FOR CANADA, PEACE AND DEMOCRACY!

‘the working -people, the leadership of the
Communists. The people and their govern-
ments in the land of Socialism and the New
Democracies reject the propaganda that a
third world war is inevitable.’ They are
building for peace. They stand in the fore-
front of the world-democratic camp, on guard
for democracy and peace. The U.S.S.R. and
the New Democracies “are free from those
acute contradictions and mutual rivalries
which characterize the imperialist camp.
Within the camp of the imperialist powers
those rivalries are being aggravated by the
drive to war. The forces desirous of peace
and democratic progress are immeasurably
stronger than is the camp of the imperialists
striving for war.

VI. COMING ECONOMIC
CRISIS :

— the end of the war Ottawa and big
business have connived with, and sur-
rendered to Wall St. on all major ‘political
and economic questions. By increasing Cana-
da’s subordination to U.S. dollar imperialism
the factors making for economic crisis have
been accelerated. This betrayal of the na-
tional interests ensures that Canada will
suffer the sharpest impact of the coming
economic crash in the United States.

Here are the facts:

*& By July 1948, Canadian industrial pro-
duction had declined 24.5 points from the
(1944 output peak of 198.8. From April to

' July 1948, the production index dropped by.

10 points, an indicator of the serious effects
of the Abbott-Howe austerity .plans imposed
in November 1947 as part of a long range
plan to make Canada an' economic and

_ political dependency of the U.S.

%& Over four million acres of wheat have
been taken out of production since 1940,

%*& Retail sales are falling off and commo-
dities are piling up in manufacturers’ ware-
houses. Inflation has reduced the value of
the worker’s dollar to about 50 cents as
compared to the pre-war dollar, as corporate

- profits steadily rise.
—t% The official cost-of-living index only
partially reveals the truth: that the dinner
tables of Canada’s families have been ruth-

_lessly robbed by the profiteering trusts since
the Liberals and Tories combined. in 1946
to scuttle price and profit controls. In five
years of war the index went up 18.9 points,
In three years of peace it has risen more than
40 points. The food index is now up to 203.9.
Consumer prices are at the highest level in
Canadian history—approximating prices in
the U.S. while wages remain considerably
lower. : :

%* In 1947 investment income received by
the capitalists was $2,300 million, compared
to $1,700 million in 1944 at the peak of
wartime production, an increase of $600
million, At the wartime peak the operating

: of 411 Canadian corporations was
million; in 1947 these same companies
got $787 million, an increase of $200 mil-
lion, or over 33 percent. ,

"THESE factors making for economic ‘crisis _

have been sharply accelerated in the past
year since the adoption of the Abbott-Howe
austerity plans, by which the Dominion gov-
ernment is seeking to protect the predatory
interests of finance-capital and its monopolies

at the expense of the great mass of Canada’s »

people. In November 1947 the Labor-Pro-
ive Party warned that the Abbott plan
with its restrictions on consumption and
ion, higher taxes and the $300. million
a = from Wall aie would weaken Canis
; id strengthen U.S. monopoly control an
influence over Canada’s SR We warned
Canadians that the Abbott plan was part of
‘the arrangement by which the Dominion
government saerificed a large sector of Cana-
da’s export markets, reduced Canadian ex-
ports to the United Kingdom, and is subor-
dinating our national economic development
to U.S. interests.
That condemnation has been justified by
events. A definite policy has been adopted
to shift the emphasis of Canadian production
» more and more towards supplying raw mater-
als for export to the U.S. Canadian exports
are being directed where Wall Street wants
them to go, in line with the war objectives
of the Truman-Marshall plan, bringing dis-
ruption to Canada’s ‘traditional export trade,
and laying the basis for a sharper and deeper
crisis m the status of the Canadian dollar
and the balance of payments to the U.S.

re

of U.S. pressures to depress Canadian wage

past year has also seen harsh evidence

levels and to weaken Canada’s trade
union movement. This is the meaning of
the barring of union organizers and dele-
gates from entry into the U.S. and the
cooperation with U.S. monopolists and of
right-wing AFL and CIO officials to break
up unions such as the metal miners, lumber-
workers and seamen’s unions, to imprison
and deport union militants, and to introduce
into Canada the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act.

¢

The peak of the post-war boom is past.
The cycle of expansion of new construction
and productive capacity, which were the
main factors of that boom, is ending. The
men of Wall Street have embarked on a
reckless course based upon the illusion that
they can* avert economic crisis by preparing
for war. That is what Hitler thought: with
terrible results for the world.

U.S. armament expenditures in 1948 alone
amount to $14 billion. Marshall Plan expen-
ditures will exceed $5 billion in its first year.
The stock-piling of strategic war materials
‘mean further great expenditures. Tax reduc-
tions and refunds of excess war profits have
given additional billions to the U.S. mono-
polists, while inflationary prices have brought
havoc to the people’s living standards. All of
this creates acute economic contradictions
which affect Canada as well as the U.S.

