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THE NATION |

total value of products sold to Britain

By TIM BUCK

~ CCF-supported Liberal policies
cutting off farmers’ markets

AMES GARDINER, St. Laurent’s minister of agricul-
ture, startled a great Many ‘Canadians a week ago by.

informing an audience in Brantford, Ontario, that while
Canada had made strenuous efforts during the war to
supply Britain with pork, eggs, cheese, milk, wheat and
other foods:

‘During the last two years a very decided effort has
been made to drive every one of these products excepting
wheat off the British market.. And now that the four
year wheat contract is drawing to a close an effort is
being made to drive off a considerable parte of our wheat
as well.”

A few days later Gardiner addressed the Dominion-
Provincial Farm Conference in Ottawa and re-emphasiz-
ed all the essential features of his Brantford speech. To
the conference he disclosed the following ominous situ-
- ation:

Except for wheat and cheese there is very little pros-
pect of substantial sales to Britain in 1950. Britain may

buy a limited amount of bacon if Can-
ada will agree to ship that much less
in dollar value of the wheat | that
Britain has contracted to buy. The

will be the same. Even the question
of Whether a contract can be negotiat-
ed for cheese depends upon whether
agreement can be reached on the
price, ‘The British government wants
the price reduced from 30 cents per
pound to 24 cents per pound.
Representatives of farm organiza-
tions added that such a 20 percent cut
in cheese prices would bring a decline from the present
prices of milk, butter and other dairy products. The same
spokesmen admitted that the dairy industry, poultrymen
and other sectors of agriculture will suffer huge financial
losses unless the government does something to protect
them against this sudden loss of the British market and,

if the price of bacon is reduced as the British govern- .

ment, urges, bacon prices may collapse in Canada also.

The minister's statements were greeted by a furore
of headlines and editorials. A Toronto paper (Liberal)
reported his Brantford speech under the following head-
line: “U.K. Drive Canada Out World-Wide Collapse of
Trade is Forecast.” A Tory Toronto daily commented
editorially upon the minister’s speeches under the head-
ing: “A-Confession of Failure.” An influential weekly
magazine described the Brantford speech as “the most
remarkable yet in a long line of remarkable speeches.”
Th editorial comment in that journal was under the
heading: “Jimmy in Wonderland.” The argument in the
editorial shows that the editor doesn’t consider it “Won-
derland” at all, but blunderland. He didn’t say that, how-
ever, because he, through the pages of that journal, sup-
ported the policy of which Jimmy Gardiner’s farm con-

tracts were a consequence.

It is notable that all the criticisms that appeared in
the capitalist press of Jimmy Gardiner and his speeches
avoided the real cause of the crisis. The minister of ag-
riculture obliged them in this respect by levelling his
violent and utterly unjustified accusation against the
British Labor government a few days in advance of his
official statement to the Dominion-Provincial farm con-
ference. As a result the capitalist press was able to
direct public attention to the minister’s accusations in-
stead of to’the disaster which now threatens Canadian
farmers, and to “inquire” into whether or not the min-
ister’s accusation is justified instead of into the source

of this catastrophe

e f
‘The reason the capitalist press does not want an ob-
jective inquiry into the real source of the troubles now
piling upon Canada’s farmers is because every capitalist
daily in Canada supported! and still supports the aims of
the policies which have brought this disaster upon us.
Where there was or is difference of opinion between
, them and Jimmy Gardiner, the difference is entirely as
“to the means and measures by which Canada should be
involved in the reckless and predatory schemes by which

’ the United States imperialists brought this crisis on.

P All of them nave consistently suppor ted the aims to-
wards which the St. Laurent.government directed its
foreign trade policies. The CCF, as well as the Tories
and the Social Credit leaders, has consistently ‘supported
St. Laurent’s policy of subordinating Canada’s trade with
Britain to over-riding aims and policies which are shap-
ed and directed in Wall Street and over which Canada
has no control. To see how hypocritically and politically
dishonest they are in’ their protestations against Gardin-
er’s current outbursts one needs but to look back to
es frequent attempts to claim credit for much of the

general policy which has now brought disaster.

The plain truth is that Canadian exports could have
been maintained at the level to which they climbed in
the abnormal conditions of the war and the immediate
postwar period only if the government would have ac-
cepted foreign trade policies based upon the new condi-
tions and relationships brought into being by the war.

