== |

By WILLIAM BEECHING

The produce of Canadian
farms and the output of Cana-
dian industries are not super-
fluous. There are customers for
our goods both in Canada, where
many people are in want, and in
the world, where many are in
dire want.

Efforts to prevent unemploy-
ment and increase the income
of the Canadian working people
are at the same time efforts to
extend the home market for our
farm and manufactured goods,
And the road to greater foreign
markets lies through trade agree-
ments with the socialist coun-
tries, whose economies are
booming, and the developing
countries, whom we should be
helping to build up their econo-
mies, thus assuring good cus-
tomers both now and in future:

Shipments of arms to main-
tain regimes that keep the sub-
merged countries and the masses
of their people poor may pro-
vide war profiteers with a “fast
buck”, but they don’t build our
economy or win us customers.

The fact is that the majority
of mankind -is hungry for the
useful things we produce in our
plants, mines and farms.

As an article in Scientific
American (November 1968 issue)
demonstrated, two-thirds of the
globe’s population is in coun-
tries where the annual income
per capita is less than $300.
That means that the masses of
people in those countries are
hungry, which in turn means
that the current glut of food,
particularly wheat,.in Canadian
granaries need not be.

Per capita figures of course ~

include the small minority of
well-to-do along with the vast
majority of improverished, but
they help to give a measure of
the state of affairs.

So, 2,100 million people live in
countries whose average per
capita income is less than $300.
Almost 1.9 billion live in coun-
tries where the average income
falls below $200 a year. Thus
the. author of the survey draws
the poverty line at an income of
$300 a year, which is only three-
sevenths of the poverty line for
the United States. :

Housing conditions in many
of these countries are appalling.
The 1966 development plan of
the Calcutta Metropolitan Plan-
ning Organization states that
adequate housing is “not within
the bounds of feasible achieve-
ment over a 25-year period.”

The problem is so enormous
that the plan only evisages the
construction of open-sided sheds
to serve as shelters. One. estim-
ate claims that 77 percent of the
families in Calcutta have less
than 40 square feet (6 feet
square) of living space per per-
son. :

The problem of disease and .

food spoilage is always directly
linked to the problems of pov-
erty. Infant mortality in the
Cameroons is over 500% higher
than in the United States, and
in one part of Brazil it is 1000
percent higher.

In Indonesia, and in all Afri-
can countries, there is one doc-
tor per 30,000 inhabitants. In
some parts of Asia there is one
doctor for 6,000 inhabitants.

What about nutrition? This is
fundamental. Hunger weakens
resistance to disease, lowers
ability to work.

Almost 1.8 billion people live
in calorie-deficient regions. It is
estimated that from one-third to
ene-half of the world’s popula-
tion, suffers. from protein defi-

PENG. ove 1 YAM VAC 9H4Ua

Jala

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, MAY 15, 1970

Scientific. American does not
suggest how to solve the prob-
lem of food. It is certainly be-
yond the ability of Canadians to
solve it alone. But it won’t be
done by us not growing wheat.
Or by defoliating the lands and
killing the people there!

If every one of the two billion
people living in diet deficient
regions got a pat of butter, one
egg, and one-fifth of a cup of
cereal-more per day, they’d still
be getting 275 calories a day
less than the average person
needs for adequate nutrition.
Just the supplying of the forego-
ing would require increased pro-
duction each day of 26 million
pounds of butter, 2.4 billion
eggs, and 246 million pounds of
cereal grains—EACH DAY.

Now let your imagination
range. It would need 200 million
one-dozen egg cartons more
each day. How many factories
would it need to produce them,
how many pulp trees would

have to be cut, moved and pro-
cessed, how many freight cars

would it take, just for this one’

item — and that leaves out all
the chickens, all the chicken
feed and the buildings in which
to house them.

But the potential market is
not only for agricultural goods.

Asia, Africa and Latin Ameri-
ca, comprising 70% of its indus-
trial output, 5% of the iron, and
steel, and 3% of the engineering
goods..

This’ is the inheritance of
colonialism and the fruit of neo-
colonialism.

