Cling ‘ i Any i i (él. f i} eal cacsan attraen 4 hoe Published Weekly at 650 Howe Street By THE TRIBUNE PUBLISHING COMPANY LTD. Telephones: Editorial, MA. 5857; Business, MA. 5288 Tom McEwen Editor Subscription Rates: 1 Year, $2.50; 6 Months, $1.35. res OS eS eee a ee Printed by Union Printers at 650 Howe Street, Vancouver, B.C. Authorized as second-class mail by the post-office department, Ottawa Labor must safeguard UN N Tuesday this week at Flushing, N.Y., the curtain rose upon the 1947 session of the United Nations General Assembly. Coincident with this historic event was the observance of a national ‘United Nations Week’ in the US and Canada. In both countries organized labor—which has tie greatest stake of all in the UN 1947 session—was conspicuously absent. As a consequence the ‘celebrations’ were given over in the main to expressions of the ‘get-tough-with-Russia’ brand of oratory. ; _ A tremendous agenda faces the representatives of the 55 nations which now constitute the UN, and the mannet of its disposal may well determine whether the UN shall live and grow as a ‘world parliament of man,’ or become a plaything of Yankee imperialist intrigues and interests, The signs at the moment are ominous, to say the least. Since the 1946 session of the UN the Truman Doctrine has blossomed into tHe Marshall Plan—opposite sides of a Yankee atomic dollar struck off with a great fanfare of “saving humanity from totalitarian communism,” but in reality to enslave the peoples of the world to the new Herrenfolk of Wall Street. In a speech opening the US ‘National UN Week’ Secretary of State Marshall made it clear that he intends to have the arrogant plans of American imperialism which bear his name okayed by the UN. Marshall wants the veto power of the UN Charter nullified—to clear the way for full-scale dollar imperialist intervention in Greece, the Bal- kans, China, or wherever the financial vultures of Wall Street may choose to sink their talons. That is the pattern being set down for this 1947 session of the UN. Already influential Sections of the Can- adian press are loud in their praises of Marshall’s “deter- mination for a show-down.” Parallel with this is the polite sniping at the veto power by External Affairs Minister Louis St. Laurent, which shows that while the King gov- ernment mutters about ‘friendship with Russia,’ its ‘line’ in the UN will be in support of dollar imperialism. : Canadian labor must keep its eyes upon this session of the UN, because the freedom or enslavement of millions of the world’s peoples are bound up in its deliberations. On these grave matters Canadian labor must begin to be heard in the council chambers of the UN, rather than leave the presentation of Canada’s aspirations to a Diespecker, a Farris, or a St. Laurent. The stakes are too high in 1947 for labor to remain apathetic or silent. UBCM hands people a lemon PTHE rejection by the Union of British Columbia Muni- . cipalities of a proposal to make a business tax manda- tory throughout the province is an affront to the majority of citizens whose interests the mayors, reeves, aldermen and councillors attending the convention were supposed to repre- sent. Big business has for too long been permitted to evade paying its just share of civic costs. The business tax is a _ means of compelling it to accept a larger measure of finan- cial responsibility, at the same time dividing this responsi- bility more equitably between large and small businesses and taking the present burden of taxation from home- owners, The counter-suggestion, advocated in a brief presented by the Associated Property Owners Association, that addi- tional civic revenue should be raised through a general sales tax, is one that will be condemned by all progressive rate- _ payers and community organizations and by labor and farm- ers genreally. The suggestior, in essence, is that working _ people, who already bear a disproportionate share of federal, provincial and civic taxation, shall accept another cut in income by having a sales tax added to the high price of everything they buy. Mayor Mott of New Westminster correctly described the proposal when he said that “big business would rather See a sales tax.” Of course it would. * * * Dancy Seni biwlin. Sickie Scnas: sin ecnndublt: theory: Shing tbs question at a socialist-orator: “What ARE wages?” - Quick as a flash came the answer: “Too .. . low!” Exit sheckler. T who : : 7 aa gr oe “What ARE prices,” we might reply: ‘That’s about the size of it. A 1939 wage dollar isn’t 50 cents nowadays. = FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1947 Says the owut pull, “We wui continue to ba Says the UPWU, “Bull.” e ' ee | As we see it : By Tom McEwen see what has taken place. About a year ago 40,000 farmers HAT causes prices to shoot sky-high? Otta- wa, and the lords of big business have been telling us with monotonous regularity that it was ‘high wages’ that propelled prices skywards. ‘Wages must come down,’ they said, and ‘production must go up’ in erder to realize that happy ‘equation’ which is pre- sumed to be governed by ‘sup- ply and demand.’ Now we can scrap all these empty shibbo- leths and cease worrying. The real cause of skyrocketting prices has been unearthed by an eminent American ‘econom- ist?’ named Harsh. Mr. Harsh was on the ether last Sunday giving the Amer- ican people the real low-down on high prices. ‘What makes them go up? Russia. If your butter, eggs, automobiles, zoot suits and homes (or lack of them) are away out of pro- ‘portion to your earnings, the cause is . . . Russia. The 400-million dollar Truman Doctrine loan to “stop communism in Greece” ... the millions to halt the ‘red menace’ in China 2 the billions required to keep the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan pulsing at home and abroad, why, all this vast amount could have been spent at home had it not been for Russia. If eggs are a dol- lar a dozen or butter a dollar a pound, rejoice in the knowl- edge that a goodly portion of this price must go to keep America . . and the world, “free from communism.” If the automobile manufacturers are mulcting you three thousand dollars for a fifteen hundred gollar car, just please remem- ber that Russia is .to blame. Because of Russia we had to scrap the Office of Price Ad- ministration (OPA) in order to get money to fight Russia ... ideologically and economically of course! Sounds almost unbelievable that a nation of so-called en- lightened people should be fed on such tripe. The fact that it is so only reflects the grav- ity of the.times, and the depths to which the hired propagand- ists of American imperialism Rat y UUASHRERTNSSEDHEANURRATE TUL PUEASRSASRREPUUATATA TATED ESET a will go to put over their ‘get- tough’ anti-Soviet anti-working- class propaganda. Already they are demonstrating in this field that the late Doktor Goebbels was small potatoes by com- parison. OST EVERY one you meet nowadays is aware that an economic depression is on the way. The pol- S itical economi- graphers of big business have many fancy names | for it but it | still spells de- pression. Un- like all pre- vious break- downs in cap- italist econo- my, this one ‘tom Mcrwen gets almost as wide publicity as the soap commercials on your favorite radio programs, During’ the ‘Hungry 30's’ the big shots used to hire a bat- tery of high-pressure optimists to keep reminding us “prosperity is just around the corner.” Now they keep re- minding us that a ‘bust’ is in- evitable, with the only uncer- tainty being WHEN it will hit. Helped along by sweeping government price decontrol, in- dustry and finance has cush- ioned itself with super-profits, and is now ready to make a real killing out of a full-scale depression. Remember how they managed it in the 20’s and 30's? It is an axiom of Marxism and one that. will stand \ repe-- tition, that in a country’ like Canada, where the economic structure is in a large measure geared to agricultural produc- tion, that the first strains of depression hit those sections of the population where small- unit agrarian economy is the rule. Hence in the maturing depression large sections of the farm population are already seriously affected. This in turn has produced something in the nature of a mild agrarian rev- olution. Sbould you think the term ‘agrarian revolution’ is too strong, just pause a moment and ‘ rgain in good raith.. that . . struggles in factory and 0? . througu peaceful Alberta and Saskatchewa? staged a 3-week ‘no produce d@— livery’ strike against ruinous~— prices. That ‘prosperous’ fart® ers should strike against 80 ernment price decrees and pol cies was unheard of .:. +70 they did! And on the same issue the president of the United Farmers of : (Saskatchewan Section) has "© cently intimated that it is not ruled out that similar actio? may not occur in 1947! And in British Columbia thousands of people in the Tur® areas have been on strike against government school ta*4 tion policies . . . an action 218° spearheaded by the B.C. Feder ation of Agriculture and the B.C. Beef Cattle Producers A* — sociation.’ On the labor front tH , Coalition government still relies on intimidation and persecutio? through the courts, under the. provisions of Bill 39, to settle with lIabor. But in dealing the ‘agrarian revolution’ it has had to resort to the time-honol policy of chicanery, promises and more promises, to assuase the indignation of the farmer But that is not all; hundreds of farmers throughout the te) agan Valley (alleged to be of the most prosperous aa farming areas in Canada) beginning to seek a solution to their price and marketing ai lems through the ‘medium x CIO affiliation. To the big b°v® of St. James and Bay who have done well ‘farminé the farmer’ ‘that sounds like ae horrible nightmare. S&S The move towards unionizatit fe among these farmers is oDlY ry its initial stages, but the VY" fact that they are thinking moving along those jines 18 <4 itself a vitally important Be for farmer-labor unity and, 2 gress, ne , And most important — th “ = one indicate that all the oPi conditions for a Farm j the government are ripe. 5% a A : farmer would say, ‘Let's — : crackin’,’ PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAG?