Delegates tackle tasks

of peace, disarmament figes

TORONTO — In its two-day
conference, March 8-9, the Cana-
dian Peace Congress activated
cross-Canada plans for its work,
with an eye to the sharpening
dangers of world conflict. Despite
a tightly packed schedule, the
close to 100 delegates, along
with observers and guests, focus-
sed on, debated and analyzed
both Canadian and international
events as they relate to peace and
détente.

A demand for Canada’s ending
ofthe North American Air Defence
agreement with the USA, and for
a positive stand by the Canadian
Government at the Madrid
follow-up meeting to the Helsinki
Final Act, were among the strong
expressions in the several resolu-
tions agreed to on opening day.

Unlike day two, pine ston ar
shops, plenary sessions
at guests with specialized
knowledge were open to the pub-
lic, the first day studied and en-
dorsed an action program for in-
tensified work, debated resolu-
tions, decided on_ structural
changes in the organization, and
elected a new executive for a

ear term. sc
aang more than 30 years of
activity in Canada for world

and peaceful co-existence
of systems, were representatives
from peace councils in six pro-
vinceS, and spokesmen of 12 af-
filiated organizations. ,

Peace Congress president, Dr.
John Morgan, faced head-on
im: of the contentious issues
raised with the peace organiza-
tion. It would be a “disaster for
the Canadian peace movement,”’
he said, “‘if we ever lost our de-
fining characteristics,’ which in-

ernments’’ and systems, and
ee ndemnation of those which
d on war.
ee Inheritance
Afghanistan was one of those
issues which concerned peace
workers. ““We think you have to

The floating bank rate

The Bank of Canada’s decision to float

give people some background,”

Morgan said. In so ordinary a
source as the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, one can read what
that government inherited. Even
meagre information can enlighten
people, he said, ‘‘about life in that
land where something like half of
the babies died before they had a
chance to live, where 10% of the
population still practices
polygamy,’ and where, unlike
the Muslim movement in some
other places, “‘there are bitterly
reactionary aspects to the Muslim
movement tied in with feudal
land-owning,”’ and other blocks
to social progress. ‘
Morgan, for 35 years a Unita-
rian minister, urged people to
“think a moment about what they
(the new Afghan Government au-
thorities) were trying to do, and
then contemplate the terrific ten-
sions ... and what a remarkable
opening this gives to outsiders
who can play on the tempo:
disaffection of people ...”’ But,
he advised, “‘ask yourself the
question: Do you want Afghanis-
tan to go back to what it was?”’
He predicted that in the long
run Afghanistan will become an-
other centre of stability and

_ peace.

During the conference Mac
Makarchuk, New Democratic
member of the Ontario Legisla-
ture, who visited Afghanistan in
1979, participated in a workshop
on the subject, in which a wide
range of views’ were expressed

‘and discussed.

Morgan’s address led a rapt au-
dience over the highlights of the
struggle for peace from the end of
World War II, and warned of such
present dangers as the NATO-
U.S. drive to deploy Pershing II
and Cruisé nuclear missiles
throughout western Europe.
While not intercontinental, these’
first-strike weapons are to be
placed to serve that purpose,
while being defined as tactical.

hotes.

Action Against NORAD

In approving the action pro-
gram introduced by Peace Con-
gress Executive Secretary Jean
Vautour, delegates acknow-
ledged as immediate priorities,
keeping Canada in the Olympics,
creating a public demand for
a to get out of the U:S.-
ruled NORAD, and pressing the
federal government to oppose the
U.S.-NATO deployment ofanew
family of nuclear missiles in west-
em Europe. The program also
emphasized action around the
Helsinki Final Act, signed by
Prime Minister Trudeau in 1975,
and the government’s failure to
fulfill the ‘‘binding requirement
--+ to publicize it as widely as
Possible.’’ This abetted systema-
tic distortion of the Act’s content.
In the Madrid follow-up meeting
this August, delegates agreed,
Canada should work for “‘concen-
tration of the discussion on in-
creased cooperation in all fields.””
_Other aspects of the program
aimed at building the Canadian
Peace Congress, and developing
the work of the Trade Union
Peace Committee. Among ac-
tivities this year will be the or-
ganizing of a representative
Canadian delegation to attend a
World Parliament of the Peoples
for Peace, to be held in the capital

of Bulgaria, Sept. 23-27.
The vigorous demand of the

‘Conference for Canada’s: with-

drawal from NATO (the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization)
was reflected in a resolution cal-
ling the pact a “‘violation of the
Spirit and letter of the UN Charter
++ a military alliance directed
against another group of states”’
resulting in two armed camps.

NATO rejects the offer of the

Warsaw Pact (which came into
being some five years after
NATO) of simultaneous dis-
solution of the two, the resolution
It condemns NATO’s
escalation of the arms race and its
intention to install almost 600 nu-

Ss

ILF SZCZEZNY_

PHOTO —

John Morgan president of the Canadian Peace Congress stressing a

point at the recent Canadian Peace Congress meeting.

clear first-strike missiles in
Europe, despite the Soviet with-
drawal of 1,000 tanks and 20,000
troops from the German Demo-
cratic Republic.

Likewise the conference urged
the Trudeau government ‘‘to let
NORAD (North American Air
Defence) expire this year’’ as the
beginning of a ‘‘fully independent
Canadian foreign policy,’’ and for
a Canadian role of peacemaker in
the world. The conference agreed
to begin a country-wide campaign
for Canada’s withdrawal before
NORAD comes up for renewal in
May.