Of the 350 million families in

the world engaged in farming,
250 million possess as their sole
implement a hoe or a wooden
plough, another 90 million have
an iron plough pulled by animal
power other than human, and 10
million only have a tractor or
motor plough. Only 2% of the
world’s rice crop, which is eaten
by 50% of the world’s popula-
tion, is harvested with harvester
combines.
. It is estimated that Latin Am-
erica needs 5,000,000 tractors. At
$6,000 each, would involve the
amount Canada has spent in 20
years on war.

Take the petro-chemical in-
dustry. In Asia 30 to 40% of
some food is lost through spoil-
age, 40% of all fruit rots before
it can be eaten, 30% of all eggs
are lost through spoilage, and
10% of all Asian grain is de-
stroyed by insect pests.

Our country should be looking
there for markets—and not crip-
pling our economy and impov-
erishing our people by an “aus-
terity” program and . spending
$1.8 billion for criminal war.

Labor should take steps to
turn Canada’s face in that direc-
tidn.' ak Ho 3a ba > ents S174 i

JP Vas

bE DIFDSS
—Page 8 .

?

Kashtan says labor action
essential to compel peace

“Student actions, while heroic, won’t
bring about fundamental change until
the labor movement moves into action,”
William Kashtan told a public meeting
called by the Metro-Toronto Communist

Party to protest the U.S.

Cambodia and the killing of Kent stu-

dent demonstrators.

The focus of the efforts at the present

ed by the international move-
ment. for peace, he said that the
half-billion worldwide signatures
to the Stockholm Appeal eight
years ago helped to curb the
atomic arms race, and that a
billion signatures now from all
parts of the globe to the OUT-
NOW petition would bring about
a radically new situation.
e

Mr, Kashtan declared that
Nixon’s acceleration of aggres-
sion abroad and repression at
home ‘expressed the growing
crisis, difficulties and bankrupt-
cy of US. policy.

“The U.S. was defeated mili-
tarily in South Vietnam. Despite
everything it could do, it was
defeated by the heroism of the
Vietnamese people, the support
they received from socialist and
other countries, and the growing
opposition to the war in the
United States. Therefore Nixon
changed his tactic, proposed
‘Vietnamization’ of the war, that
is, to make the Vietnamese fight
Vietnamese, Asians fight Asians,
and agreed to join in negotia-
tions with the representatives of
the Democrati¢ Republic of Viet-
nam and the National Liberation
Front of South Vietnam. The
aim remained the establishment
of U.S. control over Indochina
and Southeast Asia, however.

“At the Paris talks the U.S.
rejected any idea of uncondi-
tional withdrawal of U.S. troops
from South Vietnam, demanding.

_that the Vietnamese forces fight-

ing for the liberation of their
homeland must withdraw as a
condition for U.S. withdrawal.
Secondly, the U.S. rejected any
idea that the people of South
Vietnam should be free to de-
cide their future, insisting that
elections should be conducted by
their Saigon puppet regime,
which would collapse overnight
if the U.S. forces were with-
drawn.”

Mr. Kashtan quoted represen-
tatives of the Vietnamese, with
whom he talked during the re-
cent Lenin Centenary celebra-
tion in Moscow, to the effect
that negotiations were thus
brought to a dead end and the
U.S. evidently is still trying to

By JOHN: WEIR

Canada sai

invasion of to decide f

OUTNOW
by the U.S.

decide the issue on the battle-
field, therefore the fight would
go on-until the U.S. imperialists
“came to their senses.”

: C)
While speaking of “planned
withdrawal” in order to allay
U.S. and world opinion, the
Nixon administration prepared
to extend military aggression in
Indochina. A coup d’etat was
engineered by the CIA to over-
throw Prince ‘Sihanouk; who
held firmly to the policy af neu-
trality, while the. latter was
abroad conducting negotiations
in Paris, Moscow and Peking.
The puppet Lon Nol regime in

Cambodia, however, could not
get people’s support any more
than the Saigon regime in South
Vietnam, and was facing col-
lapse. The U.S. invasion came
precisely at the moment when
Sihanouk was conducting nego-
tiations with the people’s forces,
including the Communists, in
Cambodia for the purpose of
forming a united liberation front
to overthrow the reactionary
Lon Nol regime. Sihanouk had
promised he would return and
lead the Cambodian struggle for
national and social liberation.
This is precisely why the U.S.
intervened. ;

It may well be that U.S. stra-
tegy is aimed at “containing”
China, Mr. Kashtan said. .

