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For Canada, peace and democracy-

A PART
Momentous decisions
in 1949

year 1949 is going to be a year of
momentous decisions for Canada and
her people, Far-reaching .issues of na-
tional policy will have to be decided, the
decisions will affect literally every section
of the country and every sector of our
national life.

The year opens with the national econ-
omy teetering at the top and at the end
of the great inflationary post-war boom.

_ The St. Laurent government is trying now
to commit us in advance to active par-
ticipation in an aggressive

_ War across the seas, under conditions
over which Canada can have no effective
control... .

_ The decisive question for every demo-
¢ratic peace-loving Canadian during 1949
and in the coming federal elections is:
“What can I do to help keep Canada
out of war?” The question is not
academic, nor does it refer to a danger
that is distant. The governments of the
world are divided, in riva} camps, and

_ the United States “cold war” has been
_ pressed to the point at which a world

, “shooting war” is much closer ‘than the

majority of people think. To keep our
country out of war, peace-loving Can-
“adians must act to take our country out
of the war camp. It isn’t easy but it
can be done. There are spreading
doubts and divisions within the war
camp, in Canada and in all imperialist
countries. The camp of peace and demo-
cratic progress is growing mightily. The
People’s desire for measures to promote
welfare instead of measures to promote
warfare is growing. Their confidence in
their own strength is growing and, with
it, their confidence that the warmongers
can be defeated. :

This national convention of our party
must initiate the greatest campaign that
the Canadian working-class movement has

ever carried through so far—the cam-
paign to Keep Canada Out of War, to

Strengthen Canadian Democracy, to Keep —

Canada Independent, and thereby to help
win the peace. The fight to take Canada
out of the war camp is the essence of
the struggle to keep our country free.
The Labor-Progressive party calls upon
all peace-loving Canadians to unite now
in a great national protest to STOP THE
GOVERNMENT FROM SIGNING WALL
‘S WAR PACT. P

PART 2 :
wants a

Wall Street
_ Shooting war—the
people want peace

governments of the nations of the

world are now divided definitely into
two opposing. camps: “The camp of im-
_ perialism and anti-democratic forces,
_ whose chief aim is the lishment of
@ world-wide American Perialist hege-
_ Mony and the crushing of democracy;
and an anti-imperialist democratic camp
whose chief aim is the elimination of
imperialism, the strengthening of democ-
racy and the liquidation of the remnants
of fascism.”*

There is a widespread idea, even among

Progressive people, that there is little

_ €ctual danger of war; that
_ pose of the tremendous

. 26 atte by the United

< economy. t
acai my. That

to be spent
_ three hund
aie ome quarters as evidence
; n international relations,
but it was nothing of the sort. The three
hundred million dollars that is not to be
fighters is to be spent upon
ae D e The difference is that jet
fighters are light, short-range aircraft
_ used entirely for defense, while the B3é6’s
are great,
a refueling,
and useful only for bombing far distant
: : ie. offensive action. The B36
Superfortresses are | pre-eminently the
United States -militarists’ chosen equip-
_ ment for a hot, atomic Ware ;
LSE Riscigg
ideology =<

AS A PART of their drive to weaken

e

imperialist —

the sole ‘pur-"
armament ex-
States is to

_ tained in the Charter of
_ democracy and stimulate fascist ideo- -

logy, the warmongers are seeking now to
suppress their most hated opposition in
the United States, the Communist Party.
On the eve of the national convention
of -the Progressive party, that revered
leader of the American workers, William
4%. Foster, along with eleven other mem-
bers of the national leadership of the
Communist party of the United States,
Were arrested and have been indicted.
They are not accused of advocating viol-
ence or even of anticipating violence.
‘They are accused of having conspired to
form and of being members of a party
founded upon the doctrine of the forcible
overthrow of the government—a charge
that was rejected by the Supreme Court
of the United States in the famous
Schneiderman case only a few years ago.

On all fronts, diplomatic, économic,
political and military, at home as. well
as abroad, the war camp headed by the
bellicose Wall Street imperialists who are
in the saddle in the United States, are
preparing for a shooting war.

The imperialists can’t win

UT, even if the imperialists commit
_ -the maniacal crime of launching a
third world war, they cannot win. They
no longer have the monopoly of the
atomic bomb, the People’s Democracies
and the Soviet Union are strong, the
New Democracy now embraces hundreds
of millions of people in Asia as well as
in Europe, while the crisis of imperialism
and divisions within the capitalist camp
are deepening.

But, the most influential of all the fac-
tors which combine to determine that the
imperialists cannot win a world war even
if they should succeed in starting one, is
the fact that the forces opposed to such a
criminal war are too numerous and
powerful and are growing rapidly.

