RITAIN is scared: Almost

two years ago she had a
choice of trying for recovery
through her own resources and
normal trade with all Europe, in-
cluding the east, or getting on the
U.S. Marshall plan dole and
sacrificing many of her markets
to U.S. political pressures. She
Chose the Marshall plan, which
promised her recovery on easy
terms. She hoped that, by ac-
quiescing in Washington’s de-
Sire to lead the world, she would
at least be, backed by Washing-
ton in holding’ on to her ‘empire
and leading Europe. That was
in 1947. Today, in 1949, things
have turned out quite different-

ly,

Marshall plan grants, as origi-
mally - projected, were to have
continued till Britain and other
beneficiary countries “got back
On their feet.” In any case, they
were to have gone on until 1952.
The assumption behind all this
was a continued postwar boom
in the U.S, Now the U.S. is head-
ing toward depression.

“If, because. of growing unem-
ployment, President Truman can-
not resist demands for with-
drawing or cutting dollar aid to
Europe,” the London Daily Mail
lamented in its issue of June 20,
“Europe will receive a shatter-
ing blow from which she might
never recover.” *

The Daily Mail, which repre
sents British industry, has other
worries too. The U.S. previously
promised to buy a lot of British
» goods but Congress is now talk-
ing of raising tariffs to protect
hard-hit production at home.

British trade elsewhere was
“also to be encouraged. But U.S.
preoccupation with the “strate-
gic value” of Germany and Jap-
an in the cold war, and in a pos-
sible third world war, has grown
to such an extent that Marshall
Planners now favor German and
Japanese trade at Britain’s ex-
pense. In, fact ECA chief Paul
Hoffman has demanded that Bri-
tain let goods from these coun-
tries into her own home markets
because free competition is sup-

What

British workers
are fearful, and
the reason for,
their fear is not
the Soviet Un-
ion but the Un-
ited States. The
prpmise of} the
Marshall. pilan
has become | a
threat to the
future for which
they fought.

the Marshall plan

oing to Britain

posed to be good for British effi-
ciency, :

The U.S., being the boss, can ”

set up tariffs to protect itself,
Britain, an American pensioner,
is told to compete “freely.”
Fo

British industrialists and
bankers, who have been in busi-
ness for longer than the U. §S.
has been in existence, know not

‘only that there is more than phil-

anthropy to the Marshall plan but
also that there is more-than
“strategy” to Germany’s and Ja-
pan’s revival.

They have heard the constant
calls in Washington for a “great-
er place for private investment”
in German and Japanese “re-
covery.” American big business
is licking its chops in the hope
that these investments will be
profitable as well as of military
value.

The ECA has just announced
that it will require countries re-

ceiving U.S. government aid to
allow American private invest-
ors to take out their profits in
dollars instead of local currency,
up to a figure representing

175 percent of the sums they put
in,

The Daily Mail is crying ‘un-
fair” to this too, and with rea-
son. However, its reaction is to
beg that the U.S. impose more
conditions on Britain, not less,
but on British workers, not Brit-
ish profiteers. To be specific, it
wants Washington to tell the
British labor government, which
has already slavishly cut wages
and social expenditures, to go
further along this line.

“Our manufacturers are han-
dicapped by heavy taxation, so-
cial services and high wages and
short hours of labor,” the paper
writes, “enormous burdens which
are not laid on their foreign com-
petitors.”

Actually, British wages are very
low and hours are not short at
all. Half a million British rail-
waymen are on a_ slowdown

strike at this moment—for high-

er pay and “reduced working
time.

e

The Daily Express, another
British big business newspaper
which has always stressed “King
and Empire,” wants to escape
from. dependence on the U. Ss.
by squeezing the underpaid na-
tive workers of the colonies even

more than they were squeezed
before.

“Already the colonieq have
been supplying a great part of
the earned dollars without which
we cannot live,” it wrote right-
eously on June 21. “With vision
and drive they would give us
more food as well, so that Bri-
tain would not have to endure
humiliation in her bargaining
with foreigners.”

But U.S, big business is. not
leaving the British alone in
their colonies either. It has a
good nose for cheap labor too.
“Africa and the Middle East are
the presnt-day magnets for Am-
erican capital seeking investment
Outside the U.S.,” the New, York
Times wrote on May 15. These
areas ‘used to be Britain’s pri-
vate preserve.

By ISRAEL EPSTEIN

Even when she wants to buy
the food she eats, instead ©
grabbing it from her colonials 9 °
taking it as a handout on humil-
iating conditions, Britain comes
across U.S. competition. s

When she made an agreement
with Argentina to get meat from
that country ‘in exchange
British machinery “which cont
petes with U.S. exports to Latin
America,” the big boys in Wash
ington jumped down her throat.
On June 17, according to the
New York Times, “terminatio?
of further Marshall plan aid 1
the United Kingdom, if nece™
sary, to prevent a pending trad?
agreement between that country
and. Argentina, was suggested 0”
Paul Hoffman, Economic C0°P
eration Administrator.”