Among participants in the con-
ference were three members of
the U.S, Peace Council, Jose La
Luz, Mark Belkin and Katharin
Graham. Stan Dalton, chairman
of the Toronto Association for
Peace, opened proceedings witha
greeting from Toronto Mayor
John Sewell. African National.
Congress spokesman, Yusuf
Saloojee, described current
developments in South Africa,
and in Zimbabwe.

Guests who braved the weather
to attend a Saturday night ban-
quet applauded speaker Mac
Makarchuk who contrasted the
futility of trade boycotts with the

benefits of trade, the outrage of
spending billion on armaments
and withholding money for social
needs.

‘I can tell you, the fellows who
make the combines in Brantford
(the riding he represents) aren't
prepared to accept that (trade
boycotts) either. They know very
well that it’s not only good
economics to continue trading,
but it’s also good in terms of try-
ing to reach an understanding
among the people of the world.
And if we don’t reach that under-
standing there'll be no world and

_ no people.”

Timothy Jenkin who, along

_ with two fellow political prison-

ers, escaped from a maximum
security prison in Pretoria, spoke
of the liberation struggle in South

Africa, and of his speaking mis- .

sion on behalf of James Mange, a
young Black South African who is
under sentence of death in the
apartheid state.

Peace Congress executive
member, and banquet MC, Ellen
Lipsius, reported that, owing to.
the severe snowstorm and the
closing of Toronto airport, the
other _ featured speaker,
economist Victor Perlo, of New
York, was unable to be present.

By ALFRED DEWHURST

By virtue of control of the market, the

its key interest rate bodes no good for

working people. Its purpose, says the
Bank, is to allow the law of supply and

demand to operate in the money market .

as it allegedly does in the food market.
The Bank further alleges that the floating
rate will ‘‘keep interest rates in Canada

as low as the economy will allow’’.

Does this alleged theory of “‘supply
and demand’’ keep prices down at the
super-market? It certainly doesn’t as any
housewife can testify. Is there any
reason to believe that it will keep the
price (interest) of loans, mortgages and
credit down on the money market? No,
there isn’t. It all depends on who controls
the supply and demand.

* * * ; t

It is the big banks that control the
money supply in the capitalist world.
And, in our times this gives the big banks
tremendous leverage over the money’
market and, as a result of this, over the
whole economy. In our times hundreds
‘of thousands of small non-monopoly
firms in industry and the service sector,
small contractors, farmers and so on are
virtually in hock to the banks and credit
institutions. And ‘literally millions of
people across the land are in a similar

situation. :

Marxism-Leninism in Today’s World

It is the big banks that also control the
flow of money available for loans, credit
and mortgages. The price they charge for
money Is quite an effective control over
demand. And, if necessity drives a small
business man, contractor, farmer or or-
dinary citizen to seek credit, mortgage or
loan, then the banks and credit houses
reap additional benefit through higher
rates.

* * *

In recent years monopolization of the

money supply and of the banking and

credit industry has made rapid headway. .

In most capitalist countries this
monopoly control is held by no more
than half a dozen banks and in some
countries less. In Canada three giant
banks control the money supply. Such
monopolization takes place Mainly
through mergers and takeovers. Another
method of establishing control Over
money supply which is widely used in
Canada is the establishment of a

- countrywide network of branches of the

big banks. In most cities the three giants
are to be found on almost every main
intersection.

The system of banking and credit in-

stitutions we have in Canada is typical of
all capitalist countries. This system in-
cludes mutual savings banks, loan .and
saving societies, insurance companies,
trust companies, pension funds ‘and re-
tirement savings plans. The main func-
tion of all such specialized institutions is
to accumulate the savings of the people
r investment by the banks at a muc
igher rate of return. r
* * *

- The banks play the major role in the
drive of monopoly in general and the
state to use the present economic crisis
to rationalize industry and production in
order to step up the rate of exploitation of
the working people. In addition the
crisis, which has seeped into every nook
and cranny of Canada’s economy, has

speeded up the concentration of °

monopoly power into fewer and fewer
hands. Bankruptcies and foreclosures
are common everyday occurrences.
Mergers after mergers take place. All of
which are the ‘‘normal’’consequences of
capitalist crises, as the more powerful
corporations shake off weaker com-

petitors in their never-ending quest for
‘super-profits. ;

big monopolies manipulate prices, fix
them and raise them irrespective of the
state of the market. They can even cur-
tail production in industries while raising
prices as part of their manipulation of
production and the market in search of
super-profit. —

* * *

The banking and credit monopolies
are the kingpins of the capitalist
monopoly system in our country. With
State assistance they manipulate interest
rates almost at will. When interest rates -

‘rise, the money you have in your pocket

is cheapened. What little control the
state had over the cost of money was
diminished when the Bank of Canada
was allowed to float the bank rate. It is a
well-known axiom that all matter that
floats rises with the tide unless it is firmly
anchored down. The same tendency to
rise will prevail in the case of the floating
bank rate. It will rise as the tide of in-
flation rises. = :
The floating bank rate is part and par-
cel of monopoly’s wholesale attack
against the people’s living standards. A
united voice can compel the government
to restore the anchor it threw away. And
restore it on a shorter rope.
~ PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 21, 1980—Page 9