Tommy Douglas, national leader
of the New Democratic Party, has
een a consistant spokesman for
Canadian independence. While ap-
Pearing at his party’s recent Sas-
atchewan provincial convention,
these are some of the remarks
Douglas made:
e
Many people are won over by
the myth that if we get economic
and eventually political union with
the United States, we’ll be as
Wealthy as the Americans, They
look at New York and they look
at Chicago and they look at Los
Angeles, They forget to look at
the rest of the United States.

See, for instance, what has
happened to the state of Montana
to the south of us, whose popu-
lation has been cut in half since
the end of the last war, Look
at the Dakotas, the Carolinas.

Because the American econ-
Omy is essentially an unplanned
—€Conomy, what the Americans
have developed are great in-
dustrial vortices that suck into
their centre resources and man-
Power,

These industrial vortices are
growing at an amazing rate, but
in consequence the periphery
areas of the United States are be-
Coming denuded of their re-

Sources and depopulated of their
_ Manpower,
T ask you: what would happen

to Canada in such a situation?

‘Do you think for instance the

automobile industry would stay
in Canada or would they simply
_ Close their American subsid-
aries in Canada and expand their
Plants in the United States?

The simple fact is that Canada
Would become part of the peri-
Phery of the American economy.
It would be an area to supply
what the Americans desperately
Need — raw materials — gas,

Oil, minerals, timber, pulp,
Water, fuels of all kinds.

We would supply the raw ma-
terials to feed a great insatiable
industrial machine,

I want to remind you that if
You take a simple mineral like
iron ore, for every two man-
hours that you get of employ-
Ment to extract iron ore from
the ground, somebody else gets

| Douglas hammers
lindependence theme

20 man-hours for processing it
into iron, 200 man-hours for pro-
cessing it into steel, and roughly
2,000 man-hours for processing
it into finished steel products,

You don’t develop an economy
by getting the two man-hours
extracting the raw materials
from the ground, You develop
a great economy by processing
that raw material either into
semi-finished products or fin-
ished products,

There would be no assurance
whatsoever that in an economic
union, very much of that pro-
cessing and manufacturing of raw
materials would take place in

Canada.

«Well,” someone might say,
«pm a wheat farmer, I don’t
care very much whether they
manufacture iron ore into ma-
chinery in Canada or whether they
do it in the States. I’m inter-
ested in selling wheat, and Am-
erica will be 4 great place to
sell wheat.” I wonder ifit would,

If we were part of the United
States you wouldn’t have been
selling any wheat to China under
the American policy, and you”
certainly wouldn’t be selling any
wheat to Russia on jong term
credits, Nor would you be doing
any trade with Cuba — not that
it’s a very large item — but this
same policy could be extended
to other countries.

As a matter of fact, I imagine
the Americans would like nothing
better than to remove Canada as
a competitor — 4 wheat com-
petitor — in the world market.

So let no one be deceived by
the myth that economic union with
the United States would suddenly
make us all as wealthy as the
people who live in Beverly Hiils,
We would be more likely to look
like the hillbillies in North Carol-

ina.

Therefore,
and I believe it can be sub-
stantiated, that the maximum ec-
‘onomic development, the greatest
_opportunities for jobs, the great-
est possibility for ahigher stand-
ard of living lie in developing
a Canadian economy rather than
allowing our economy to be ab-
sorbed and become part of the
American economy.

[oun

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HAVANA — Half a million
Cubans assembled in the Plaza
of the Revolution, gave mighty
«yivas” to Prime Minister Fidel
Castro’s new slogan for 1966—
that it is the Year of Solidarity,
In 1965 it was the Year of Agri-
culture.

All Cuba also hailed the dele-
gates from 100 nations, repre-
sentatives to the Tricontinent
Conference here, Following
Castro’s speech, which took sev-
eral hours, the hundreds of thou-
sands of people locked arms and
sang the Internationale,

Enthusiasm rose like a great
refreshing wind as they pledged
to the delegates of three con-
tinents to make 1966 a year of
solidarity.

«With open arms,” said Castro
in his speech, “and hearts filled
with solidarity, we greet the
delegates of the Tricontinent
Conference. Weare ready to make
all sacrifices in this noble cause.”

Thus did Castro greet the rep-
resentatives of 100 nations whose
national liberation movements
and governments participated in
the celebration of the seventh
anniversary of the Cuban socialist
revolution,

Then Castro reviewed the
achievements of the revolution
and proclaimed that the year just
passed was “the most fruitful
and productive year of the revo-
lution.”

«The year saw great changes
in the administrative and eco-
nomic apparatus of the state and
great achievements in the field
of agriculture, It saw a sugar
harvest of six million tons and
was characterized by great ad-
vancement of all sectors of our
productive labor.”

Castro noted that the lack of
rain in 1965 might slow up the
advance in sugar production but
“if the average rainfall in 1966
is satisfactory, it will show the
largest sugar crop in the history
of our country.”

Through no fault of the socialist
government of Cuba, he continued,
there will be a shortage of rice—
the country’s staple food.

This, he said, was due to the
fact that People’s China had
broken its long term agreement
to supply rice to Cuba in exchange
for sugar at the rate of two tons
of sugar for each ton of rice,
considered by all an agreement
more advantageous to China than
to Cuba,

Explaining the advantages of
the long term agreement, Castro
had made this proposal, “taking
in consideration a series of facts,
among others the principle of the
international division of labor and
the fact that we are traditionally
a sugar producing country.’’

Meanwhile, China has accused
the Cuban Prime Minister of mak-
ing statements “at variance with
the facts” about Sino- Cuban trade,
The charge was made by a “re-
sponsible official of China’s Min-
istry of Foreign Trade” in a New
China News Agency release.

The official also accused
Castro of “unilaterally and un-
truthfully” publicizing the con-
tents of preliminary trade talks
now in progress between the two
countries,

Anti-imperialist meeting
hears of Cuban successes

He said Castro’s charge that
Chinese exports to Cuba would
be lower this year than in any
trade year between 1961 and
1965 was “at variance with the
facts.” But the official did admit
Chinese and Cuban delegations
have tentatively agreed upon a
trade volume between the two
countries ‘‘lower than that of
1965.” :

At the tricontinental conference
itself, Dr, Cheddi Jagan told the
delegates that the British and
U.S. governments have violated
in British Guiana every principle
they have ever proclaimed,

“Bigger hypocrites there can-
not be,” the former Premier
charged. He accused the British
and Americans of gerrymander-
ing and manipulating the elec-
toral system in his country, and
resorting to violence through the
CIA to thwart the desires of
Guiana’s people,

They had even changed the
Constitution to get rid of his

suerte

os"

“wish we could before they become extinct”.
January 14, 1 966—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 11

democratically elected govern-
ment, he pointed out, but claimed
they could not intervene in Rho-
desia to establish the One Man—
One Vote principle,

Delegates to the anti-imperia-
list conference also heard:

e Edward Ndlovu, a represent-
ative of the Zimbabwe African
People’s Union, (ZAPU) declare
the illegal Smith regime is re-
ceiving arms from Nato coun-
tries, The arms were made in
Britain, the U.S. and West Ger-
many, ;

e Said Dahlee, of the National
Liberation Front of Occupied
South Yemen, accused Britain of
bombing villages, killing tortur-
ing and holding people without
trial, During his report, Dahlee
called for the withdrawal of Brit-

ish troops from Aden,

@ Sharaf Rashidov, secretary
of the Uzbekistan Communist
Party and leader of the Soviet
delegation, call for an end to
polemics at the conference,

James Simpkins ske