The DP threat to B.C. woodworkers A RECENT editorial in this paper pointed to the growing crisis in British Columbia’s lumber industry, and underlined the fact that hundreds of unemployed lumber workers who had been deprived of employment as a result of the long “fire season,” would, in any event, have been unemployed. : Despite all the clamor in the monopoly press and from the boss loggers urging the lumber workers to break their 40-hour work week agreement in order to “make up’ for time lost, unemployment in the idustry has grown steadily. The problem is basically one of markets, restricted or eliminated by cold-war Marshall Plan export policies. The big lumber tycoons like the MacMillan interests have the pick of these Marshallized mar- Kets, and can still make their annual twelve to fourteen million dollars net profit. The little fellows are obliged to take what markets are left—or close down. In the lower mainland areas, out of approximately eighty lumber mills, twenty are already closed down, indefinitely. Their problem is not logs, but markets. Of all the numerous shingle mills, large and small in the same area, about two are in operation. Despite growing unemployment in the industry, the boss loggers, in cahoots with the federal government, are flooding some B.C. areas with DP immigrants. With plenty of this “fine type of immigrants” available, the boss loggers hope to break down the wage and working standards established by trade union organization, and ultimately to break the lumberworkers’ union. With a ready supply of cheap Nazi- minded DP labor available, the bosses hope to use the market crisis to return the industry to the open-shop industrial peonage which existed at the turn of the century. Another contributing factor to the lumber market crisis in the coming months is the advent of the Churchill Tory government. in Britain. Already the “‘belt-tightening” process” of austerity is being stepped-up by Churchill at the insistence of Wall Street, with announced drastic cuts in British imports of Canadian lumber. There are plenty © of dollars for Churchill to buy guns, but not: for lumber to provide housing or other peace-time construction. That is Wall Street’s dictate and it hits every logging camp and mill in B.C. Rank-and-file lumberworkers are becoming keenly aware of the growing menace of unemployment and its cold-war causes. This awareness however, must reflect itself in greater unity and action, to enable lumber workers to safeguard their hard-won gains against the machinations of the cold-war profiteers and politicians. The answer is, No! Bes Tory imperialists who carry the “white man’s burden” in Malaya are finding the going tougher all the time. Since, 1948, British troops and police forces, including paratroops, totalling more than 100,000 men, have been waging war against Malayan guerilla fighters, commonly known in present-day language as “Reds.” During recent months the British “‘security”” forces and thé Malayan people’s army have been engaged in particularly severe fighting, with the tide running strongly against the British-led forces. Now the British Tories in Singapore have come up with what is to them a splendid idea. Transfer to Malay all the Canadian, Austra- lian, British and New Zealand armed forces, now tied down in a Korean war that gets us nowhere, in order to save this great tin and rubber-producing peninsula for British imperialism, ‘The biggest dollar-earner in the sterling pool,” is how the Tory press of Singapore describes the project. One must at least admire the old-school-tie pukka sahibs for their callous frankness. ; The Malayan people are fighting for their independence, for the end of ruthless colonial rule by a foreign power, for the right to ad- minister the affairs of their own country in their own way. No more, no less. Britain on the other hand, willy-nilly, intends to hang on as long as possible to the fabulous profits extracted from the exploitation of Malayan workers, and rich natural resources. The colonial revolu- tion for economic and political freedom grips Malaya as it grips all of Asia, and the pick of British bayonets and Yankee dollars cannot stem its tidal flood. Hence the new Tory formula for “Victory”’ in Malaya. End the business quick in Korea and let’s have all the Commonwealth troops in Malaya to “save our biggest dollar-earner”’ in tin and rubber, mixed with Malayan blood and tears. ; One of these Ottawa “government spokesmen” to whom the daily press so often refers, is alleged to have stated that the request from Singapore “‘is complicated” and would have to be referred to the United Nations for action. As a means of avoiding “complications” the Canadian people should tell Ottawa in easily-understood terms that Canada’s answer to warmongering British Toryism in Singapore is an emphatic NO! . : ae Sv Hiiiiutitt MMA i 1 1 WING Se INN ie Mase