T IS a myth, unfounded by economic

realities, that U.S. finance capital will be
able to revive the capitalist economies of
Europe. The Marshall Plan is not solving
Europe’s economic problems but is aggravat-
ing them. Priority is given to the rebuilding
of war industry in Western Germany which
weakens Britain and France still further. War
is given priority over peaceful reconstruction.

While the capitalist markets of the world
cannot absorb America’s capital goods sur-
plus, the countries of Socialism and New
Democracy, the colonial and dependent lands
would be glad to receive and pay for them—
on terms which did not involve submitting
to U.S. imperialist domination. But the spe-
cific aim of the Truman-Marshall Plan is to
block such peaceful cooperation.

(CAPITALIST boom, soaring profits, fever-

ish expansion of the capital goods indus-
tries, decline of the people’s living standards,
accompanied by inflation and over-expansion
of credit, the drive towards war and fascism
—these are the conditions which foreshadow

*

the coming crash. All of these factors are -

present in U.S. and Canadian life today.
Capitalism breeds economic crisis, Only So-
cialism can finally conquer and eliminate the
contradictions which make capitalist crises
inevitable.

The immediate task for labor and the
people is that of struggle against the policies
and mex who are leading our country to
disaster:

Curbing the monopolies, cooperation for
the peaceful development of world trade
between the capitalist and socialist sectors
of the world, measures to raise the living
standards of the people, the fight for peace:
these are the things necessary to fight against
the menacing crisis.

VII. CANADIAN POLITICAL
PERSPECTIVES

: INCE the end of World War II the

working class of Canada has put up
stubborn battles on the fronts of wage
demands, prices, housing and civil liberties.
There is a growing anxiety among the people
over the danger of war and the consequences
of the pro-Wall St. policies of Ottawa. The
experiences and struggles of these three years
have strengthened the trend away from the
Liberal and Tory old-line parties, and there-
by profoundly aggravated the elements of
crisis which have beset those parties since
the “Hungry Thirties’.
Canada’s political perspective is one of
sharper, deeper class conflict between the

camp of big business reaction and’the forces

of labor and democracy. Reflccting this, there

is under way a regrouping of political forces

throughout the country.

The basic trend in both old-line parties ‘is
towards the merging of their policies in sup-
port of the main war aims of Wall Street
and- Canadian monopoly. This is der-onstrat-
ed by the unanimity of Liberal and Tory
parties in their choice of national leaders.
St. Laurent is the choice of St. James: St.
and clerical reaction; George Drew is the
man of Bay St. and the mining trusts. St.

Laurent is the evil genius of the U.S.-inspired
Western war alliance; Drew is the No. 1
anti-Soviet warmonger.

_ Behind the shadow-boxing of the Liberal
and Tory politicians, which will increase with
the approach of the federal elections, there
is absolute unanimity between the St. Lau-
rent and Drew forces on the fundamentals
of ‘reaction and. war.

The Tories have established an alliance
with the leadership of the Social Credit
movement. In Quebec the. tie-up of the
Progressive Conservatives with the near-fas-
cist Union Nationale of Duplessis is now
being extended to the reactionary right wing
nationalist forces around Houde and_his
Parti Canadien. The Ontario elections of
this year clearly showed that the Progressive
Conservatives had a working agreement be-
hind the scenes, through Duplessis, with the
Catholic hierarchy. :

GETHER with the tendency towards

coalescing of the old-line parties of mon-
opoly, there is a reaching out for new
mediums to deceive the people and hold
them back from struggle and_ progressive
political action,

Both old-line parties are exerting every
possible effort to penetrate the ranks of the
labor movement and wreck it from within.
They buy traitors. They expend enormous
sums to flood the country and the labor
movement in particular with Hitlerite red-
baiting propaganda. Reaction is doing its
utmost to influence and bring within the
orbit of its war policies the democratic
masses of the people, including the support-
ers of the CCF, . 3

It would be a serious mistake for the
working class to under-estimate the effective-
ness of ‘these attempts.

‘Against this minority gang-up of big busi- »

ness and its political henchmen, the majority
of this country belong in the camp of peace,
democracy and Canadian independence. The
supreme need is that the working class
movement realize the urgency and peril of

the hour; that the opportunity be grasped to

bring together this majority in united’ action,
the majority forces of Canada—labor, farm-
ers, youth, housewives, veterans, middle-class,
French and English-speaking—to save Canada
and peace. The Labor-Progressive Party calls
upon all peace-loving Canadians to unite,
defeat the warmongers, prevent a third world
war.

VIII. RIGHT WING SOCIAL
DEMOCRACY AIDS
THE IMPERIALIST Ss

Te main reason the warmakers have not
been defeated and repudiated by labor
and its democratic, allies, is the confusion,
misrepresentation and division fostered by
right-wing social democrats in the labor
movement.

