Ts, hen of “contemporary
Bias “si e tragic debacle of
ides a a in France pro-
.,. a €ssons. Not the least

8 the abject surrender

f the
‘ila Socialist party to the
“iking its

rofascist

of bourgeois reaction,
desperate plight in the
“ >

Strong-man” rule of

en
eral Charles de Gaulle.

4 pions of words will un-
‘te . . spoken and written on
jog. tophic events, but no
al ot ever hide the sordid
te Br the Fourth Republic by
each Socialists.

Bett th

onic turn of history the
t Se France momentarily
Patty, the hands of the Socialist
yy *ctant World waited, tense and
the Vote ©n the decision. Would
‘thai of the Socialist deputies
fetta, ee against a de Gaulle
‘y “a 'P for the preservation of
hited nat democracy through a
. i. With the Communist
Ny Class € great French work-
tid “4 Or would the Socialists
ing favor of French reaction
the : last-ditch “strong-man,”

centric de Gaulle?

e
a :

boy, teful answer is already

Mea : "ightened by the Algerian
"thin eats of “civil war,” the
the ae Socialist leaders (not for
Wed i Se in history) capitu-

Surgeois treason to the

. lic a
it nd threw the weight of
WPort to de Gaulle.

lik segmented
Py, the

“ . . ” .
as Socialist” Thiers of
hp 0 fe

De ared the French work-
hangs Ple More than he did Bis-

inyad; :
bites a Vading armies, then at the
a

ae French Socialist

’acific Tribune

Pp
MUtual 5-5288
Man : or — TOM McEWEN
5 Editor — HAL GRIFFIN

Subscription Rates:
ee Year: $4.00
iX months: $2.25

Pp
Roon vlished weekly at
— 426 Main Street
Neonver 4, B,C.

y hag
huts “7 4nd Commonwealth
tng Year, xcept Australia); $4.00
al] ot Ustralia, United States
€F countries: $5.00 ons

year,

French Socialist betrayal

leaders of today were more fearful
of unity with the French working
class and its great Communist party
than they were of the representa-
tives of French imperialism and its
would-be savior, de Gaulle.

xt ies

Whatever the future may hold
for France under de Gaulle’s con-
cept of government, freedom-loving
people the world over do not forget
that two generations of Frenchmen
in this century died in their tens
of thousands in two world wars to
preserve democracy and keep
would-be dictators from the throat

of France.

It has remained for French social
democracy once again to play its
historic role as the caretakers of
bourgeois reaction; to hoist the tat-
tered rag of Vichy, and vote a suc-
cessor to Petain with a de Gaulle.
Truly, as a great French writer once
commented on a similar betrayal of
the French people, “Well may the
stones of Paris weep.”

EDITORIAL PAGE *

It's our responsibility

ITH the exception of those who

place their trust for peace in
John Foster Dulles, the great ma-
jority of the Canadian people will
welcome the timely warning of Rus-
cian Premier Nikita Khrushchev to
Prime Minister Diefenbaker.

Khrushchev’s statement, delivered
to Diefenbaker this week, points
out that the government of Canada
must share responsibility for the
“peace endangering flights of
American planes with atomic and
hydrogen bombs to the borders of
the Soviet Union. We state with
profound regret that the govern-
ment of Canada has not refrained
from sharing with the government
of the USA to a certain degree the
responsibility for such flights.”

% 5s it

This responsibility for hostile
acts against the Soviet Union by
trigger-happy U.S. atomaniacs, is

implicit in the NORAD agreement,
in which the Diefenbaker govern-
ment not only placed the Royal
Canadian Air Force under U.S.

command, but following the recent
Paris NATO meet, signed away
control of the Canadian Northland
and skies to the U.S., thus facili-
tating its nuclear-war provocations
against the USSR.

$e 5 O3 os

No one should be surprised if
the USSR holds some reservations
and doubts about our professed
friendship and “neutrality,” or
spells out for us in clear terms our
responsibilities on such a grave
issue. That is precisely what the
Khrushchev letter to Diefenbaker
does, and no amount of Tory de-
magogy can evade or circumvent
such a responsibility and its pos-
sible grave consequences.

The duty of all Canadians who
earnestly desire peace is plain: to
impress upon the Diefenbaker gov-
ernment the urgent necessity of

clearing U.S. forces from Canadian

territory and skies.

Tom
McEwen

HATEVER other emotions it
W may arouse, a short look at
some angles in Canadian history
provides a fine illustration on
how not to “catch up with the
Russians,” or anybody else.

Such a scrutiny shows among
other things, and despite our
vaunted progress, that it is pos-
sible for a fine country like ours
to remain exactly on the same
spot for 25 years or more, with-
out moving forward one inch.

A few examples. Back in 1931
when R. B. “Iron Heel” Bennett
had purchased the leadership of
the Conservative party with his
Eddy Match millions, he was
wont to thunder, “Elect me to
power and I will blast my way
into the markets of the world.”

That sounded good-to a lot of
farmers, businessmen. and even
big industrialists, caught in the
grip of a market crisis. It also
sounded good to nearly a million

jobless workers between Halifax
and Vancouver, living on “char-
ity” handouts and hunting jobs
that didn’t exist.

Wheat farmers had piles of
wheat they couldn’t sell for 25
cents a bushel, though lots of the
world’s people, then as now, were
hungry. Alberta’s range farmers
were raising horseflesh, the famed
“bronchos,” tough as nails and
as ornery as a supreme court
judge handing out anti-picketting
injunctions. There was no “mar-
ket” for broncos, the “critters were
eating their heads off,” and the
proletariat hadn’t as yet reached
that “progressive” stage of sub-
stituting horse steaks for ham-
burgers.

The Soviet Union wanted to
purchase thousands of tons of
wheat. Saviet purchasing agents
were in Alberta, ready to buy up
(at good prices to the farmers)
thousands of bronchos for ship-
ment to the USSR.

Then came ancther blast from
the Tory high priest. Gone the
pledges to seek “new markets”
as a means of solving the prob-
lems of the crisis-ridden farmers
and jobless workers. “No, no, we
will have no truck or trade with
the godless Soviets.” The farmers
could burn wheat in lieu of coal,
the jobless could continue job-

less, but Bennett stuck tight to
his Tory formula for “godliness.”
at xt Bes

Twenty-seven years later in the
parallel circumstances of grow-
ing economic crisis in farm and
factory alike, another Tory prime
minister (this time on the issue
of recognition and trade with
People’s China) adopts a similar
sanctimonious pose and booms,
“No recognition or trade with
Communist China until she has
expiated her crimes under inter-
national law.”

Again our farmers can sweat
it cut and see their markets, to-
gether with their government and
its trade policies, subordinated to
the wishes and dictates of Wash-
ington; to see big Canadian grain
shipments to China vetoed be-
cause, forscoth, “our U.S. neigh-
bors. wouldn't like it.”

In some respects we haven't
progressed much during the past
27 years.

If, as the story goes, the late
Liberal chieftain Mackenzie King
consulted with the spooks on all
matters of high state policy, it
is becoming equally clear that
the ghost of “Iron Heel’ Bennett
wearing a John Foster Dulles
frown still stalks the Tory corri-
dors in Ottawa. How otherwise
could a 1958 Tory prime minister
find himself in such “godly” ex-
clusiveness as his predecessor of
27 years ago?

June 6, 1958 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 5