The staggering cost of war

ARMS RACE USES HALF WORLD'S LABOR

The atomic age. The age of
interplanetary travel. The age
of electricity and automation.
We have become used to such
definitions, but for many peo-

. ple they are untrue. This may

sound paradoxical, but let us

_ ive deeped thought to the ex-
isting situation.

‘Does our planet, populated
by almost 2,800 million people,
really live in an era of wide
use of atomic power and elec-
tricity, in an era of general
progress, wide’ application of
Science and automation of
manual labor. By no means!

According to UNESCO data
two-fifths of mankind are illit-
erate and use a cross or a
fingerprint instead of a signa-
ture, just as people did hund-
reds of years ago. Hundred
percent literacy is still the pre-
rogative of very few countries.
Even in the United States
there are still five million
adults who can neither read
nor write,

“Two-thirds: of the world’s
population do not get sufficient

food and over half are starv-
ing,

Plague, cholera, leprosy,
yaws and smallpox are still
scourges of humanity. In Bur-
ma there are 200,000 lepers.
During the last cholera epi-
demic in Egypt 20,472 fresh
graves were dug, and a small-
pox epidemic carried off 15,-
000 people in Pakistan and
140,000 in Bengal.

These deaths need never
have happened. But there were
not enough hospitals, doctors
and medicines. On the average
there are 2,184 people per
doctor in the world. If every-
one could hope to occupy the
attention of a doctor for as
little as three hours a year
(and this is a minimum re-
quired by even absolutely
healthy people), patients would
have to sit in the waiting room
for, believe it or not, two or
three years.

® 3

Industrial development? In-

dustrialization? But 48 of the

89 largest countries in the

world have no industry watso-
ever. Thirty-three states in
which almost half the world’s
population lives, have one and
a fifth miles of railway line
per 650 square miles.

The production of electric-
ity per head of population
throughout the world is 555
kwh, ‘a year. This is not even
enough to supply irons, razors,
and other everyday appliances
if they were used by mankind
as a whole.

And with all this the man
of the 20th century is great
and powerful. He really has
harnessed the atom, reached
the moon, and created a rep-
lica of the human brain in the
electronic machine. He has
conquered some of the most
insidious diseases.

Man deserves a better fate,
he has won this right with his
labor and the achievements of
his intellect. And he can have
a happier life.

For this we have to wipe
out, once and for all, the pos-
sibility of war, we have to

abolish armies and armaments.
e@

What is war? It is death and
bloodshed, hunger and disease,
misery and multitudes of crip-
ples and orphans, it is moral
devastation and the destruction
of love. War is all that pre-
vents man from being what
he should be—the master and
remaker of nature.

What a tragic paradox un-
derlies human society today.
Half the amount of all the
labor in the world is used in
one way or another for arma-
ments and the upkeep of arm-
ies. This means that half their
working day people toil for
lifé and happiness, and the
other half for the destruction
of what they have just ac-
complished.

In the last 45 years. the
world has wasted about $3,-
000,000,000,000 — three mil-
lion million dollars — on mil-
itary expenditure.

One’s imagination boggles
at such a sum. But it has van-
ished, disappeared into thin

blood, the warped metal of

them,

Wars are like A HEMONES be-
coming more and more ter-
rible and costly. World War 1
deprived each family in the
world of a small plot of land
and a house. World War II
was much more expensive.

Had it not been for this con-
flict, every child could have
had a secondary education,
every family could have had
a five-room apartment, and
there would be a new hospital
for every 5,000 people.

In our days military expen"
diture has reached an unpre-
cedented level — more than
100 thousand million dollars
per year. Moreover, the arms
race keeps over 100 million
people — young people, full
of vigour and energy — away
from creative labor.

—by I. Adabeshov

in Moscow News

AUTOMATION.

* MORE AND MORE PRODUCTION

WITH LESS AND LESS WORKERS" =)

New sawmill machine

to replace

thousands

A new machine has now been produced in Seattle,

Washington, to step up automation

in sawmills and

replace thousands of workers.

According to a report carried
recently in the Seattle Times
the new machine is an auto-
matic lumber-sorter.