On all fundamental issues right-wing social
democrats—including the leaders of the CCF
>~are in the same camp with the avowedly
imperialist politicians. They support the
Marshall Plan and the Western Union mili-
tary pact for anti-Soviet war. In .Canada
they give active support to the King-St. Lau-
rent policies of involvement of Canada as a
satellite in the Western war alliance and tie
the sections of labor under their control to
these criminal Liberal-Tory ’ policies, They
strive to stiflle with red-baiting every indica-
tion of opposition to these policies, including
honest attempts from within the CEF to
modify the foreign policy line of the tight-
wing leadership. The declaration of M. le
Coldwell that “no nation, no people can
resist successfully our way of life” is as clear

an expression of solidarity with Wall St. as

his brazen appeal to the Soviet people to
“get rid of Stalin”.,

Reactionaries .in the top circles of the
trade union movement in North America, in
cooperation with right-wing social democrats
in Europe, are. splitting trade unions in the
Marshall Plan countries. wherever possible.
They are encouraging strike-breaking, trying
to split the World Federation of Trade Uni-
ons and seeking to establish a “Marshall
Plan . international” of .rump unions. In

Canada right-wing social democrats carry on

a parallel campaign to that of the most
reactionary sections of the capitalist class
against every union which enjoys progressive

leadership. Under pressure of its dominant

right-wing the national convention of the
CCF joined with the Canada Steamship

s

Lines Co. in the vicious campaign of red-
baiting against the Canadian Seamen’s Union.

IX. WAR NOT INEVITABLE

i Bese No. 1 task of the Labor-Progressive
Party today is to unite peace-loving
Canadians in the fight to prevent a world

atomic war.

A third world war is not inevitable. The
interests striving for war can be defeated.
The lie that war with the Soviet Union is
unavoidable, the lie that Canada is in, danger
of invasion, the lie that U.S. and Canadian
imperialists are concerned only to preserve
democracy, the lie that the Marshall Plan
is a humanitarian project to feed Europe
and: help its economic recovery, the lie that
a war against the Soviet Union would be
only “a thirty days war”, the lie that the
Soviet Union is preparing for aggression—
each of those and others of the same type
being fostered by all the tremendous facili-
ties for capitalist propaganda, are examples
of the “tell it to: them often enough” tech-
nique used with such ghastly results against

democracy by Hitler.

HE truth is clear and irrefutable. No
country or group of countries is threat-
ening North America or any democratic
interests of Canada or the United States.
There will not be war, unless we, the
people of North America, permit Wall Street,
Washington and Ottawa to start one. The
only threat to the peace of the world today
is the threat in the aggressive war prepara-
tions and propaganda of United States im-~
perialism and its satellites. The reckless war
preparations that Louis St. Laurent pretends
are for our “defence” are in fact a part of
United States preparations for a war of
conquest across the seas. The U.S. and
British governments created the Berlin crisis
and they are now cynically preventing its
solution. Wall Street is out to dominate the
world. Its Marshall Plan is a plan to replace
Anglo-French supremacy in Western Europe

‘with the supremacy of U.S. imperialism. It

is a desperate attempt to stop the spread of

democracy and of socialism,. an attempt to

save the capitalist system, by atomic war.
The 1946 convention of the Labor-Pro-

gressive Party warned Canadians that:

“This grim prospect, which would mean
devastation and ruin for our country is not
inevitable. To avert it requires that Cana-
dians grasp now all the implications of
the deep-going conflict that is under way
between the forces of peace and those who
are striving for war”. . . . “People’s unity
against pro-fascist reaction is the urgent,
imperative need; and bold initiative and
leadership by the labor movement is the
prime condition for its achievement”.
The people of Canada want peace. The

people of Canada want international cooper-
ation. Labor must lead a great nation-wide
crusade to defeat the warmongers. The La-
bor-Progressive Party will strive with all its
energy to arouse and mobilize democratic
public opinion in Support of an independent
Canadian peace policy.
e e e

EOPLE’S unity against the drive to war
corresponds with the proudest traditions
and the universal national aspirations of the
people of French Canada. The fight against
the war plans of monopoly-capital is part of
the struggle to win full and. unequivocal
national equality for French Canada. The
struggle for full national equality, for social
Progress, for restoration of trade union and -
civil rights, in Quebec, is a struggle against
€ war camp in that province.

In the struggle to keep Canada out of
war, Canadians of French descent and
Canadians of non-French descent fight shoul-
der to shoulder in defence of their mutual
democratic interests and the interests of our
country, against war-mongering finance-capi-
tal and its trusts and monopolies, its fascist
allies and aims, which know no national
loyalties—which drive only to protect their
profits by fascist reaction and war.

The Labor-Progressive Party associates it-
self with the profound Opposition of the demo-
cratic people of French Canada against the
involvement of our country in imperialist
war. The Labor-Progressive Party emphasizes
that, in French Canada, the Jabor movement
must accept a ‘special responsibility in this
struggle. French and non-French workers are
united in labor’s inescapable struggle against
monopoly-capital and its striving for repres-
sion, fascism and war. The highest national
ideals of Canadians of French descent find
clear expression in the labor movement. _

It will be the task of the LPP to help

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — NOVEMBER 65, 1948 — PAGE 6

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