TUT FRONT : By WILLIAM KASHTAN There are increasing signs that another downturn in the economy is in the making, if in fact it is not already here. The latest report on unemployment gave the lie to Prime Minister Diefenbaker, who during the recent election promised that unemployment would be licked come this summer. Instead of being licked it has risen and by this fall and winter will likely take on serious proportions. reports on manufacturing The iatest orders and shipments reflect this trend. They point downwards, as does the stock market, both pointing to the growing in- stability of the Canadian economy. : This time the downward trend is be- ginning to effect practically the entire capitalist world, not only the United States and Canada. * * * Some capitalist economists now say that the downturn in, the economy will be deeper and longer last- ing than previous ones in the postwar period. Whether that is so or not remains to be seen. But one thing can be said: ‘the Diefenbaker government’s austerity program is making the situation worse. Since the austerity program was instituted prices have risen and they will continue to do so, thus- cutting into the living standards of the Canadian people, Gains won by work- ers after hard and bitter struggles have been eliminated en- tirely by price increases and devaluation. And where no gains were won this year, living standards have been cut. The austerity program. which allegedly was directed at curbing imports, has done nothing to curb it. All it has done is raised prices! Yet, given different policies, develop Canada’s natural resources, it would be possible to extend our secondary industries and provide a broader base for strengthening the independence of our country while ensuring that the growing labor force would have work. In one field the government has acted boldly and swift- ly, in the field of wages, where it has imposed a wage-freeze on civil servants. This example has been taken up by many other employers who likewise have been trying to impose wage-freezes on workers—in the name of austerity for the working class and prosperity for monopoly. * * * The growing strike struggle and the gains won, limited though they may be, indicate fairly clearly that the workers are not accepting the false cry of a ‘community of interests” between themselves and monopoly. Nor are they accepting the anti-working class viewpoint advanced by William Mahoney, Canadian director of the Stelworkers Union, that “strikes are obsolete’, a viewpoint which employers were quick to seize upon in order to undertake a strike-breaking drive. In fighting for wage increases the workers are showing that they place the national interest first, for wage increases not only raise purchasing power but broaden the home mar- ket and are therefore one of the important factors in slowing down the operation of the economic cycle. * * * In today’s conditions of growing and chronic unemploy- ment, when all the signs point to a more serious downturn in the economy, when automation increasingly displaces workers and throws them on the scrap heap, what has become perhaps the erucial issue of the day for the trade union movement is the battle for the 35-hour week with no re- duction in takehome pay. Retraining of workers may be useful but gives no work to the unemployed. Severance pay and supplemental unem- ployment insurance, which more and more unions are striv- ing to win in negotiations, must be supported but they are not the path to job security. * Cold war men disto ° real Berlin issues By LANCE SAMSON Br. Daily Worker The present official policy of the Western Powers on Berlin — ‘There is nothing to negotiate’? — could easily become the most famous, and most final, of famous last words in history. For this policy, dictated by Adenauer and de Gaulle, puts world peace at the mercy of the nazis, high. and low, in West Germany and West Berlin. As with every brink-of- war issue, the cold-war prop- agandists have done their ut- most to confuse people. The issue is not: “‘Are you willing to die for Berlin?” The real issue is: “Are you willing to die for the sake of the same German mili- tarists and industrial barons whose might has already been defeated in two world wars?” If the question were posed like this, the answer the world over would be a re- sounding “No.” Mr. Macmillan and Muni- cheer Lord Home, Mr. Ken- nedy and General de Gaulle would have the world believe that all they are doing is to uphold the Potsdam Four- Power Agreements on Berlin and Germany reached at the end of World War II. But the Western Powers have so often and so funda- mentally breached the letter and spirit of, the Potsdam Agreement, that good law and sound common sense for- bid that they should now suddenly claim its protection. Here are some of the steps they have taken in direct contravention of the Potsdam Agreement: e The splifting of Berlin by introducing a_ separate Western currency into West Berlin in 1948. e The splitting of Ger- many by setting up the Bonn Federal Republic in 1949. e The rearming of West Germany and her admittance to NATO. e The return of Nazis to leading positions in the arm- ed forces, the judiciary, the Civil Service and even to Ministerial posts. e The failure to break up the cartels which had pro- vided Hitler with