LABOR SCENE
: by
7 BRUCE MAGNUSON

ast month U,S, Secretary of

State Dean Rusk, Vice-Pres-
ident Hubert Humphrey, Labor
Secretary Willard Wirtz, anda
long list of Pentagon advisors
descended upon the AFL-CIO
convention in San Francisco,
President Johnson, himself,
spoke to delegates by telephone,
The blitz was aimed at winning
trade union support for the un-
just, barbarous, racist and geno-
cidal war of imperialist aggres-
sion against the people of Viet-
nam,

Artful demagogery, hypocrisy,
deceit and more or less subtle
intrigues in backroom “*off-the-
cuff” negotiations resulted in a
compromise resolution giving
AFL-CIO support,

But not without a bitter debate
that revealed important differ-
ences between AFL-CIO Presi-
dent George Meany and United
Auto Workers leaders Emil
Mazey and Walter Reuther con-
cerning the danger of escalating
the Vietnam war into a World
War Il,

Johnson revealed a_ serious
crisis of public confidence when
he said that “Every day some-
one asks: why we are in Viet-
nam?”

Of course the people remem-
ber the lies about the U-2 spy
plane, the Bay of Pigs invasion,
the spurning of peace overtures
in Vietnam, the attempt to hide
the extent of involvementand cost
of the undeclared war, and soon,

The American people are be-
coming increasingly aware that
all this contradicts the prom-
ise of a Great Society, and make
nonsense out of the much ad-
vertised “war on poverty,”

Even George Meany, while
stating, “we must stand firm,
accept the burdens and bear sac-
rifices;” nevertheless devoted
most of his keynote address to a
call for a much higher level of
social welfare, Any working
man or woman will demand of
their leaders that they protect
labor’s self-interest and human
welfare first,

U.S, spending is now up to $7
billion above estimates at a total
of some $107 billion. The 60
or so wealthy families at the
top control the entire economy
and collect the $12 billion in-
terest paid on the nation’s debt,
They receive the juicyarms con-

tracts and take in the astron-
omical profits,

As for the working people,
they pay for this useless and
criminal war through higher
prices and taxes, And itis the
youth of working men and women
who give their lives, thousands
of miles from home, to make the
world safe for exploitation and
super-profits for U.S, big busi-
ness,

What hypocrisy toask labor for
wage restraint, while prices and
profits sky-rocket and some 30
million Americans exist on sub-
standard income! Evenheartand
cancer research appropriations
for regional programs have been
cut back from $100 million to
$50 million, and then to $25
million, while the Southeast Asia
war now costs over $12 billion

‘with no end to escalating costs
in sight,

Trade union organization
among non-agricultural workers
has declined from 33 percent in
1955, to 29 percent in 1965, con-
vention figures showed, while 77
percent of the entire work force
remains unorganized and ex-
ploited in a chaotic and unplanned
capitalist jungle of exploitation,

Only an end to anti-com-

munism, support for unity and
mergers of unions on a demo-
cratic basis, and stimulation of
independent labor political ac-
tion, will create the conditions
for a great new advance for the
' AFL-CIO, Without this, U.S,
labor will be placed in an in-
creasingly defensive and danger-
ous position,

Only a left turn from capitalist
to working-class objectives, in-
cluding a new attitude to social-
ist reorganization of society, will
serve to advance the interests of
the U.S. working class and its
trade union movement,

As a parting gesture before
his retirement, Meany may well
reconsider his impertinent de-
mands upon the Canadian Labor
Congress and leave Canadian af-
fairs to be settled in Canada.
It is to the credit of the CLC
leadership that, as far as we
know at this stage, it did not
knuckle under to the arrogance
and paternalism displayed by the
Meany-Lovestone clique in the
AFL-CIO hierarchy,

Despite many weaknesses,
Canadian labor leadership oper-
ates at a superior level to that
of labor leadership in the United
States, Let’s keep it that way.

BURNABY BURNS COMMITTEE
Invites You To Attend

ANNUAL BURNS NIGHT

CONCERT—Starts at 8 p.m. Sharp
LATE SUPPER—REFRESHMENTS
CANADIAN LEGION AUDITORIUM
6th Ave. & Commercial Dr.
Saturday—January 22nd

Adm. $2.00—Phone Now For Reservations
HE 1-6801 or CY 8-4980

How Rhodesia was acquire

Classical
example

of
on
empire
ildi
building
S
obengula, chief of the Mata-
beles, was well-educated ac-
cording to the African tribal
standards of the 1880s, but un-

luckily he was not a Rhodes
Scholar.

