Canada is by no means the
only country that faces foreign
economic takeover. The follow-
ing article is reprinted from the
Tribune of Australia, it describes
a trip by Australian Prime Min-
ister John. Gorton through the
country.

Some Gorton publicist des-
cribed the recent Prime Minis-
terial swing through northern
and western Australia as a
“saga” (which the dictionary
says is a “story of heroic
achievement or adventure”).

A journalist in the press re-
tinue called it a tour through
“development land.” °

In fact, it was more like an
inspection by a store manager
midway through a monster sale,
to see what had been sold off
and what still remained for dis-
posal.

Most of the places which he
visited — the key centres of
what is called development—are
in realistic terms, less Australian
now than they are outposts of
United States, London, Japanese
and other predatory overseas ex-
ploiting groups.

It could almost be said that,
on the dozen and more stopovers
by this RAAF VIP turbojet, the
Prime Minister seldom set foot
on Australian territory. Just
about wherever he went, the na-

tural wealth had been sold out’

by Governments either substan-
tially or at least partly to acquj-
pe overseas pursuers of pro-

It was symbolic that, at his
first stop, the Gladstone (Central
Queensland) alumina plant man-

U.S. poet
to speak

The prominent American poet
and anthropologist, Walter Lo-
wenfels, will give his first poetry
reading in Canada this Saturday
evening — November 9.° Mr.
Lowenfels will read from his re-
cent book, The Portable Walter,
and will talk about his years in
Paris and New York as a writer
and editor.

The informal reading and talk

will be held in an unusual set- .

ting, at the Forest Hill Public
Library, 666 Eglinton Ave. West
(at Spadina), Toronto. Proceed-
ings begin at 8:00 p.m., and the
admission is $1.00.

Mrs. Lowenfels, who lived in
Paris from 1926 to 1935, knew
Henry Miller “and most of the
others of the period” intimately.
Recently he has been editing a
number of anthologies of protest
poetry, including Black Power
volumes.

Mr. Lowenfels’ best-known
books include: Walt Whitman’s
Civil War (1960), Where Is Viet»
nam: American Poets Respond
(1967), and The Portable Wal-
ter (1968), edited by the novel-
ist Richard Gover. Forthcoming
works include an anthology, The
Writing on the Wall: Protest
Poems, and a book of lyrics,
Thou shalt Not Overkill.

Here is what others have writ-
ten about Walter Lowenfels: “I
don’t know of any other poet

‘who has put the terrifying lan-
guage of the new science to such
poetic and human use.” (Max-
well Geismar) “There is magic
in his language, not black or
white, but a sort of primal, self-
renewing magic.” (Henry Mil-
ler) ‘Walter is one of thgse

priceless possessions of Ameri- -
‘can’ literature “-—- a
-unreconstructible».man.” ,. (Ken- -.

completely

neth Rexroth)

Self

ng Australia

+ #3

ager greeted him’in a fruity
Louisiana accent. It was also
somberly noteworthy that a few
stops later, at Weipa, where
U.S.A. and the City of London are
in control, the children lined up-
to welcome him were segregated:
Aboriginal children to one side,
white youngsters to the other.

Mr, Gorton’s “development-
land” stops, and features there
included:

Gladstone-Moura; A $160 mil-
lion Gladstone alumina plant
(alumina, being produced from
Weipa bauxite, is one stage
closer to the finished product of
aluminum) and Moura coal
(mostly for Japan, with likely
shipments of about 3.5 million
tons in the 12 months to next
March).

Mt. Isa: Elodado of copper-
silver-lead-zinc in outback north-
west Queensland, which makes
Mt. Isa Mines consistently the
third biggest profit maker (after
BHP and GMBH) in Australia.

Weipa (Cape York): Possibly

’ the world’s largest single depo-
‘sit of bauxite (for aluminum);

worth something like $8,000 mil-
lion.

Groote Eylandt (off Arnhem
Land): Australia’s biggest single
known manganese deposits are
being worked here at the rate
already of 400,000 tons a year.

Port Hedland: North-west port
for Mt. Newman iron ore when
production there begins next
year.

Mt. Tom Price: Now produc-
ing iron ore at a rate exceeding
12 million tons a year and pro-
viding profits for Hamersely Iron
at a rate of $15 million a year,

Kambala: Nickel deposits,
~which have regenerated life in
the Kalgoorlie area.