his arma- ments, and the return of his entire Ruhr empire to war criminal: Krupp. Time and again the Soviet Union has since Potsdam urged that a peace treaty laying the foundations for a demilitarized, democratic, united Germany should be concluded. REFUSE TREATY Time_and again the West- ern Powers have refused, in- tent only on building up as large a slice of Germany as they could, as part of the capitalist, aggressive, anti- Socialist NATO alliance. Faced with the © of a West German =) German Democratic lic was set up, and on the building of § It is a German St threatens no other Throughout its GDR has had to f version, spying and PF tion organized fro Berlin, the Western © enclave 110 miles 1 GDR. For years this has carried with it t er of world war. — The Soviet propos® demilitarized free West Berlin, with fu antees for the rights” people of West Berlin once and for all put 08 fuse in the centre of The Soviet Union ™ clear over three years that if the Western =” still refused to nes? Berlin settlement and dis a German peace trealy Socialist countries, 1 others who wish 1 sign a separate peace ~ with the GDR. Since then rearguard action con by Adenauer aided 2 Gaulle has brought approach to negotiati® nought. F When the GDR last 7 puilt the Berlin wall ® guard its own frontiet ,; was seized on by We war maniacs to pring world once again to thé of war. STIR HYSTERIA On the anniversary wall’s erection this ee tried again to whip ¥ rs maximum crisis and t0 | { the Soviet Union GDR. é Now they are iy fi make out that the | g abolition of the post lin commandant }§ fringement of Fout it rule in Berlin, whe? the Western Powers p selves who broke this 4 ears ago. A The Western Powel est Notes to the 5° Ova ion are intended to git ost impression that the willing to talk. But all they are W), af discuss are ‘“incideP" 1 st Berlin wall, not a T@ ment of the Berlin @ aie the nd If job security is to be achieved within the limits of capitalism there is one important way to do it—by a united struggle of the entire trade union movement for reduced hours of work. What the working class ought to be striving for is the 30 or 32-hour work week with no reduction in take home pay, A good beginning in this direction would be man questions. > ee The settlement pee Laos showed that whe is the will, waY° to allt found to solve inter? U.S. TROOPS IN BERLIN. A centre of subversion, spying and provocation against the German Democratic Republic, the NATO powers oppose a neutral Berlin which would remove to fight for and break through for the 35- hour work week. * * * To win on this front, however, as on the others, will re- quire a larger measure of unity, cooperation and solidarity than exists at the present time. A new basis needs to be established for a truly united trade union movement which would include the Canadian Labor Congress, the National Confederation of Trade Unions and all independent unions presently outside the Canadian Labor Congress. Such unity is long overdue to advance labor’s aims on. the economic, legislative and political fields. Until it is achieved organized labor will continue to be on the defensive, fighting a rearguard action when the situation calls for an advance on every front. Monopoly is uniting its forces, as seen in the growing ntmber of mergers and takeovers in this country. These mergers are being used by monopoly to advance its profits at the expense of the jobs, living standards and trade union it as a military base deep in socialist territory. problems peacefully- U.S. PROFS ASK_KENNEDY: “RENOUNCE USE OF NUCLEAR ARMS: President Kennedy was see called on by 177 educators of professional rank from colleges and uni- versities in the Boston area to “renounce — publicly and firmly — the strategic use of nuclear weapons except in response to a nuclear attack” on the U:S. or its allies. In an open letter, also Their appeal to the presi- dent to renounce the first use of nuclear weapons re- lates to the statement by the president last March, is an interview with Stewart Al- sop, that the U.S. might de- cide to begin a nuclear war. Since that time, this policy statement has been repeated several times by Pentagon nuclear force aS ie ug! a “radical shift” t0 © ual lear strategy calle nis 5 oF force’.”” They pase t pel’ cent statements by ose 5 McNamara who pro taty. concentrate U.S. mill rill _clear blows at soviel ‘installations and fe Soviet cities in tack. rights of the workers. Take-overs are being used by USS. published as an advertise- chiefs. The 177 professors = 1 “Does tae monopoly interests to undermine the independence of our ment in the New York Times, warned: : Devices u prog, country. The national interests of the working class both they warned the president “Let us not drift—or de. policy block @ {2am that the armament policy he liberately march — into an ward disarmame? require that the trade union movement be firmly united, be fully autonomous and master in its own house, able not only to effectively defend the interests of its membership but also to advance them. "September 7, 196 STG TRUE teas < is pursuing ‘guarantees con- tinuing failure of disarma- ment negotiations.” aggressive posture.” They suggest that the US. is developing a ‘fantastic’ these circumstance USSR any choices % 9? maintain secrecy: ,