aments this year. Here are
some pertinent comments from
a recent issue of U.S. Farm
News on the high cost (and
high profits) of the tools for
killing. people:

“The incredible rise in weap-
ons cost,” runs a headline in
Business Week referring to De-
fense Secretary Laird’s annual
report. And “the prices that. the
Pentagon pays for weapons have
soared to such stratospheric

. levels that even the military’s

Strongest defenders are joining
the cries for reform.” Even Sen-
ator Barry Goldwater has lashed
out at what he calls, the “god-
awful waste” and “total in-
adequacy” of the procurement
procedures,

Business Week gives some
illustrations of the-rise in weap-
ons costs over the years. It re-
ports that “Where the price of
industrial. commodities went up
22% from 1961 through 1971,
the cost of many weapons
soared 300% or more in the
same period.”

Figures from the report of
the Senate Armed Services

Committee show that the B-29 -

Strategic bomber of World War
II cost $700,000; B-32’s of the
1952-61 Period cost $7.9 million,
and the B-I type, now in deve-
lopment, will cost $30 million
each. The comparable figures for
air force fighter planes will be
$100,000, $2.5 million, and $10
million.

The rise in cost.of an aircraft
carrier in the same periods will
be from $4.7 million to $451.3
million, and $900 million.

Sees

OBS ISA
TOUR LETTERED

of killing...

Amid calls from the Right for
more arms to oppose a dreamed
up Soviet “threat,” U.S. Defense
Secretary Laird is proposing an
extra billion dollars for arm-

As for attack submarines, the
rise in the same period will be
from $4.7 million to the first
nuclear powered submarine (in
1968) $77 million, and $175 mil-
lion in 1971.

In the “defense” budget sent
to Congress this year the Pen-
tagon “seeks funds to start buy-
ing long lead-time items for a
single weapon system that may
eventually reach the astounding
unit price of $1 billion.” That
will be the cost of just one nu-
clear-powered aircraft carrier,

‘and added to the tab would be

the cost of the planes it would
carry and the escort ships that
would protect it.

area ener atee e

Editor — MAURICE RUSH
Published weekly at Ford Bldg., Mezzanine No. 3, 193 E. Hastings St.,
Vancouver 4, B.C. Phone 685-5288.

Circulation Manager, ERNIE CRIST
Subscription Rate: Canada, $5.00 one year; $2.75 for six months.
North and South America and Commonwealth countries, $6.00 one year.
All other countries, $7.00 one year

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, JUNE 16, 1972—PAGE 4

All-sided onslaught

The cost of living has just taken an-
other jump. This time, the government
figures suggest, the price of food hasn’t
risen during the past month (food pri-
ces had been rising plenty previously),
but rents, cost of services, price of
clothing, etc. have increased.

Of course, when other necessities cost
more and extortions are greater (for
example the big leap in municipal tax-
es), this means that there is a smaller
share of the budget left for food. So
-much less gets put on the table.

The onslaught on the living standard
of the Canadian people is under way
from all sides. We pay more for pos-
tage. We pay more for the telephone,
for various public and private services,
for upkeep and repairs... We pay more
in taxes to the various levels of govern-
ment and get less for our money. Our
‘garbage is collected only twice a week
and mail is delivered once a day and
only five days a week. Our school taxes
are skyrocketing while. the improve-
ments made in previous years and edu-
A Bea facilities generally are whittled

own.

Check up on your personal expenses
and measure them against what you get
and see if that isn’t so.

Yet endeavors by workers to at least
keep up with the price gouge are met
with howls of anguish. The monopolists,
their politicians and their media hacks
scream to the skies that unions are
“holding up the public,” that they are
“exploiting the non-union workers”,
that they “only care about themselves.”

It’s the old story of the thief holler-
ing “Stop thief!” while he himself is
running away with the loot.

_ Actually, the fight to raise wages, to
guarantee a decent income to all, to
provide jobs and build our country, to
maintain and improve services, to place
the tax burden on the corpertions to
put a curb on swollen profits and run-
away prices — that’s what is serving
the public, assisting all working people,

‘ and showing real concern for Canada

and our people.

Will that give jobs?

_ Acknowledging that unem loyment
is “the gravest issue facing this coun-
try”, The Toronto Star, the Liberal
(plus Tory, plus right-wingers of every
hue) daily with the largest circulation
in Canada, is touting a sure-fire “cure”.

Finance Minister John Turner’s cut
to corporation taxes is too little and too
late, claims the paper’s editorial of
June 10. It doesn’t become effective until

January, so the corporations will wait .

before doing anything, and then they’ll
probably only use the windfall to swell
dividends...

The Star had a better plan:

“The federal government should ap-
ply the budget’s provisions for a two-
year write-off of the total cost of
machinery and equipment to 125 or
even 150 percent of the cost of new capi-
tal equipment so firms will go out and

uy machinery and put men to work
now.”

‘equal wages and equal opp

Oh no, they won’t! They’ll fut
automize and computerize, so that™
then can lay off still more workers!
create still more unemployed, #
what they’ll do. ~

The way to really provide jobs
bring the natural resources undetf
lic ownership and expand our set’)
ary industries on that basis in a I
range plan to build Canada and prot
more of the good things of life for}
people. It’s to accompany technol0f
advances by cutting hours of work’!
no reduction in real wages.

That means that it’s necessaly,
elect the kind of men and womel
Parliament, Communists and 0
who will fight for and, assisted by
and public pressure, carry out sy
measures, .

The Star’s advice is for the birds}

Monopoly vultures, that is.

A promise renewed

More than a quarter of a centult
passed since the U.S.-led cold wat”,

_ in the bud the bright blossoms of 4%)

world at peace and friendship ta
promised during the Second
War. They have been hard ye 1s
which the Soviet Union and oth
cialist states, supported by peoP fot
the former colonial lands and they
most workers and democrats we
West kept striving to still make “|
promise come true. E, aff ;

Now, after two and a half det
the President of the U.S: has sir
statement of aims with the i y
the Soviet people that enunciav™, q
policy of peaceful coexistence * ii
news the promise of world pea’
was broken by the imperialist PY
at the end of World War II. yi

The first step is to.end the total
defensible U.S. imperialist war}
china.

The utmost endeavor on the cy
all peoples must ensure_ that rool
war is indeed banished and the P’” |

is made true.

4
(V

=

Women on strike

: jie 4,
The present strikes in Dunnvill Aa
Kitchener in Ontario are. gent tn
full treatment — profession’ — 0)
breakers, police violence ant oy py
Most of the strikers are WOM? (i)
striking women aren’t_ “ladies Mi
fact that they are trying er a)
same wages as men proves “oy
aren’t. Ladies should be "ed the
gentle and take what’s han -
without a murmur... ie sith
We are glad to report that be i) j
ing women in Ontario, just gO)
sisters in Quebec (who forme poe
part if not the majority of, ne By
workers that fought so well mele 4
eral strike), won’t let them?” —
browbeaten or bullied. ttle
They’re putting up a fine wer
that, by the way, is where pare of
eration begins: in the joint fe" med

basis of full equality with Oe niti@