On the way, too, Mr. Gorton’s
VIP plane most likely flew over:

Mary Kathleen: Uranium de-
posits, about 40 miles from Mt.
Isa.

Mt. Goldsworthy: Another of
the WA iron ore deposits, with
ten-year Japanese contracts for
some $80 million worth.

The subsidiary companies
which have established them-
selves in command of Austra-
lia’s huge mineral wealth at
these points would almost out-
number a family gathering of the
Forsytes. But, like the Forsytes,
most of them trace their family
tree back to a limited number
of parents.

Some of these recurred time
and again, sometimes under dif-
ferent names, as Mr. Gorton and
his entourage went from centre
to centre. Mrs. Gorton perhaps
even felt like the Queen when,
on one visit to NSW, wherever
she went she found the then
Premier bobbing up again to
greet her, having changed his
suit, but not his identity.

For example, take the case of
Kaiser of USA, one of the giant
international corporations.

Mr. Gorton met Kaiser at
-Gladstone (as a partner in
Queensland Alumina), at Weipa

(as partner in Comalco Indus-

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—NOVEMBER 8, 1968—Page 10

tries). and again at Mt. Tom
Price (as a partner in Hamersley
Iron).

Other American companies
which have established part-pos-
session of deposits which were
on the Gorton itinerary include:
American Smelting & Refining

‘(54 per cent ownership of Mt.

Isa Mines), American Metals
Climax (25 per cent of the Mt.
Newman iron ore company),
Cyprus Mines and Utah Con-
struction (67 per cent of Mt.
Goldsworthy iron ore), and Pea-
body or Kennecott (No. 1 part-
ner in Moura coal), :

’Then there’s that very busy,
rich and powerful grouping cen-
tred on Rio Tinto-Zinc Corpora-
tion, of London, whose Austra-
lian subsidiaries include CRA.

Gorton & Co. met up with
them at their very first stop
(CRA has a minority interest in
the Gladstone alumina plant),
then at Weipa (CRA is Kaiser’s
partner), and Mt. Tom Price
(CRA is with Kaiser and others
there). And mothballed Mary
Kathleen (soon to resume ura-
nium production after years of
idleness) belongs, to the extent
of 51 percent, to the CRA do-
main.

Australian Governments’ mi-
neral favors and largesse have
not been confined to U.S. and
British groupings. :

Mr. Gorton met up on his tour
also with Mitsui of Japan (at
Moura coalfield, and it also has
a share in Mt. Newman), and
Pechiney of France and Alumi-
num of Canada (both of them
partners in the Gladstone alum-
ina plant).

Amid all of these, it must
have been a change for Mr, Gor-
ton to find himself with some
well-known Australian monopo-
lies — BHP (through subsidiaries
at Groote Eylandt, where there
was fittingly a strike at the time
of the Gorton visit, and Mt. New-
man), CSR (an associate of BHP
at Mt. Newman) and Western
Mining Corporation (Kambalda
nickel).

In Parliament this month Mr.
R. Connor (Lab., NSW gave some
results of his figuring on the
Who’s Who along the Gorton
tour route. Some of his conclu-
sions:—

Gladstone alumina plant: 99
per cent overseas owned.

Moura coal: 73 per cent over-
seas.

Weipa: 9214 per cent overseas.

Mt. Tom’ Price: 82 per cent
overseas.

Mt. Goldsworthy: 93 percent
overseas.

Mt. Newman: 40 per cent over-
seas, :

This is the picture of ‘‘develop-
mentland” today.

Mr. Gorton’s companions on
the tour included Mr.) Fairbairn,
Minister for what the Govern-
ment oddly calls National Deve-
lopment,

Since the trip, Mr. Fairbairn
has felt it politic to speak up,

with a semblance of bravado,

From the experience of
generations at the job of
extracting black gold from
the bowels of the earth, the
Scottish coal miners are a
“wary” people. When History
springs one of her periodic
“surprises” without too much
preliminary detail, these. coal
miners who place their life
on the line daily for a meagre
pay packet fall back on their
ingrained class instincts for
the correct answers. Con-
trary-wise, many of those en-
sconsed in plush offices don’t
always adhere to that basic
guideline, and: as a result,
“land in the muck”.

Thus when the Scottish
. Miners Executive (not alone
in this temporary lapse) pub-
licly voiced: their opposition
at the “intervention” of the
Soviet Union and the War-
saw Pact countries to snuff
out imperialist intrigues and
counter-revolution in Czecho-
clovakia, the rank-and-file
coal miners of the Stirling-
shire coal mines got together
and posed some very basic
questions, not only to their
own National Executive, but
to union Ieaders generally—
at home and abroad.

