EDITORIAL __

The fight for the farms

Farmer protests are growing in several
provinces. This is to be expected as fam-
ily farms and modest-sized business
farms are being forced into bankruptcy,
made to sell off part of the land for other
uses, or convinced to go deeper into
debt. Some are seeing years of work dis-
appear; some are being eyicted from
their homes.

Agriculture Minister Eugene Whe-
lan says quite rightly: “Farmers need
some economic security and they just
can’t afford to pay 23 and 25% interest.
In the next 20 years, we need a 75%
increase in food production, which we'll
never get as long as interest rates account
for 30% of a farmer’s cost of produc-
tion.”

The results of that kind of squeeze
show up in Statistics Canada figures this
month which show realized net income
for farmers in 1980, down 7.2% from
1979, while operating costs were up
15%. Worst hit were Ontario, Manitoba,
Saskatchewan and Alberta. The figures
indicate that higher prices for machin-
ery, buildings, feed, and extortionate in-
terest rates account for the drop in in-
come. :

Farmers in widely separated parts of
the country, and in widely-varying con-
ditions, are offering sharp answers to the
Canadian Federation of Agriculture task
force, to a Winnipeg conference on agri-
business; and in the Ontario centre of
Owen Sound they rolled into town on
heavy machinery and halting at a four-

_ bank intersection, told the managers that
their patience was vanishing along with
their options.

As far back as April 1980, the National
Farmers’ Union pressed for a five-point

‘Farm Emergency Measures Program,

which included a moratorium on farm
debts, government credit guarantees,
national orderly marketing programs,
economic measures to cut interest rates,
and control of monopoly encroachment
into agriculture.

The NFU points out today that Otta-
wa’s decision to boost Farm Credit Cor-
poration loans from 14% to 1634% will
aggravate the crisis.

The farmer protests of today should
be only the beginning of bigger, higher
scoring protests to compel protection for
this “basic industry” essential to every

Canadian.

The Communist Party has long urged
“a country-wide agricultural plan which
makes all-out production possible, using
the latest in scientific and new technolog-
ical advance, for the benefit of both the

farmers and all working people ...” It |
makes no sense for the farmers.and the -

consumers, both victims of the multi-
nationals, the monopoly interests and
the governments which serve these in-
terests, to blame each other. Farmer-
labor unity is necessary against their
common enemy.

Towering interest rates and inflation,
spear-heading the worsening onslaught
on workers’ and farmers’ living stan-
dards, and maintenance of home and
family, emphasize the need for a coming
together of labor and farm organizations
to present a united front to the policies
threatening to destroy them.

Nov. 21 will judge budget

Speculation and argument around the
federal budget has taken every known
twist in the big business press, except to
suggest that profits be taxed and work-
ers’ incomes and living standards pro-
tected.

Whatever the budget does it will at-
tempt to solve, in part at least, the crisis
of the system of state-monopoly capital-
ism. And it will attempt it at the expense
of workers, farmers, family consumers,
and those on the lowest incomes. What-
ever its manoeuvres, the budget cannot
undo the crisis of monopoly capitalism,
butitcan shift more of the burden of that
crisis away from the corporate elite and
onto wage-earners.

It is more than timely that the
November 21 mass demonstration called

_by the Canadian Labor Congress — and
receiving the broadest backing — will

take place in close proximity to the |

_budget’s revellations.

As matters stand right now, there are
‘monumental economic and social injus-
tices to protest. If Finance Minister
MacEachen and his government fail to
.come to grips with these, the massing of
- 100,000 protestors on Nov. 21 could be-
come a watershed at which Tory.
;tweedle-dee, tweedle-dum “solutions”
_are seen through, and discarded by vast
‘numbers of Canadians.

MacFEachen is faced with the fact that

8.2% of the work force is denied jobs
PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCT. 23, 1981—Page 4

-Liberal, -

(that is, 891,000 by government figures,
980,000 by the rate adjusted to seasonal
expectations, or perhaps 1.25 million,
considering those who have abandoned
hope of a job.) oe

He is faced with an inflation rate of
12.8%. But corporation profits were up
by 17.9% in the second quarter of 1981,
the latest quarter reported. _

He is faced with the ruination meted
out to family homes and family farms by
usurious interest rates demanded by

banks mortgage companies in keeping

with government policy.

Those involved with the Nov. 21 mass
demonstration are undoubtedly aware
of the predictions of organizations like
the Conference Board of Canada. This
body foresees inflation remaining at 12
to 12.5% while incomes fall. It forecasts
an economic decline from the 1950s,
1960s and early 1970s. It sees a sharp

drop in economic growth, minimal, con-’

sumer spending, and housing and car
sales sliding.

There are bound to develop diametri-
cally opposed points of view as to what

part of society is going to take the beating

in that decline; and labor and its allies on
Nov. 21 will assuredly express its posi-
tion vigorously. .
Meanwhile, an eye should be kept on
the MacEachen budget to sort out what is
camouflage and what is real, what is the
catch behind any crumbs thrown to the
working people.

NoKTH-SoTH MONOLOGUE

Flashbacks

25 years ago... 90 years ago...

THE UNORGANIZED ~. ‘NOTSERIOUS’

The civic department of pub.
lic welfare in Toronto decided
registration of. women workery
will not be necessary. Commis,
sioner Lavor pointed out jobless
women are being taken care of
and said their distress is not
serious.

Last week with “no home anq
no money” Margaret Hope, q
middle aged woman appeared
before magistrate Margaret
Patterson-in women’s. police
court to answer a charge of
vagrancy.

Without a plea entered she
was sentenced to the Municipal
Farm for Women for six
months. A police officer testi-
fied he arrested Hope at 11
p-m., finding her seated on a
pile of lumber. She had no
means of securing food or shel-
ter. “She was absolutely
stranded,” said the officer.

Two new organizing drives
have been announced, one
covering an estimated 4,000
bank employees in Toronto, the
other embracing the building
trades.

“Banking salaries are a na-
tional scandal”, Canadian Labor
Council organizer Russell Har-
ris told a meeting of 100 bank
workers. Heading the campaign
is A.F. McArthur, of the Office
Employees International.

In the building trades. the
move is on to form a provincial
federation of building trades
councils in Ontario to bring
together an estimated 68,000
workers. They will seek the
granting of a charter from the
AFL-CIO’ Building and Con-
struction Trades Dept. in
Washington. The aim is to even-
tually bring 300,000 workers
into the federation.

The Worker,
October 17, 1931

Tribune,
October 15, 1956

Did someone say the economy looks grim? Thht interest rates
are too high? It depends whose profit figures, er, rose-colored
glasses you're looking through. Canada Trustco Mortgage Com-
pany, for example, had a nice, tax-free profit $17,379,000 for the ©
nine months ended Sept. 30. interest rates are just fine.

Figures used are from the company’s financial statements. :

RiBUNE

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