OIL Ld

MORGAN TELLS FORESTRY PROBE:

End B.C. fores

Charging that there has been a
startling growth of monopoly
control in B.C.’s forest industry
under present tenures, Nigel
Morgan, B.C. leader of the Com-
munist Party has called for
phasing out of Tree Farm Licences
and their replacement by a Crown
corporation to manage B.C.’s
forests in the public’s interests.

This was one of the central
proposals put forward in a brief
submitted to the Pearse Royal
Commission on Forestry being
held in Vancouver this week by the
Communist Party.

In a_ strongly-worded in-

_ treduction, the Communist Party
told the Pearse Royal Commission
that “the public interests have
been trampled underfoot in B.C.
with a small number of powerful
corporations, including some
multi-nationals, having gained
control over vast areas of the
public domain . . . . Six forest
giants dominate and control more
than 90 per cent of B.C.’s forest
lands.’’ Presenting the brief,
Morgan said new measures are
needed to protect and advance the
interests of the people.

Directing its main fire at the
Tree Farm Licences, the brief
charges that under this form of
tenure B.C. Crown forest lands
have been alienated to private
corporations “‘for what we con-
sider to be extremely nominal
sums,”’ said Morgan. He urged that
Tree Farm Licences coming up for
renewal in the next three or four
years be not renewed, and that
other licences be phased out as
quickly as possible with Crown

_ forest lands returned to public

control to be managed by a Crown
corporation which would control
Crown forests and sell mature logs
to the highest bidder.

“We believe B.C. needs a new
forest policy that would place the
public interests in the forefront
where it properly belongs.’’
Outlining the Communist Party’s
basic approach to the forest in-
dustry, the party’s brief says:

“B.C.’s forest economy should be
so managed as to guarantee the
protection and perpetuation of our
forests, and provide increasingly
higher standards of living as a
result of the proper harvesting and
utilization of forest crops. The
Communist Party submits that
forestry policies have been evolved
by preceding provincial govern-
ments which _ increasingly
alienated public forest fo private
monopolies permitting U.S.
monopolies to gain control over
rich forest areas at an alarming
rate; discouraging the full
development and processing of the
forest crop, and depriving the
people of B.C. from enjoying the
full benefits of this great resour-
Ce

Morgan said the Tree Farm
Licence scheme has become the
principle means by which private
monopolies have gained control of
B.C. forest lands. He added that if
the scheme is continued, ‘‘it will
not be long before the term ‘public
forests’ will have no meaning in
B.C. except as it would apply to
parks, mountain peaks and
economically unworkable forests.”’

“The Communist Party,” said
Morgan, “‘is fully in favor of forest
management aimed at ensuring a
perpetual yield. But we are op-
posed to any Tree Farm Licences
which hand over effective control
of these forests to private com-
panies for private profit. We have
been opposed to this scheme from
its inception, and we reiterate our
stand again.

“The people of B.C. are far from
convinced that the only way their
valuable asset in public forests can
be properly managed and _ per-
petuated is by handing them over
to private monopolies. The
Communist Party is strongly of the
opinion that the policy expressed
by the present Tree Farm Licences
is contrary to the public interest
and a betrayal of the people’s trust.

“Tt is our opinion that Tree Farm
Licences should be phased out as

soon as possible, until ended

monopoly control

A few giant corporations, headed by MacMillan Bloedel, control
through Tree Farm Licences the best public forest lands in B.C. The
Communist Party has urged repeal of the licences and restoration of
-Crown forest lands to public control. :

completely, and in its place a
government operated _ forest
management plan be put into ef-
fect which would ensure proper
protection and perpetuation of
B.C.’s forests.”