The U.S. invasion of Cambodia
widens the door to unity in the
fight against U.S. imperialism. It
is to be hoped that. the urgency
of the situation would lead to a
rapprochement between the So-
viet Union and Peole’s China.

“All honor to the U.S. youth!”
exclaimed the Canadian Com-
munist ledder. Despite differen-
ces in ideology, American youth:
are playing a profound role in
this critical time when rifts are
growing in the ruling circles, as
evidenced by threats of resigna-
tion by members of Nixon’s cab-
inet and of 250 persons from the
U.S. external affairs department,
and the growing opposition of
sections of the capitalist class
itself to the war.

“The U.S. military adventure
in Cambodia shows the weak-
. im gis Mr.

U

i
i

y END
CANADA

| =\coneutt
AVIETN

rm

Scenes from May 9 peace demonstration in Toronto.

Ms GF S259 SY ek

PHOTOS—TONY KAY

SRA OD

police as a rehearsal to deal with
| civil unrest. While we may Cc?!

stage, the national leader of the CP of

d, was to compel the U.S. #0

withdraw from Indochina, and to make
the imperialist powers respect the: sov’
ereignty of all nations and their rig f

or themselves their way 9

life. Urging all-out support for the
petition campaign launchet

peace movement and endo!

Kashtan said. “If it could 0
defeat the heroic people of Viet
‘nam, how can it hope to 8#
military victory over the people
of Cambodia and Laos who aft
rising to defend their nativé
land?

“What is clear is that Uo:
imperialism can’t reverse
course of history. It can ©
harm, but united struggle will
‘repulse the imperialists.”

The reaction of the Canadial
government in whitewashing thé
U.S. invasion of Cambodia
“nothing short of scandalous,
Mr. Kashtan stated. “Extern@
Affairs Minister Mitchell ShatP
said we would neither condem?

nor approve because, according”

to him, we must place equé
blame on the Vietnamese .- - '
But even the puppet Lon Nol t&
gime in Cambodia had neve
asked for U.S. troops to go int0
the country, it had only request
arms, yet Mr. Sharp in fact suP”
ports blatant U.S. aggression.
“There was nothing new
the fact that with the Sihanouk

policy of neutrality the vient
ese had been allowed ‘to US*

certain routes, trails, simply f0!
transport of supplies. Why now
does the Canadian governmen
use this as the reason for refus.
ing to condemn U.S. invasion ©
Cambodia? Sharp says Nix
has assured that the operations
by the U.S. in Cambodia are i
‘be limited, and that the U.S. W?
_withdraw when its objectiv®
have been achieved there . - ;
Who but Mr. Sharp can be fout
today to have any faith
Nixon undertakings?

“This not only not quiet diplo
macy, but open whitewashing °
U.S. aggression . . . The Cana
dian people will not accept this
The Trudeau government mus
be compelled to demand U-»:
withdrawal from Vietnam, ff
Cambodia, from Indochina. +
Canadian people must also '
mand that our governmed’
which has already bloodied i!
hands in the criminal wat _
Vietnam by shipping arms to t
U.S. for use there, must not ?
‘allowed to bloody its hands bY

, shipping arms to the U.S. for U?
in Cambodia.” a

Mr. Kashtan called for vis!

lance to counter the desper

a

_ actions of the imperialists.

“The police break-up of oe
Toronto peace demonstratlO,
was described by the chief °

iti-
cize some stupid actions

small groups among the demo?

strators, the police action
premeditated provocation. The
labor movement and all dem?
cratic Canadians must prote’
against these actions direct®
to the suppression of disse? i
and also must build a movemen,
in defence of civil liberties 2
for assistance to victims of *
pression.”

The audience also paid tribv!
to the late UAW leader, Wall@
Reuther.

St A each wet, Anh oem

~aTo ase

(pegs ES A ER