He was not, to be precise, a
student of the methods by which,
at that time, British imperialist
magnate Cecil Rhodes was grab-
bing large tracts of African
territory which didn’t belong to
him,

So Lobengula felt no cause of
alarm, but rather pleasure when,
in February, 1888, a British
missionary, Rev. J.S. Moffat.
came to see him,

As author Leonard Barnes
wrote in his book Empire or
Democracy, the Matabele already
knew Moffat, who had worked
among them, and trusted him,

He had no fears, therefore,
when Moffat asked him to sign a
letter agreeing not to cede any
of his territory without the con-
sent of the British Government,

*As Lobengula had no intention
of ceding any territory to any-
body, surely there could be no
danger in saying so,” writes
Barnes,

However, to Moffat and Rhodes,
the declaration meant a British
option on Lobengula’s dominions,
and opened the way for yet an-
other treaty, which was brought
to Bulawayo the following Octo-
ber by two more agents of Rhodes,
named Rudd and Thompson,

This too, Lobengula signed —
with hesitation, This was over~
come by the agents, who pointed
out that in return for what he
was giving them, they were giving
him 1000 rifles withammunition,
something they would not do if
they wished him ill,

Once again there was a dis-
agreement about what he had
signed, Afterward Lobengula
wrote to queen Victoria that
“soine time ago a party of men
came to my country, the principal
one appearing to be a man called
Rudd, They asked me foraplace
to dig gold . . . A document
was written and presented to me
for signature, I asked what it
contained and was told that in it
were my words and the words of
those men, I put my hand to it,

“About three months after-
wards I heard from other sources
that I had given by that docu-
ment the right to allthe minerals
in my country.” The “place to
dig gold” had turned out to be the
whole of present-day Rhodesia!”

Duke of Abercorn;

by a white man’s swindle

This is an example of the blessings brought to the African people by the “civiliz~
ed” white man. The young lad in the picture happens to live in South Africa, but
he could just as easily come from Rhodesia. There, the white settlers, who num-
ber 230,000 and form 4.5 percent of the population, own 49 percent of the land

—including the main towns and all the best agricultural land.

Lobengula had no right, under
tribal law, as he knew, to make
any such concession, He at once
repudiated the treaty and took
punitive action, in accordance
with tribal tradition, against the
Prime Minister whose mistaken
advice he held responsible for
what he had done,

Rhodes’ agent Thompson, who
was still in Bulawayo, listened
all night to tribal justice being
done and fled at first light,

However, the Rudd concession
had been signed and on the basis
of it Rhodes obtained from the
British Government a Royal
Charter for his British South
Africa Company (President, the
vice-presi-
dent, the Duke of Fife),

In brief the charter gave
Rhodes’ company the right to
make all treaties and laws over

a wide area, with limits to the —

—Hsinhua News Phot

west and east, but none to the
north,

Rhodes’ dream of an all
British Cape-to-Cairo route was
now on the agenda. The Mata-
bele had not known what an im
portant place in it their home-
land held, ;

Learning fast, Lobengula tried
to stave off Rhodes by granting
concessions to a rival, Lippert,
being persuaded thereto by the —
Rev, Mr. Moffat. é

He did not know what Moffat |
knew, that Lippert was another —
secret agent of Rhodes, When —
Moffat told him later, Loben-
gula said: “All white man are
liars.’? 3

Soon he found they could do
worse than lie, Rhodes’ settlers,
the forerunners of Ian Smith —
those who have “done so much to
build up the country” — swarmed
into Matabeleland like locusts,

The Matabeles bravely used
their 1000 rifles, But the Com-
pany had machine-guns, :

By November 1893, the Union |

_ Jack was flying over the smoking

ruins of Bulawayo,.

By Christmas the white Rho-

.desians, were able to celebrate,
along with the birth of the Prince

of Peace, the death of King Lo-
bengula with thousands of his
people and the soaring of Chart-
ered one pound shares to a price
of nine pounds-10, 4

The massacre was easily fin-
anced out of the new capital,

—Australian Tribune

January 14, 1966—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 2