Economic cooperatibn, pe
call it, but it looks like the l¢
cut-throat competition to us
the earmarks are present; P’ nee
cutting. wage-cutting, destroy
ing a competitor’s independe?®
livelihood, and offering him *
manager’s job in the victor ©
poration’s chain of corner drug

stores—if he behaves, that is-

By ANTHONY PIESTRA
SINGAPORE

HE guerilla warfare in Ma-

laya, fought by the locél
people to win independence
from colonia! rule, is always re-
ferred to as “bandit trouble” or
“foreign-inspired” in the Brit-
ish press here.

I found, however, that the
cause of the fighting is much
simpler. It is the startling con-
trast ‘between high profits of
British and American .investors
who own Malaya’s rubber, and
the extreme poverty of the
Chinese, Indian and Malay
working people who produce
these goods.

_The colonial authorities pride
themselves: on some _ beautiful
buildings, parks and boulevards
in Singapore. Even the cold-
blaoded Britishers, however.
are shocked by the slums that
disgrace this fair city. “We
must do something about our
-horrible slums,” the newspa-
pers often cry. But the govern-

ine Malaya grew out of

ment is ‘too busy sending
planes, tanks, flame-throwers
and man-killing dogs into the
jungles to hunt down péople
who have rebelled against these
conditions.

Wages in the ports are low
and the hiring system makes
things worse. Port “coolies”
are taken on through contract-
ors who collect their wages, give
them rude food and housing,
and deduct the supposed cost
of both from their pay. ,

Before the war, unskilled
dock workers had about ten
cents of their wages left at
the end of the day. Now they
clear about 14 cents but can
buy less with it. To make
things worse, the coojies are
employed, on the average, only
three weeks a month. Work
is heavy, such as lifting 105-
Ib. tin ingots all day by hand.
This probably explains why

most of the coolies are young.
No one can last long on such a
job, with the kind of food they
have to eat. :

Skilled lgngshoremen fare
better because of gains they
won through the Pan-Malayan
Federation of Labor, several
of whose leaders have been ex-
ecuted since the outlawing of
the organization. Their top pay
is $2 a day with meals on the

job. But these men work only

ten to 15 days a month.

Deckhands on Shell Oil tank-
ers get $1 a day, skilled raij-
waymen from $2 to $3 a day

and plantation workers about |

$1.45 a day.

A 40 to 60 percent postwar
rise in money wages is made
meaningless by the 300 to 400
percent overall rise in prices
with . foodstuffs leading the
rise. Many have the idea that
everything in southeast Asia
can be bought dirt cheap, but
this is no longer true. : :

Rice, which edst three cents
‘a day before the war, is now
80° cents. Wheat flour has gone

people’s misery

up eight times. Most manufac-
tured goods are imported from
the: U.S., Britain or Australia.
They are away out of the work-
ingman’s reach.
es

In Penang, I met'a Chinese
vicksha puller named Yen. He
Spoke some English, having
been a boatman and mechanic
before such jobs gave out.
Ricksha work is tough but he is
luckier than the 10,000 totally
unemployed in Singapore and
proportionate numbers in other
cities,

Yen told me he pulled or
hunted fares from 5 a.m. to past

erage 3% hours each night. He
was haggard and thin, so I
asked him: “Why kill your-
self?” He answered by count-
Ing on his fingers: “One father,
one mother, one wife, one boy,
one girl—five mouths.”

For his incredible day, Yen
averages four Malayan dollars,
about $1.50 U.S. currency, in
real value. He has to pay his
ricksha tax and government li-
cense fee out of this too.

a few times, I asked if he P@ —
lieved “Russian agents” bee
behind the “trouble” in ed
countryside. “Why?” he big

surprised, Then he explained?

what he thought was respon” —
sible. “No chow, must do some
thing.”

of the people. It became a W4
for national independence
cause the people believe
_ will have fewer burdens if they
can stop British profite
on their produce and labor. ce
tish rule is what keeps the PP '
midnight daily, sleeping an ay- ‘fiteer8 in the saddle.

red up the Malayans. wee
true that the victories of Bes
Peoples’ Liberation . acm
China quickened their ho a
But I neither saw 1
‘any real facts 2 a
clear impression: The
Malaya are waging caer:
battle, for themselves. n all
simple and logical. Whine
things are considered, ? be hdd
else can keep men f

After I had spoken to pea

they

ring
Bre

No “foreign agents” is

or hea

gople vat

ighting. |

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JULY 15, 1949 —

pace *

TOD