-

their affairs as Native people.
PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 30, 1979—Page 3