To maintain and extend further our trade with Brit-
ain in the face of Britain’s inadequate dollars required
economic cooperation between Canada and all countries
of the Commonwealth to treat their combined markets
as one in economic cooperation with the USSR and the
New Democracies. To expand Canada’s exports in coun-
tries into which they have never gone before, or only to
a limited extent, require trade and economic cooperation
with the third of mankind who are now united under the
banner of socialism.

e 4

Part of the responsibility for the catastrophe over-
taking Canada’s farmers rests upon the leaders of the
farm: organizations. Some people argue that the farm
leaders are in trouble enough already, with the loss of
United Kingdom markets, without blaming them for the
policies which brought on the disaster. Such people are
mistaken. The loss of U.K. markets makes it necessary
to seek out other markets for Canada’s products, both
farm and industrial. The breakdown of the food export

policies introduced after the war makes it necessary to_

formulate new policies. Canadian farmers won't be pro-
tected against the threatening collapse by simply and

conveniently placing all the blame for past mistakes upon ;

the shoulders of Jimmy Gardiner.

To secure an adequate measure of protection against
the threatening calamity and to get their products into
whatever markets are still available, Canadian farmers
must study the reasons why such a terrific mistake was
made in 1946—-when the character and aims of Canada’s

postwar farm export policy were decided. They must.

admit that the majority of them supported the policy
then introduced because, with a few honorable excep-
tions, the leaders of their farm organizations were assur-
ing them that it was a policy which would best serve the
interests of the farmers.

Let me add here that these leaders were not alone
in their championship of the Liberal government's poli-
cies. The Douglas and Manning governments in Saskat-
chewan and Alberta, and the national and provincial
leaders of the CCF, were all unanimous in their support
of the policies by which the Liberal government at Ot-
tawa sacrificed the seaic interests of Canadian SEDEUS
ture,

'* The leaders of the farm organizations did not en-
dorse the change in the aims of the Liberal government's
farm export policy without consideration. They were
compelled to consider the change, at least “enough to en-
able them to argue against those of us who opposed it.
The LPP pointed out consistently that the policy being
introduced was not in the best interests of Canada’s
farmers. We urged the farmers to consider the evident
possibilities for policies that would help bring long term
stability and probably greater returns. We explained
that the interests of Canada’s farmers were being sacri-

ficed in a short-sighted, short-term use of exports for

imperialist purposes in the cold war.

A substantial number of rang and file’farmers saw
we’ were right but, with few exceptions, farm leaders
denounced our criticisms as “destructive”. They refused
to even discuss our proposals for consideration of policies
that would correspond with the new conditions brought
into being during the war.

The reason the majority of the farm leaders chose

to line up with the CCF in support of the Liberal party’s .

kims, was because that was their alternative to facing
the fact that the war did change the world. In a sense
they accepted and supported Liberal policies because
those policies were directed against the new world then
taking form, Today, the CCF leaders are still supporting
the foreign aims and policies of the St. Laurent govern-
ment against the New Democracies solely because they
are anti-Communist policies directed against the Soviet
Union. ~

But, while those policies the CCF leaders support so
avidly are aim@d against the people of the socialist sector

of the world, the first to suffer from their ill-effects are.

usually the people of Canada.

In his determination to integrate Canada in the back-
ward-looking attempt to restore the worldwide rule of
finance-capital, its monopolies and international cartels,

Prime Minister St. Laurent gives aggressive Canadian -

support to all the imperialistic measures by which the
United States government is reducing the other capitalist
countries to the status of dependencies—Canadians are
among the first victims of every such measure.

St. Laurent, impelled by his. obsession to “integrate”
Canada in the new finance-capitalist empire being estab-

~ lished by Wall Street, turned away from Britain and the

7

PARLIAMENT HILL By MARK FRANK

Polish treasures
still unreturned

OLISH art treasures which were shipped to Canada

at the outbreak of war to prevent. their falling
into the hands of the Nazis, are still in Canada four
years after the end of the war. Despite continued
representations from the Polish government to Canada,
no move has been made on the part of the St. Laurent
government to return these treasures to their owners.

In a Jetter to aljl delegates to the United Nations;
Polish Ambassador Wierblowski replied to a. letter by
Lester Pearson, Canada’s minister of external affairs,
which, said Wierblowski, “may create a wrong impres-

sion as to the real state of affairs.”

