and

FEW. more dishonest and in-
defensible campaigns have
been conducted than the recent
Campaign on the question of
the supply of arms to the Mid-
dle East! |

For ‘years the governments
_ Of Britain and the United States,
‘*Tance and other Western
_ Countries have poured arms into
_ the Middle East.
_ Arms for the Middle East,
Meluding Egypt, have been
Supplied by British Labor
80vernments no less than by
Titish Conservative govern-
- Ments,

Not a word of protest has

N sounded against this supply

arms by the newspapers
Which are today so vociferous.
i Ow, however, when Egypt
has signed an agreement to ex-
change its cotton for arms from
Czechoslovakia, a loud outcry
iS raised. U.S. Secretary of
tate John Foster Dulles and
titish Prime Minister Sir
Be Anthony Eden express their
8Tave concern. z
The London Daily Herald,

x

.¢ Labor government supply-
108 arms to Egypt, Israel and
Other Middle Eastern countries,
‘J4mps into the arena with a
 s€nunciation of “merchants of
death.”
A British Labor MP, Michael
ot recalls how the progres-
bee Movement in the years
Yefore the Second World War
€nounced the merchants of
death.”
But Foot forgets that the
Mpaign against the “merchants
th death” was fought against
€ supply of arms by private
manufacturers. The same pro-
a. Prostive movements which de-
eaared the supply of arms by
Tvate manufacturers simul-
Neously called for “Arms for
pen,” that is for the supply of
ag by governments to a non-
os Perialist government for the

Ca

: dependence,

can at lies behind the present

yobaign ? This campaign
; eds to be seen in relation to

meee situation in the Middle

r

Ene Purpose of the Western
oS ers | during all these years
East ene arms into the Middle
Reka) has been open and uncon-
aan €d. They have sought to
~ pake the Middle East a main
“th for their war plans against

—€ Soviet Union.
fin hey have sought to build
@nti-Soviet Middle Eastern
_ Military pact under their dom-
On as a counter-part to

NATO,

as These war plans of imperial-
\ in the Middle East have met
rom eae resistance
Bast. € peoples of the Middle
ayy to’the present the West-

n imperialist powers have not

prea able to ‘realise. theiz. full

Pact,

Stitute They have had to sub-

a series of sectional

Which raised no objection to —

Stotection of its national in- .

Os for a Middle East military ,

the

Middle
East

By R. PALME DUTT

military pacts linking up the
United States,and Britain with
Turkey, Iraq and Pakistan.

The Israeli government has de-

clared its readiness to enter into
a Middle East military pact.

The key role in resistance to
the Western imperialist plans
for a Middle East military pact
has been played during the
recent period by Egypt under
the pressure of the deep anti-
imperialist feeling of the
Egyptian people. :

The U.S. and Britain have
made officially clear to Egypt
that abundant arms would be
supplied on conditions of par-
ticipation in the anti-Soviet
Middle East Military Pact.

Egypt, however, in the re-
ae ean has refused these
approaches. The Nasser govern-
ment has moved to a certain dif-
ferentiation from imperialism,
and in favor of a policy of
neutrality and closer relations
with the camp of socialism and
peace. :

Egypt played a leading part
in the Afro-Asian Conference
at Bandung, and participated in
the joint declaration for peace,
non-aggression, national inde-
pendence and the ending of
colonialism.

Trade agreements have been

The sad

BOB WARD
J QUINCY SPEEDE. was an

» odd child; and not, mind
you, just because he had three
‘e’s in his name.

From his earliest days, af.
Quincy showed , a tremendous
flair for efficiency. Everything
he did as a baby, was done with
dispatch and with no waste of
time or loss of motion. His
burps, for instance, were pre-
cise and with the minimum
number of ‘r’s’ in them.

At six months he kicked the

slats out of his crib in protest
against the way his mother
folded diapers. Later, when
he was able to talk he explain-
ed to her that she could have
folded three times as many
diapers five times as fast by
cutting out unnecessary folds.