Directing sharp fire at USS.
control of B.C.’s basic industry, the
brief says: ‘‘The rapid expansion
of U.S. control in B.C.’s forest
industry, and the seizure by U.S.
monopolies of huge areas of our
richest forest lands, is a matter of
vital importance to the industrial
growth of B.C. and the welfare of
all citizens. It means that more and
more of the development of B.C.’s
forest resources will be at the
mercy of U.S. interests. It means
that B.C.’s forest resources will be
developed increasingly in such a
manner as serves the interests of
U.S. monopolies.”

Ald. Rankin’s column
on page I!

Morgan pointed out that U.S.
control increasingly robs B.C. of
the opportunity to — build
manufacturing and processing
industries of its own. “It means
loss of thousands of future jobs for
B.C. workers and will deprive us of
the possibility of creating more
stable forest communities with
permanent employment and larger
payrolls. It means reducing B.C.
workers to the status of hewers of
wood for U.S. corporations.

“There is strong objection to
U.S. companies merely moving
into B.C. to eat up our raw
materials for U.S. factories. We
want public policy for. public
resources that will provide as
much manufacturing and as many
jobs for B.C. as possible. Policies
that leave us perpetually in hock to
foreign absentee landlords is
blinding stupidity for a young and
growing country like ours. Our
view is that there should be policies
which encourage maximum

processing and manufacturing of
B.C. wood and timber resources.’

The Communist Party leader
produced recent figures to show
that despite the fact that the first
Sloan Commission report 20 years —
ago urged greater manufacturing —
of wood products, that B.C. still —
remained essentially a producer of
raw and semi-processed wood
products with lumber accounting
for 52 per cent of production, and
pulp and newsprint 40 per cent.

Calling for stepped up efforts. to
expand world and domestic
markets for B.C. wood products,
Morgan said there are vast ©
markets opening up, especially on
the Pacific Rim, and that the
launching of a housing program to
build 400,000 housing units would
greatly expand -.the domestic.
market. He added that the Prairie
and Eastern Canadian market
could also be expanded provided
obstacles were removed such as
the high freight rates.

Pointing out that the forest in-
dustry should be a principal source
of revenue, Morgan quoted from
background papers prepared by
the Royal Commission on Forestry —
which show that the total yield to
the province was $206 million
which represents about eight per
cent of gross revenues for 1974.
“Fiscal policies should be revised
in B.C. in order to ensure that the _
owners of B.C.’s forests, its people,
receive a much larger share from
exploitation of the forests than is
the case today,’’ said Morgan.

The Communist Party brief
outlines a series of recom-
mendations which call for a
thorough overhaul of forest
legislation to return Crown lands to
public ownership. It also urges that
along with restoring public control
of forest lands that the provincial
government undertake to expand
the public-owned sector of the
forest industry, (Ocean Falls,
Cancel, etc) to give the people
greater control of the forest in-
dustry and to expand manufac-
turing

he recent United Nations resolution denouncing

Zionism as racist, which passed the Assembly by a
substantial majority, has unloosed a worldwide con-
troversy, pro and con.

Among the UN delegates voting against this resolution
were the United States, Canada and Israel, and as might
be expected, the governments of these respective coun-
tries together with their hangers-on and their kept press,
are highly “‘indignant’’ as they cast around for fitting

_ reprisals to vent upon the UN world peace body.

The prime cause of this “indignant” uproar by world
Zionism and its imperial backers, is not a UN resolution
stating the facts of life, but a world peace body in its
majority publicizing these ugly facts. That’s what hurts!

Nurtured in the diseased embrace of reactionary im-
perialism for a century or more, from the infamous
“Bund” in the service of absolute Tzarism to the equally
infamous ‘‘Balfour Declaration’’ and onward, the racism
of imperialism could not but rub-off upon its Zionist allies,
and become part of its arsenal, not only against the Arab
world, against the people it has despoiled and robbed of
their homes, lands and rights, but even against Jews who
came to Israel’s ‘“‘Kibbutsarnias,”’ with a great hope —
but a dark skin, thereby meriting a second or third class
citizenship by Zionist statesmen. How well these
_ Statesmen have learned from their imperialist mentors!