Forces for peace

The force which precludes imperialist
victory is the irresistible democratic force
of the people. Newspapers reported Lester
B. Pearson as telling an audience in Win-
nipeg during January that “the danger of
war with Russia is less today than it was
six months ago.” He added that, in his
opinion, it is because of the mobilizing of
world opinion against Russia during the
sessions of the General Assembly of the
United Nations at Paris, What utter non-
sense! Mr. Pearson should know that the ;
attempt in the General Assembly to stir
up prejudice and hysteria against the So-
viet Union was not for the purpose of
peace but for the purpose of war.
Truly did the representatives of the nine
European Communist Parties, meeting in
Warsaw during October, 1947, declare:
“The nations of the world do not want
war.” If the Communist Parties and the
democratic allies of the working class
“place themselves at the head of all the
forces ready to defend the cause of na-
tional honor and independence, then and
then only no plans to subjugate the count-
ries of Europe and Asia can succeed.”
Stalin was a hundred times right when he
told the correspondent of Pravda that “the
social forces in favor of peace are too
great for Churchill’s pupils in aggression
to overcome them.” The present period of
uncertainty will end “with the disgraceful
donwfall of the instigators of a new war.”

PART 3
Keep Canada out of war

: THE St. Laurent government is seeking

to commit Canadians in advance to
active participation in war if Wall Street
gets one started. Canada’s political rela-
tionships, the direction of her external
trade, the very character of her domestic.
€conomy are all being subordinated to
that aim.

The St. Laurent government has carried
the ball for Wall Street at every stage in
the development of the scheme to by-Pass
the United Nations and organize the cap
italist states in an anti-Soviet war alliance
under the deceptive title of “The North
Atlantic Security Pact.” The plan itself is
headed up by the United States, it cannot
operate without the United States, but the
St. Laurent government willingly made
Canada its public sponsor. It was. pro-
jected by St. Laurent on April 29, 1948,
when he told the members of the House of
Commons that he favored joining some
sort of alliance of anti-Communist states

' which “were willing to accept more specific

and onerous obligations than those con-.
C the United Na-
tions.” oe : :
That was the first time that the govern-
™ent of a member state of the UN had
proposed .that the imperialist member
states should ally themselves outside the
United Nations, on the basis of commit- :
ments more “specific” than their commit- |

~ments-to the United Nations, so as to or-

‘based upon Wall Street interests.
_tountry needs an exclusively Canadian

ganize an “overwhelming” preponderance
of power against the non-imperialist mem-
bers. And, let it be emphasized, that is

- precisely what the Uinted Nations, its

Charter and its veto power, was set up to
prevent. ‘ *

The trend to fascist

reaction
A§s PART of the imperialists’ drive to
war there is a steadily strengthening
trend toward the revival of fascist reac-
tion. Duplessis’ revival of political repres-
sion under the Padlock Law was followed
by his attempt to propose a fascist pro-
vincial labor act upon the trade union
movement. The LaCroix Bill is being in-
troduced in a new form, :

The drive to revive fascist reaction is
supplemented by a violent and highly or-
ganized nationwide campaign of redbait-
ing and intimidation ...

It is precisely because red-baiting is so
widespread and is so obviously inspired
and financed from very high quarters that
the resistance to it is so significant. The
overwhelming majority of the workers re-
fuse to be stampeded by the “red bogey.”
Working class organizations continue to
grow in spite of the attempts at intimida-
tion. Farmers’ organizations as well as
labor organizations are resisting the drive
to war. Democratic Canadians have not
been frightened away from voting for pro-
gressive candidates in elections. The decay
of the Tories has not been stopped. The
will to act to keep Canada independent, to
keep Canada out of the North Atlantic
war pact. is growing...

To defeat red-baiting it is but necessary
to force the redbaiters out into the open
and expose them. If redbaiting is exposed
and discredited, attempts to revive fascism
will be defeated from their start.

The warmongers’ lie
‘HERE is no truth whatever in the pre-
tense that there is danger of agegres-
sion by the Soviet Union. The first and
conclusive proof of this is to be seen in the
character of the Soviet state and the fun-
damental importance to it of the principle
of national self-determination. The deci-
sion as to the path to be pursued by each
nation must be determined by the people
themselves. The second proof is to be seen
in the fact that both the immediate and
long-term interests of the USSR and the
New Democracies demand peace, not war,
friendship and cooperation with other
countries, not conquest .. .

The warmongers are so short of argu-
ments that Lester Pearson, minister for
external affairs, resorts to the bald asser-
tion that the communists believe that war
is inevitable. That is exactly the opposite
of the truth. It is the Communists who
have been and are still trying consistently
to show democratic people that a third
world was is not inevitable—that the so-
cialist countries and the capitalist count-
ries can exist side by side in peace and
can cooperate with each other to their
mutual advantage if only the warmongers
are rebuffed ... :

The fight to take our country out of
the war camp is a fight for the rejection
of the St. Laurent-Pearson foreign policy
Our

foreign policy based Squarely upon the
interests of Canada and the need to pre-
vent the prior involvement of our country
in war...

