EDITORIAL PAGE

i _ “If it’s the monster you're looking for, you're
in the wrong loch! ”

Editorial comment... .

Fe Coalbrook mine disaster of
1960 in the Transvaal, which
snuffed out the lives of 437 min-
ers reached its climax in a Johan-
nesburg court a few weeks ago.

The presiding judge, Mr. Jus-
tice(?) H. J. Potsgieter, “fined”
the coal operators sixty-four
pounds, (approximately $170) for
violations of the South Africa
Mines Act, saying he” . . . took
into consideration that the com-
pany had lost a mine and several
thousand pounds sterling.”

Of the 437 dead miners and
their destitute families the emin-
ent judge had no words of sym-
pathy for their “losses”. Measur-
ed in terms of “apartheid justice’,
about 33-cents for every murder-
ed Negro miner.

Where monopoly profits are
concerned, human _ life comes
cheap.

Longshoremen in Melbourne

Australia demonstrated their in-
ternational solidarity with the
workers of Laos by refusing to
load a Dutch freighter with a

cargo of barbed wire bound for

Saigon.
This action was taken when the
Aussie “Warfies” learned the

barbed wire was to be used for

'U.S.-Ngo Dinh Diem -~ concentra-
imprison:

tion camps, built to
South Vietnam workers fighting
for neutrality and peace.

‘to sea”,

x

A birthday, whether of an indi-
vidual or a nation, should be
a happy event, with the years
ahead always pointing to a sy oe
future.

Canada Day of 1962, ninet¥- five
years since that first historic
birthday when the Fathers of
Confederation proclaimed Cana-
da’s “Dominion from Sea to Sea
and to the uttermost ends of the
Earth” is a proud and happy day
— but also one marked by tremen-
dously vital and complex ques-
tions.

We celebrate this natal day of
our Canadian nation with a deep
pride in the achievements of her
native and immigrant peoples,
whose “toil, sweat and tears” have
transformed a vast virgin wilder-
ness into a modern industrial en-
tity.

No less we celebrate the crea-
tion of a great French and English
nation, in which the growing
bonds of unity and understanding
lead ‘to one great objective;. the
sovereign equality and identity of
both, welded together for the sov-
ereign independence, the peace and
the democratic progress from “sea
which is and must remain,
Canada’s heritage and ultimate
destiny.

On this 95th birthday of Can-
ada a sinister U.S.-created mush-
room cloud casts its shadow upon
the vast domain of our country.
From this cloud comes the mult-
iple threat of a vanishing Cana-
dian independence, the expropria-
tien of our rich natural resources,
the domination and control of our
vital industries, the loss of our
markets and our jobs, the econo-

A joy-and a duty

Commen

mic destruction our
people, and the ee squan
ing of our. wealth in a crim
arms race. Regarded by the m
poly royalists of U.S. imperia
as “expendable” in their —
fense”’, the very survival of |
ada as a people and a natiO
gravely threatened.

Not nice thoughts for a Dut
day celebration, but neverth
thoughts which must commé@
the deep concern, the maximll
unié,, and the determined ré
of all Canadians; to choose
before time runs out, whether
birthdays ahead are to be mark
with joy — or the desolation #
nuclear - blasted wilderne®
against which the verdant Natl
of Canada’s matchless beat!
cries out with horror?

These pressing and vital 4!
tions were not resolved i
recent election of the 25th Parl
ment since Confederation, a
twelve days before Cana!
birthday. On the contrary, the
is already every indication ©
the threat to Canada’s indept
dence, peace, and survival»
wellbeing, will materially w®

One decisive power remé
the people who built Canada
whom Canada is not “expendab
nor a thing to be bartered @¥
for a fast profit buck. The pe
united and determnied, is thé
and only assurance for prigh!
birthdays to come for a sovel™
independent Canada, at peace wi
the world — and a true leader ”
a world at peace.

That must signal the peop!
resolve on Canada Day, 1962-_

Pacific Tribune

Editor — TOM McEWEN
Associate Editor—MAURICE RUSH
Business Mgr..OXANA BIGELOW

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Tom
McEwen

"i.

n getting set for the “next” elec-
| tion, quite a load of ideologi-
cal garbage remains to be cleaned
up from the recent one. Much of
this political . debris
other purpose than to confuse and
befuddle the voter before the elec-
tion, and leave him (or her) stag-
gering at the result after the event.

When the election. din had sub-
sided and one of the largest elec-
toral votes on record had voted
in. a minority government, the
weisenheimers made the welkin
ring with their plaintive wail —
“what Canada needs is a strong
government to get things done?”

What these political weather-
cocks mean by “‘‘a strong govern-
ment” is anybody’s guess, but it
may be taken to mean a govern-
ment with a big majority in Par-
liament. If our assumption is cor-

rect then Canada has had more
than enough of that sort of ‘“‘strong
government”. Twenty-two years

rule with a
back-

running of Liberal
whacking big majority of

bench ‘“‘yesmen’’, who vote as they
are instructed by the party Whip,
rather than on the desires and

needs of their constituent electors.

served no

The four years or more of Tory
rule with an all-time top-heavy
“follow John’ majority and the
end results, ditto. The peoples’
most vital interests relegated to
the background, dnd monopoly in
the saddle either way. So much
for the ‘‘strong government”’ wise-
acres who try. to measure
“strength” by counting noses?

A “strong government’ is one
that serves the people, the common
people, first, last and all the time.
A government which places the
peace and wellbeing of the people
before narrow partisan interests
and the monoply  plunderbund
these partisan interests rest upon.

Hence a ‘minority’ government
can also be ‘‘a strong government

. to get things done’”’, providing
what it does or tries to do is done
solely in the interests of the com-
mon people, and which regards
the people as the prime source of
its stTength; an outlook utterly im-
possible by a monopoly-subsidized
“majority”. Any doubts on this
latter score can be checked against
their wild and extravagant ‘‘prom-
ises” during an election campaign
—and promptly forgotten or swept
under the old-line party rug be-
tween elections?

Another specimen of old-line
political garbage tossed around
during elections is the “don’t waste
your vote’ bowel mover. This
rhapsody on ‘waste’ carries. a
double-barrelled illusion; one, that
if the electors vote for anything
other than a Tory or Liberal, his
vote is ‘‘wasted’’; and two, if he

_ “‘wasted?”’

votes for a “John” instead of # |
“Mike” or vice versa, his vote

This ‘theory of waste” (if such
may be termed) has its roots in
two- -party concept of ‘‘democl®
cy”, now very much in crisis. Sine®
Tweedledee and Tweedledum 4
two peas from the same monopol.
cultured pod, the selector whe
votes for either thinking hes (oF
she) is voting for a “change”
something “different”? is most ce
tainly “wasting” his vote. Like
wise the voter who feels fed UP
the gills with either and votes
Social Credit is merely compouB® 4
ing the “waste” with self-dece
tion and worse to follow.

The worst illusion of all is von

ed by the voter who says 1
Communist candidate; ‘You gu!
are alright, your party has a
only program that makes se?

you are the only outfit that spe?”
for the working people — but ¥
haven’t got a chance. I’m going ~

vote for so-and-so.”
The only reply to that, eve?
something of a cliche, is the 9?

thing that makes sense — and pro”
gress; better to vote for somethi™
you want but don’t get it. they
vote for something you don ‘¢ we
and get more of it?

If as and when the next elect
comes around, it will turn SS
much better for” the comme
people if the garbage of “StU@:

government”, ‘‘wasted” votes al
; P

“you haven't ,got a chance

disposed of well ahead of tine

June 29;

1962—PACIF

C TRIBUD