The unit is ten feet wide, 35
feet long and ten feet high.
Random lengths and dimen-
sions.of lumber are fed into the
sorter by a chain conveyor,

OBITUARY

STATEMENT
Continued From Page 1
Diefenbaker of the possible
consequences of Canada being
used as a launching. site for
UsS. aggression. To send mili-
tary aircraft over the territory
of another country is more
than-espionage — it is an cOpen

act of aggression.

“The Communist Party de-
clares that this latest episode,
especially coming as it does on
the eve of; meeting at: the Sum-
mit, is further proof of the
necessity of Canadian neutral-
ity. and independence in ‘for:
eign policy.

. “As the Communist Duce
told the Government of Canada
oniFebruary 13th last, the only
safe and sensible policy for
Canada and its best contribu-
tion to world peace, is to de-
‘clare its neutrality, prohibit
the stationing of U.S. nuclear

weapons on Canadian terri-
tory, withdraw from NATO
and NORAD, reduce arms ex-
penditures, and support all
measures in the United Nations
and the 10-nation disarmament

action for world peace.

The U.S. spy, caught red-
handed over Soviet territory,
has brought to the attention of
Canadians the grave danger we
are in as a result of our in-
volvement in U:S. military
plans. :

“The thing to do is-to un-
thitch Canada from the US.
'|-war machine.

“The Communist Party joins
with the Canadian public in de-
-manding action from: the: Gov-
‘ernment to:do:this, and: so-safe-
guard Canada from the U.S.
provocations which, if un-
checked by mass pressure can
provoke war.”

Cumberland CP asks
coal mine action

A demand that the provin-.
committee which makes for| cial

government cancel ali
coal rights now held by Can-
adian Colleries on Vancouver
Island was made by the Cum-
berland Communist Party
club last week.

The démand arose out of the
companies policy of curtailing
mining operations on Vancou-
ver Island while investing

‘their profits in oil wells and
‘the logging and sawmill in-

dustry. There are now only
60 men employed in Cumber-

‘land out of an original 240.

The Cumberland club asks

‘that the provincial govern-

ment administer the coal de-
posits to ensure that maxi-
mum employment is kept up.

British Columbia labor lost
a veteran leader this week in
the death of Jack Stevenson in
his 80th year.

A member of the United
Brotherhood of Carpenters and
Joiners, Brother Stevenson ser-
ved as business agent and other
official positions in Local 452
of his union for many years.
He also served as president of
the Vancouver Labor Council
for a number of years.

During the 30’s Jack Steven-
son took an active part in the
struggles of the unemployed,
and in his union was one of the
outstanding fighters for ‘‘out-
of-town free board and room”
for building trade workers.

Jack Stevenson is survived
by his wife, one daughter and
two grand children. “Funeral
services were held at 1. p.m.,
Wednesday, May 18, at the
Mount Pleasant Funeral Home.

pass by a
stand and are automatically

trays.. The machine is adapt-
able to lumber of any minimum

or maximum length, dimension
or number of different sorts.

answer to the sawmill oper-

medium-size mill, turning out
more than 50,000 board. feet a

five to ten men a shift in sorit-

be replaced by one man push-
ing» buttons.

there has been considerable
progress made in introducing

Pacific Northwest. But there

and timbers. This. new machine
is designed. to fill. that, gap.

its. trial run did not volunteer
any opinion what will happen

out. of work-by ‘the-new inven-

tion,

May 20, 1960—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page- 2

air, leaving behind a sea of .

blown-up plants and factories, |
devastated towns and villages, |
54 million cripples and graves ,
on all sides — 32 million of .

one-man-control |

segregated into five different .

One man can operate the ~

machine at its push-button
console.
According to the Seatile
Times this machine is the .

ator’s prayer. THe reason: A ~

day, commonly employs from .

ing lumber by hand. These will -

The article points out that .
automation in sawmills inthe .
has-been an ‘“‘automation gap” ,

in sorting heavy-boards, planks .

The; sawmill operators who
watched’ the new machine on .

to the thousands of sawmill -
workers who will be thrown