The LPP proposes a formal declaration
by the Dominion government, affirming
Canada’s non-participation in or support
of any foreign alliances or agreements
except as such cooperation is provided for
oy the United Nations’ Charter .. .

A “satellite crisis”

[TN January, 1948, the LPP ‘warned Can-

adians that the government’s policy of
making Canada’s economic policies sub-
servient to the vagaries of the wildly fluc-
tuating “boom and bust” economy of the
United States. would bring calamitous con-

sequences for Canada. In even shorter.

time than we anticipated the correctness

of our warning is being affirmed by events.

Canadian economy is’ approaching an
economic crisis, It will be very largely the

market crisis of a satellite economy — |

brought on, not because other countries
don’t need our goods, or because they have
no goods to exchange for them, but be-
cause Wall Street and Washington are
utilizing the Marshall plan to'secure all
the market advantages possible for United
States interests at the expense of their
satellite economies, Short of war, war ex-
penditures will not prevent the crisis be-
cause, while on the tremendous scale of
U.S. expenditures they can delay its out-
break, they still equal only a relatively
small proportion of the national economy
—less than 10 percent and therefore can-

not maintain the great capital goods. in-
dustries ....

PART 4
Protect Canada’s people

‘THE Dominion government refused to

pursue policies which would mitigate
the effect of the coming crisis upon Can-
adian economy. The labor movement
should insist now that the government
does enact measures to protect the masses
of the people. The LPP proposes enact-
ment of the following measures immed-
iately to protect the living standards of
the masses of our people.

(a) Increase Family Allowances to $8
per child for every child in the family up
to the age of 16.

(b) Increase federal old age pensions to
$60 per month to start at the age of 60

_ without the means test.

(c) Increase unemployment insuragce
benefits by 50 percent to meet the ‘in-
creased cost of living.

(d) Increase all veterans’ and civil ser-
vice pensions to 50 percent above their
1945 level.

(e) Enact a Dominion Minimum Wage
Act to apply wherever the Dominion gov-
ernment has jurisdiction, of 75 cents per
hour. F

(f) Abolish the 8 percent sales tax.

(g) Raise the level of income that is
exempted from payment of income taxes
up to $1500 per year for single persons.
and $2500 per year for married man with -
dependent wife, /

(h) Restore governmental subsidies to
keep down the prices of essential foods
where necessary.

(j) Re-establish the Excess Profits Tax.

(k) Establish adequate floors under
and abolish the ceilings over all agricul-
tural products except as conditioned by
governmental subsidies.

In the coming Dominion elections the
LPP will fight to elect its candidates to
oress for the immediate enactment of
measures to protect Canada’s people from
che crisis conditions brought on by the
‘mperialists’ drive to war.

PART 5
Political parties and

the drive to war

‘HE traditional terms and slogans which
distinguished the two old-line parties
of Canadian capitalism until recently have
lost their original meanings, In the past,
the Liberal and Conservative parties rep-
resented the competing interests of dif-
ferent sections of Canadian capitalism and
the rival imperialist interests of Britain
and the United States. Those differences
are now completely overshadowed ...

On the key issue of Canadian politics,
the leaders of the CCF as well as the Pro-
gressive Conservative Party support the
policies of the St. Laurent government. . .

The leaders of the CCF, like the Social
Crediters and the Union Nationale, try to
maintain an appearance of a difference
between themselves and the government
on that issue by declaring that they want _
this or that modification, supplement or
other secondary condition, complied with.
In the meantime, they continue to support
the fundamental attitude and aims upon
which the St. Laurent policy is based, :

In their effort to identify the CCF com-
pletely with the anti-Soviet war policy of
Louis St. Laurent and U.S. imperialism, the
leaders of the CCF have changed the em-
phasis in their political position. During
the war and for a while after, they used
to put their main public emphasis upon
assurances to reform-minded workers and
farmers that the CCF was opposed to
capitalist big business—sometimes they
even declared that the CCF was in favor
of socialism. Today they emphasize only
their claim that they are the most ag-
gressive political enemies of the Soviet
Union and the New Democracies—that the
main characteristic of the CCF is that of
a. force that can be utilized to fight against
Marxism and the LPP in Canada...

Peace and social security

GAINST the war policies upon which

the bourgeois and the petite-bourgeois
parties are united, and against their at--:
tempt to give the imperialist system a new
lease of life, the LPP fights to build and
extend a broad front of. democratic ac-

_ tion for peace and social security in Can-
ada and throughout the world ...

In addition to the measures to protect.
Canadian agriculture, to regain Canada's
export markets, and to protect the peo-
ple’s living standards from the effects of
the crisis, the LPP will fight for measures
aimed to democratize Canadian economy
as a whole. The LPP proposes and calls
eRe all’ progressive Canadians to unite
oO: :

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — FEBRUARY 11, 1949 — PAGE 4