IN CANADA

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Working farmers unite

By DON CURRIE

The founding convention of
the National Farmer’s Union,
which will unite existing pro-
vincial farm union organizations
into a single unified voice of the
Canadian farmers, will take
place in Winnipeg, July 30-31.

The founding convention
marks a new development in
politics in the country and a big
step forward for the aim of
labor-farmer unity. The conven-
tion takes place in. spite of tre-
mendoypis opposition of the Fed-

eration of Agriculture and the

active attempts by the Robarts
government in Ontario to scuttle
the whole effort.

The Convention delegates un-
doubtedly will feel encouraged
by two recent major political
developments. The first is. the
victory of the Ontario Farmer’s
Union in defeating the attempt
of the Robart’s government to
scuttle the Ontario Farmer’s
Union and replace it with a gov-

. ernment-controlled general

farm organization. The Ontario
farmer’s rejected this manouvre
and kept open the path to a na-
tional farm union. The second
development is the election of
the NDP government in Mani-
toba. The lesson of both of these
political events, which will not
be lost on the delegates, is that
the old-line parties can be set
back and defeated when the
working people unite and fight.

The mood of militancy among
the farmers which resulted in
the rejection of the Robart’s
scheme and which helped to
elect the Schreyer government
in Manitoba arises out of wor-
sening economic conditions for
the farmers.

Wheat farmers in the west
will be demanding action by the
federal government to sell the
growing stock-piles of grain. A
year ago there were 400 million

IN THE U.S.

bushels of unsold grain on the
Prairies and this year there are
already 650 million bushels and
crops look good.

The move by the Nixon ad-
ministration to under-cut the
International Grain Agreement
prices and sell U.S. wheat be-
low the IGA minimum will be a
further blow at western farm-
ers who are almost entirely de-
pendent on world wheat prices
for their income levels.

This will seriously affect the
already grave shortage of cash
in the pockets of the grain
farmers. Saskatchewan provin-
cial Treasurer D. G. Steuart
predicts that there will be a
$200 million decline in purchas-
ing power of Saskatchewan
wheat farmers in 1969. To illus-
trate the serious position of the
wheat farmers on the Prairies
are reports that wheat acreage
in Manitoba has been cut by 19
percent due to the grain glut.
The switch by some farmers
from grain to cattle and the
higher prices for beef has not
been enough to prevent the de-
cline in farm income. Grain
quotas have been drastically
cut. The result has been a sharp
drop in cash income for Saskat-
chewan farmers. In 1968 it was
$900 million down from $975
million in 1967. This year the
Provincial Treasury Department
predicts a further drop of $100
million.

The situation will worsen if
action isn’t taken quickly to sell
grain and put badly needed cash
into the pockets of the farmers.

The founding convention can
produce a fighting organization
of the farmers that can make
headway around these demands
if agreement can be reached on
the militant policies and pro-

“prams that will rally the entire

farm community in struggle
against the big monopolies and
the parties of monopoly.

Progressives and militants at
the convention will strive to
find the common ground and
minimize the regional differenc-
es. The interests of the small
and middle farmers, who con-
‘stitute 84 percent of the farm-
ers in the country, will have to
be brought to the fore at the
parley if the monopoly attack
on agriculture is to be success-
fully resisted.

Rich farmers get millions in aid

By WILLIAM ALLAN

: DETROIT
Michigan rich farmers and
corporations, pocketed more

than $65 million as part of $3
billion in subsidies nationally,
while President Nixon can’t find
money to feed millions of Ame-
ricans who are hungry.

The Michigan subsidies re-
presents an increase of more
than $811 million from 1967. Ef-
forts to limit the amount paid
to any single farmer to $20,000
were thwarted when the U.S.
Senate voted 53-34 against im-
posing such restrictions in the
$7.6 billion Agriculture Depart-
ment appropriations bill. The
House earlier passed the bill but
only after taking on the $20,000
limitation. The House vote was
322-50.

U.S. Senator Phil Hart (D.

Mich.) said here that “for years
the Agriculture Department has
been promising reforms, but like
the promised tax reforms, they
just haven’t been coming a-
cross.”

Senator Hart said of the $7.6
billion Agricultural Department
appropriations bill, just under
$2 billion is for school lunches,
and other aid to the poor.

}$ *
One of the leading proponents

of unlimited farm subsidies is

Senator James O. Eastland who
in 1968 got $116,978 for not
growing crops on his farm in
Sunflower County, Miss. Some
82 other cotton growers in
Eastland’s Sunflower County re-

-ceives more than a quarter of a

million dollars a year.

Eastland of course led the
fight against any $20,000 a year
limit on subsidies. Some 16,430
big farmers according to the
UAW Washington report get
more than $25,000 a year in
farm subsidies for a total of
$518 million.

The UAW Washington news-
letter reports that the Nixon Ad-
ministration was told that $2.9
billion is the price tag for a
program to close “the hunger
gap” in the U.S. This sum is
double what the White House
intends to spend, charges the
UAW.

Meanwhile in Michigan close
to 200,000 are in the category of
receiving some form of aid, city,
county,. state. The average fa-
mily of four on Aid to Depen-
dent Children here gets about
$100 a month for food, and it
works out about 83c a day for
food per person.