“We are at a complete loss
to understand why Left Wing
leaders have forgotten their
first fundamental lesson. —
that when the capitalist class
are attacking anything, then

supporting it?

“Our E. C. and General
Secretary have allied them-
selves with strange company:

“Sir Alex Douglas Home...
was the arch enemy of the
Czech people and, along with
his friends, sold them to Hit-
ler in the last war. ;

“Mr. George Brown and
company, who have stood by
and watched the slaughter of
the Vietnamese people with
poison gas, napalm, etc.”

(Home was Chamberlain’s
top colleague in the infamous

- “Munich Pact” which threw
Czechoslovakia: to the Nazi
wolves as the price of Cham-
berlain’s “peace in our time”
scrap of paper from Hitler).

Having outlined the type
of “friends” springing to the
“defense” Czechoslovakia
against. her alleged Socialist
“enemies”, the Scottish min-
er then pose some very point-
ed questions. (See Scottish
Miner, October 1968 edition) .

“Where did all the radio
stations come from and who
financed them?

“Is it possible they were
there without the knowledge
of the Czech government?

the working class should be

“What were they there for

if not counter revolution?
“Why did busloads of 5”

called U.S. tourists leave

soon as the tanks arrived?

“Surely. any person

basic . political knowledg® |
must-take the conclusion tha’ |
a counter-revolution was 0 |
the move — and the Soviel |
Union took the only possible
step to stop it”. id
These Scottish miners & |
not wait “for all the facts:
Their - class _consciousnes®
born of generations of ruthless
exploitation, told them @
when capitalism becomes
noisy booster for Commu
ist “democracy” in Czech
slovakia or anywhere an
that should be enough to af
ert the working class of
of danger ahead. f
In the new techniques °
imperialist intrigues to “
the clock of history back,” the
Scottish miners project a very
basic lesson atc working
people in both the socialls
and capitalist world can never
afford to forget, viz; the cla
content of the issue at ham
When the Homes, Johnsons
Trudeaus at al start whoo,
in it for “communism” 4%
spilling oceans of crocodilé
tears —- there something ™
dically wrong with such “com
munism”!

At last the North America
Indian is “coming into h
own”, but it took a Socialist
country to do the job. &
John Peet in the latest
tion of G.D.R. Report). ic

The German Democrat”
Republic (G.D.R.) film #
dustry is now “shooting” P®
pular Westerners in the ee z
ged terrain of Georgia — f
the U.S.S.R. that is, with
magnificent Caucasian hots?
men of the Georgian Reps
lic starring in the role of ¥*
Cavalry and Indian riders: 40
cast which Peet says oh
things with horses whi i
leave the Hollywood: “In¢
ans” standing . . . and pretty
creditable U.S. Cavalry t00 ”

There is however one Vé
important difference betwee
these “Westerners” filmed bY
the G.D.R. industry in sovie’
Georgia and the classical He
lywood vintage. With the Ja é
ter the Indian is always ot
“bad guy” and the whites ee
“good guys”. The G.D.R. d
reversed the process, so 1°
“most of the Indians ay
good, and most of the whit’
settlers are bad” and apP*
ently most of today’s youns
sters like the change-0v’
and undoubtedly the Indi
people of this continent

too.
—

against some overseas-owned
companies which aré “ignoring
the Government’s stated aims of
partnership with local investors.”

But, as a Sydney Morning Her-
ald editorial said, “he did not
say what the Government
thought of doing about it.”

The Federal and State Gov-
ernments have, in fact encour-
aged, applauded and, in a variety.
of costly ways, subsidized the
American invasion.

In minerals, as in many other
fields, sellout policies have al-

‘ready forfeited much of Austra-

lia’s control*over its own resour-
ces and economic destinies and,

with this, domestic and for?
policies. t
It will need a resolute ° ‘I
by the Australian people, 1”
ing particularly the labor ®
ment, to arrest and revers®
disastrous process — to re
Australian ownership of Aut
lian resources and, more |
this, Australian public ente!?
ownership instead of pm
monopoly control, :
When that is achieved F
Ministers and other Austra!
may; in fact, travel throug
genuinely Australian dev”
mentland and make it 2-
saga.

s leaitintaians