: LABOR FRONT By WILLIAM KASHTAN It is unfortunate that the trade union movement is not reacting with greater vigor to the doctor’s strike against the Saskachewan government’s Medical Care Plan, thereby leav- ing the field wide. open to a reactionary combination of forces to work for the plan’s destruction. Part of the reason for this may be the widespread but mistaken feeling that a strike is a weapon labor is called: upon to respect and support irrespective of its motivation and underlying purposes. Not every strike, however, merits the support of the trade union movement. The question workers need to ask is: “What is the strike for?” Is it to improve living standards? Is it to reduce hours of work? Is it to prevent an aggressive war or preparations for such a war? Is it to prevent a reactionary, fascist coup? * * * The doctors’ strike has no such purpose in mind. Its aim is to prevent a long overdue health measure from being operated, after the voters had already indicated their desire fo. such a measure. There is nothing useful or progressive in this kind of strike. It is a strike backed by elements in the- Liberal Party, the Tories, the insurance companies, the John Birchites and other reactionaries, to pre- vent useful reforms from being imple- mented. It is a strike against the welfare of the people. The workers can have no two opin- ions on this question. They are duty bound: to fight in support of Medicare and against. those who stand in its way. If reactionary forces are prepared to go to considerable lengths, including use of violence to destroy Medicare, the trade union movement throughout the country ought to con- sider various forms of solidarity support, not excluding solidarity strikes, in defense of Medicare. * * * As was to be expected, it did not take long before oppon- ents of Medicare began red-baiting it. The government has been accused of being Communist-dominated. Medicare has been called a Communist conspiracy directed at undermining “free enterprise’. Individuals have been attacked. The purpose behind this red-baiting campaign is of course quite clear. Its inspirers hope that it will divide public opinion and make it more difficult for the government to rally support in defense of Medicare. There is an instructive lesson to the workers in this red- baiting drive which points up the evils of anti-Communism. Behind the banner of anti-Communism, reactionary forces time and again have been able temporarily to hold up or set back the wheels of progress, particularly when the workers are not united. It is part of the irony of fate that men like Jodoin, Mehoney, Sefton and Cotterill, who led the “‘liberation’’ move- ment in Sudbury against Mine-Mill, now find that under the same banner of anti-Communism reaction is leading another “liberation” movement in Saskatchewan to prevent Medicare from being implemented. : Jodoin and Company said that Mine-Mill is “Communist- dominated” and needs to be cleaned out; reactionary elements in Saskatchewan are saying the same thing about the Saskat- chewan government. Jodoin and Company said they had come to Sudbury to “liberate” the miners; reactionary ele- ments in Saskatchewan say they are out to “liberate” the people from the shackles of Medicare. In one case it was the miners who were the victims, in the other it is the people of Saskatchewan and the country as a whole — if reaction is successful in its efforts. * * * It is too much to hope that Messrs. Jodoin, Mahoney, Sefton and Cotterill will have learned anything from this but it is a useful lesson to the working class of the evil pur- poses of red-baiting and anti-Communism and the need to root it out of the working-class movement. Communists don’t hide the fact that they were among the first to raise the issue of government responsibility with respect to health and hospital care, as they were among the first to raise the issue of unemployment insurance and other necessary welfare measures to protect the interests of the Canadian people. They will continue to pioneer on these and other vital issues knowing full well that sooner or later they will be taken up by the labor movement and the people generally. Reaction may try to hold up and eventually destroy Medicare, but cannot succeed, particularly if the entire labor movement unites in its defense. Labor hits pay freeze The Canadian Labor Congress Wednesday condemned the Federal government’s wage freeze for civil servants as. “unfair and discriminatory”. Tuesday Finance Minister Fleming announced that “dur- ing the present emergency period” the 50,000 Federal em- ployees would not receive pay increases. Earlier this year the Civil Service Commission recommended salary raises. Leaders of the civil servants have strongly denounced the government's decision, which is seen by many labor men as an attempt to impose a wage freeze on Canadian labor. ere © ais PINE POINT RAILWAY: Giant firms get gift from public servants BY “OBSERVER” An item in the P.T. during the recent election campaign caused some thought and re- search and resulted in the following notes. The Conservative govern- ment planned to build a rail- road north from the Peace River to Pine Point on Great Slave Lake. The distance is 438 miles and the railway will cost an estimated $86,- 500,000. This plan was pre- sented to the House of Com- mons and approved _unani- mously. Every M.P. agreed that it is necessary to build this railway to open up farm land, (even though the area is already served by a good highway). However, as mentioned at the time, and as disclosed by agreements made when the Bill was passed, the real pur- pose of the line is to permit ‘cheap haulage of ore concen- trates from Pine Point to Trail, B.C: It so happened that the company that owns the smel- ter at Trail, B.C., also owns the Pine Point deposits. This company wants more concen- trates so that it can expand its smelter. An agreement was made that the company concerned, Consolidated Min- ing & Smelting Co. of Canada Ltd., will pay freight charges of $20,000,000 over a 10-year period after the opening of the line. The line is to be built and operated by the nationally-owned C.N.R. WHY NOT C.P.R. One important question that wasn’t asked is: Why isn’t the line being built by the mining company with the aid of the C.P.R. which owns it? The C.P.R. owns one of the largest transportation complexes in the world and surely should be able to build and operate a railway for one of its own subsidiaries. The reason why it does not do so will be apparent from an ex- amination of the facts. The estimated cost of the line js $86,500,000. Interest on this amount at 6% per year is $5,190,000. The cost in Can- ada (according to the Canada Year Book) to operate and maintain railroads is about $26,000 a mile per year. Assuming that this line will have low volume of traffic and costs will only be half of this amount, the cost per mile will be about $13,000 and the cost for the 438 miles per year will be about $5,- 694,000. Depreciation on $86,- 600,000 at rate asked by the C.P.R. of 4.38% per year will be about $3,800,000. The total cost per year then, will be about $14,684,000. This is without making any pay- ments towards reducing the debt of $86,500,000. en (IN ~ Canard Enchaine (Paris) ANOTHER U.S. SPY? $12 MILLION DEFICIT The government expects to receive from C.M.&S. for freight, about $2,000,000 a year. Revenue from minor sources may be about $684,- 000, making :a total revenue of about $2,684,000. The dif- ference between this revenue and costs of $14,684,000 is $12,000,000 which will be the amount of the deficit in the first year of operation. Nowh West Tenilery. Hy--— Ncow®THERN ALBERTA "RAILWAY. Map above shows how the C.P.R. and its subsidiary C.M. & S. would haul ore from Great Slave Lake to Trail at a fraction of the actual cost, due to generosity of Canada’s last Parliament. Because the revenue will fall so far short of repaying costs, the government will be forced to issue more bonds to the amount of $12,000,000 and consequently in succeed- ing years interest charges and deficits will greatly increase. If the line were built by the C.P.R. the company would have to charge much higher freight rates in order to keep operating. This would reduce — CHINAWARE — LINENS Open 9-5:30 Daily 9-9:00 Friday Julye2s. 219 62—I LOOKING FOR UNUSUAL BUYS AT POPULAR PRICES? We have an interesting choice. of goods from U.S.S.R., Czechoslovakia, China and Poland. TEA AND CONFECTIONARY FROM U.S.S.R. — EMBROIDERED GOODS — SOVIET WRIST WATCHES — CERAMIC FIGURINES We specialize in arranging tourist visits to the Soviet Union ie a ACIFIC TRIBUN await