“Since 1946,” the Polish ambassador wrote, “the
Polish. government has made:continuous efforts to per-
suade the Canadian government to take steps in order
to arrange the return of these works of art to Poland.
The points raised by the chairman of the Canadian

. delegation -have no bearing on the legal or factual situa-

tion of the case. It is true, some of the persons who
were charged with custody of the transport have, since
the termination of the war, refused to return to Poland,
made every possible effort to prevent the Polish nation
from having those treasures returned and resorted to
all kinds of illegal and ¢riminal acts to this purpose.”

Wierblowski referred to Pearson’s statement that
the Canadian government had tried to arrange a settle-
ment “between competing interests.”

“There are no competing interests,” the ambassador
declared. “It is therefore obvious that the Polish gov-
ernment could neither for legal nor moral reasons be a
party. to a suggested arrangement with some former
officials who, by blackmail and other criminal acts, have
attempted to exercise pressure on the solution of the
matter,” The treasures were deposited in Canada in the
name of the Polish government, he said, and the Polish
government is the only legitimate claimant.

The greater part of the treasures have been found
and were impounded by the Duplessis government of
Quebec. “Nevertheless, the Canadian government con-
tinues to maintain its uncooperative position,” Wierblow-
ski added.

“I must firmly maintain that in spite of the fact
that the Canadian government is fully aware of the
nature of the objects in question, their ownership and its
own responsibility, it has refused to take the only proper
action which the case called for, namely, the return
of the art works to Poland.”

Commonwealth as well as from the socialist third of the
world. He has driven Canada along the path of slavish
subservience to U.S. interests, not because he hates Brit-
ain but because he is devoted to the institutions and the
privileges which were dominant until “only yesterday”.
Canada supported the U.S. in its drive to abolish
British imperial preferences—which was like knocking a
bit of the foundation out from under Canadian economy.
As part of the drive to “integrate” Canadian economy
with the aims and policies of U.S. monopoly capital the
so-called “Abbott plan” (really a Wall Street plan) was
worked out to keep Canadian industry at a qualitatively
lower level than U.S, industry and dependent upon it.

To satisfy Wall Street, the Canadian government
gave aggressive support to the drive to pressure the Brit-
ish government into “devaluation”—with the result that
Britain now has fewer dollars than ever .to spend for
Canadian products. As part of the cold war, Canadian
products have been kept out of the markets serving hund-
reds of millions of people when these people were in
desperate need of those products—with the inevitable
result that our farmers and other producers for export
were cheated of the golden opportunity-to establish their.
products firmly under extremely favorable conditions in
the markets which will be the biggest of the world in.
the period ahead. As I pointed out in comme ting upon.

those policies in Canada: The Communist Viewpoint:

. “The great United Kingdom market, the enormous
potential for trade with other countries of the Common-.
wealth and Europe, all the ‘soft currency’ markets, in
fact, are to be sacrificed if necessary—for what purpose?
So that Canadians shall continue to buy from the United
States scores of products that we should be producing
here in Canada and shall remain dependent upon the
United St.\‘es market for agricultural and raw material
expoltts upon which the Abbott plan proposes: to sd
our economy dependent.” :

What makes the St. Laurent papriane of Canadian
interests even worse is’ the fact that, even for capitalism,
we AXE being sacrificed in vain because St.,Laurent’s pol-
icy “is predicated entirely upon anticipation of world
economic conditions that cannot be achieved.”

The first essential’ of a genuine attempt to secure

‘policies which will protect the farmers against the effects

of the spreading crisis and counteract to some extent the
loss of [United Kingdom markets is recognition of the
fact that the decisive aims and policies of the St. Laurent
government are not based upon and do not correspond
with the real interests of Canada’s farmers—and that
public men or farm leaders who persuade the farmers
to accept such policies are serving finance-capital. .
Recognition of that by the masses of farmers will be
the first step in freeing the farm organizations from the

_ideological domination of finance-capital and towards re-

alization that the rea] ‘interests of Canada’s farmers, no

less than of Canada’s wage workers, lie along the path .
of strengthening. friendship and’ economic ‘SReReroH
with the socialist sector of the world..

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JANUARY 6, 1950—PAGE. 9