If someone receiving welfare
aid in Michigan thinks that they
are suffering from malnutrition

they can be examined by a doc-
tor and if he finds they are, and
signs a statement to that effect,
then they can get an additional
$7 a month. This is special only
for malnutrition cases. Many
cannot find out because they do
not have the fee to pay for a
physical exam.

The Department of Labor can
issue bulletins each month de-
scribing how the cost of living
is rising (6.5 percent higher for
food in Michigan in the last
year) but welfare aid food bud-
gets in Michigan are still based
on cost of living figures from
1961.

Michigan rich farmers and
farm corporations who got $54
million in subsidies from the
Agvicultural Department in 1967
-for not growing crops, sought
and got more money in 1968,
they got $65 million, the sum of
$11 million extra. :

When ADC mothers a week
ago came to ask for their food
budget to be raised from 83 to
89c per person per day and for
them to get declared suffering
from malnutrition so they could
get an extra $7. a month, they
had to pass through Detroit
police lines to get to talk to
welfare officials. They were
turned down,

U.S.S.R-CHINA BORDER
SU protests act

The Soviet Union has charged
that the July 8 border clash on
an island in the Amur river was
deliberately staged by the Chin-
ese ‘“‘with the full knowledge of
the Mao clique.”

The Foreign Ministry of the
Soviet Union has lodged an em-
phatic protest with the Chinese
authorities over the armed pro-
vocations on Goldinsky Island
in the Amur River and has de-
manded that the Chinese punish
those guilty and take immediate
measures to prevent a repetition
of such actions.

One Soviet citizen was killed
and three others wounded when
they were fired on with sub-
machine guns while repairing
navigation marks in the river.

A joint navigation agreement
reached in 1951 between the So-
viet Union and the People’s Re-

~ CSSR firm part

of socialist world —

“The fact itself that the great
majority of communist and
workers’ parties met for a joint
conference and reached agree-
ment on the principal docu-
ments marks an important stage
in the further work of the com-
munist and workers’ movement
throughout the world,” Dr. Gus-
tav Husak said in an interview.

The first secretary of the
Communist Party of Czecho-
slovakia, who headed the
Czechoslovak delegation to the
Moscow conference, pointed out
that the conference had a high
standard and the exchange of
experience which it facilitated
among representatives of . the
communist movement from five
countries, was instructive and
valuable for all parties. =.

Dr. Husak appreciated the fact
that the conference provided a
great opportunity for individual
meetings among the delegates
and this promoted understand-
ing the problems and stand-
points of each.

“The conference once more
raised high the ideals of proleta-
rian internationalism, mutual
solidarity and assistance, while
the main document was an im-
portant guideline for the com-
munist movement in the world
of today, for its problems and
perspectives,” he declared.

The First Secretary evaluated
positively the procedure of the
Czechoslovak delegation at the
conference. “It can be said that
we also contributed the success
of the conference,” he said.

Referring to forecasts in the

public of China sets forth y
responsibilities and rights z,
both parties to use of the Wie
for navigation and the establiet
ment and repairs of the ne
tion marks have always be 5
maintained by the Soviet a

The Soviet. Union charges ! ey
the attack, which took east
July 8, was staged to disTuPE |
work of the mixed Soviet-Ch"
ese Commission on Navigalt oi
which is presently workin
Khabarovsky to reach C00 salt.
ated decisions to ensure ‘0
sailing of the ships of the chet
states on the Amur and
frontier rivers. te

The Soviet Union says # es
compelled to. take additie
measures to protect its ps
mate rights against the acl
of the Chinese authorities.

Czechoslovak problem, Df y
sak declared: “The condue
the Czechoslovak  deleg?”,
which strove to achieve hi
cl
0
c

cit!

i
th
t |
ia
th
positive results, thwarted i,
hopes of the bourgeois tit [*
We did not go to Moscow 1 ht
up conflicts, but to seek @ ag |
mon road for the internat, \ts
communist movement.” D¥, og Il
sak observed that the POS” of pt
of the Communist Party ,
Czechoslovakia in the int eft
tional communist mOV’ sag
and in the socialist camp
consolidated and relations the
tween Czechoslovakia 2M" ja
other socialist countries
also strengthened. ie of
Asked about the influent re |T

- the Moscow conference © iid Ie

further work of the Comm the
Party of Czechoslovak! ge lh
First Secretary replie¢: au th
whole of our Party and Y
organizations will discuss fer’ |80
results of the Moscow nis |f
ence and its documents jd i
will help raise its politic? ys
and the international co”
ness of the members ©% a |
Party and of the society: ©; tof of
a firm part of the great at! Ido
national movement and We "guf lip
to remain so. There 1i@&
strength.” tel’ {St
Dre Husak concluded his nt t
view with the observation . if \wy
over the last six mOM” iat ja,
Czechoslovakia a nation@ ior! ti
has suppressed intern oy
ways of thinking and thus + & joy
ened the Marxist-Leninls, oy |)
proach to international a ae
ternal problems. This 8" oqi

Western press that a conflict study of the Moscow doen :
would arise at the Moscow con- a special importance for
ference over the so-called slovakia. ae a
WHERE THE BIG FARM SUBSIDIES WENT IN 1968 :
Figures refer to recipients of more than $25,000 under farm programs in 1968
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Source: Congressional Record