The U.S. money changers, to whom inflationary ripoffs
have become a way-of-life, with President Ford as their
front man and a military-industrial complex as the cheer
leaders are already toying with the idea of cutting off all
dollar aid to the countries voting in favor of the U.N.
-resolution — even to the point of cutting all dollar aid to
the UN itself; especially now since the U.S. can no longer

-, dominate the UN as in years past.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—NOVEMBER 28, 1975—Page 2

On the other hand the U.S. has already declared it’s
readiness to make dollar aid available to Israel, (read
Zionism) in unspecified billions, primarily in destructive
war hardware. Thus it says to the UN ‘‘you may not brand
our Zionist ally as racist” and hope to get away with it.

Down in Ottawa, of course, our own Pierre Elliot
Trudeau, keeping well to heel like a well-trained mongrel,
has also expressed Canada’s indignation anent the UN
resolution. This will hold until further orders arrive from
Washington. Meantime, by this outflanking maneouvre,
with loud Tory approval, the Zionist vote is preserved
intact. And that for a bi-partisan conglomeration that is
racist to the core despite their pretentions to the contrary,
is not to be sneezed at.

Zionism does not represent nor speak for the Jewish
people of Israel, in Canada, the USA or elsewhere. Nor do
the scribblers of a brainwashed press (see AP blurb in
Nov. 18/75 Vancouver Sun) who seek to endow it with

‘divine origin make it so. Yet no amount of official or

divine whitewash will make it other than it is — a mere
cult in the spectrum of human relations which has evolved
from decades of imperialist association, inheriting all the
evils of its mentors, ready to do their bidding for whatever
aid is forthcoming. Racist, reactionary and aggressive to
the nth degree, to the shame and detriment of the great
Jewish people, it presumes to speak for, as well as to other
millions of human beings.

Its anti-Arab racism at the moment to assure “‘oil for
the lamps of U.S. imperialism,” and sequester land and
homes of another people, is equalled only by its anti-
detente and anti-Sovietism, in which lies, slander and
racist ideologies are a characteristic ingredient. And on
all counts are useful and advantageous to U.S. im-
perialism — if not to world peace for Jew, Moslem and
Gentile alike. :

To the matchless contributions over the ages by the
Jewish people in the fields of science, culture and social
progress for all humanity, the horrendous cult of Zionism
has contributed nothing. But like an evil genius it has
sought to bask in the warmth and benefits of these signal
contributions. As the saying goes, well understood by
imperialist conspirators, ‘‘it never misses a trick.”

_ these few examples among many, are emphatically and

_and racism.

TRIBUNE

“Some of my best friends are Jews” — Negroes, Arabs
or what have you, a common argument of the racist at-
tempting to deny his racism. “I have nothing against
Black people’’ loudly protests a grasping landlord, ‘‘only I
just don’t like to have them around. They lower my
property values.’ ‘“‘No, we cater to Caucasians only,”
titters another, unperturbed at turning away a. Jewish
family from a badly-needed domicile.Simple and easy
beginnings of racism, which, if given time, can blossom °
into a full-fledged rabid and vicious racism. But of course —

indignantly denied.

In the U.S. and Canada on the crest of a burgeoning
imperialism, we stole a whole continent from a Native
people, segregated them in apartheid reservations or
ghettoes and promptly forgot them — mainly because
they were ‘‘savages.” Today we officially admit this
colossal racist crime — by making a token payment on
lands and other rights so sequestered, but because of an
inherent and built-in racism, are deadly slow and evasive -
in making full amends.

Reactionary and racist Zionism, in line with its im-
perialist backers, does precisely the same thing, only that
it terms a Native people “‘terrorists” instead of
“‘savages’’, a handy cover-up for its own aggressionism

- What’s ina name. . when it’s the imperialist game that -
counts?

Editor - MAURICE RUSH

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