Yes, J. Quincy was quite the
boy. At two he stopped wear-
ing anything with buttons on
it. Already he had reckoned
that thirty-nine seconds a day
was lost through the mere act
of buttoning and unbuttoning
buttons. :

J. Quincy wore shoes with-
out laces. Lacing and unlacing
shoes took 28 precious seconds
of the day. ‘

“At school it was the same.
J. Quincy, indeed, soon acquir-
ed the nickname of “Sooner.”
He figured out the route to
school which required the least
number of steps; he reckoned
everything to the split second.
bos m $e

At Graduation, J. Quincy
was voted the student most

ea

eS

sai sane bth x 3
Britain and the United States have transformed the

_ Middle East into an armed camp, as shown (top) by planes
and camel .troops in Aden and (bottom) jet planes delivered
to Turkey under a U.S. aid program.

reached with the Soviet Union,
China and the Peoples’ Democ-
racies. Visits of Premier, Nasser
to Prague and Moscow have
been arranged.

These signs of a new orien-
tation of Egyptian policy in the
recent period have been met
with intense hostility from the
imperialist powers. They have
replied by denying to Egypt
the arms necessary for modern-
izing the Egyptian army, so
long as Egypt refused to come to
heel. :

Faced with this boycott,
Egypt has refused to surrender,
and has turned to Czechoslo-
vakia, for the supply of arms.
The positive attitude of Czech-
oslovakia in accepting such an

agreement without political
strings has represented a blow
to the imperialist war plans in
the Middle East.

The policy of the Soviet Union
has been clearly set out in its
official statement. This has ex-
plained that the “Soviet govern-
ment holds the view that every
state has the legitimate right to
provide for its own defense,”
and that “no foreign state has
the right to intervene and pre-
sent any one-sided claim which
would influence the rights or
interests of other’ states.”

The way to prévent an arms
race in the Middle East is not
demanding that Western im-
perialist powers must dominate

‘gard to South-Eastern Asia and

,

saga of J. Quincy

likely to end up being a motion
time study expert.

And sure enough that’s just
where he did end up..

J. Quincy wasn’t very long

on this new job before he’d
figured out ways, not to for-

get means, of dismissing half .

the staff of Motion Time Study
department. And this, mind
you, was even before he had
a chance to take a real go at the
production workers.

When he started on the pro-
duction workers, J. Quincy real-
ly went to work. It was he
who perfected the idea of ' the
automatic nose wiper, a simple
attachment rigged to any ma-
chine, which eliminated the

need of any worker wasting |

precious minutes fumbling for
a hankie or Kleenex.

Another wiping apparatus
that J. Quincy’s fertile brain
dreamed up was vetoed by top
management as it was deemed
‘that the idea would be too low,
even for that particular com-
pany. —

But the odd setback never
troubled J. Quincy. He just
kept on speeding everyone up.
At work, at home, wherever he
went, he preached the gospel
of Motion Time Study; reduc-
ed to its initials MTS by J.
Quincy, for the sake of effici-
ency, of course.

at 503 at

“More, faster, sooner, quick-

er” was the slogan emblazoned

above J. Quincy’s desk. When |

@&ked when something should
be done his usual reply was

“yesterday.”

Yes, J. Quincy was quite a
boy. He would far rather cut
a rate than a juicy steak, or
even a rug. en Be

But the ultimate happened.
J. Quincy broke down. He had
cut a _ particular department
from 25 to two men, with” the
two doing twenty-five times
more than had previously been
done by the twenty-five. |

Not even content with this
the company, one of the better
known electrical firms, had in-
stalled automation, eliminating
the two workers.

J. Quincy was working out
a system to lay-off three robots
on the automatic lines when
the men in the white suits
came for him to put him away.

Sad though the story may
be, J. Quincy’s flair for cut-
ting had finally brought him to
the last stage — cutting out
paper dolls. ee.

t Sig are:
Indeed it was his obsession

for cutting out “unnecessary”

things which led to his death.
J. Quincy had long been work-
ing on the theory that his
breathing cycle could be cut
down.

Well, one day he really re-
duced it. He stopped breathing
altogether.

J. Quincy’s funeral was not .

one that attracted very wide
attention. Although it was not-
ed at the time that if all of
the people whom he’d laid off
during his lifetime had been
present the largest stadium in

oS
th
clusive preserve for the supply —

af =

e Middle East as their ex-

of arms.
The way to prevent an arms

race in the Middle East lies

along the same path as in re-
lation to the world situation.
That is the path of negotiation.

In the same way as with re-

all other points of international
tension, the interests of peace
require that there should be
Four-Power negotiations to
assist the aims of peaceful
settlement of all issues in the
Middle East. :

With regard to the relations
of Egypt and other Arab states
with Israel, the path to a peace-
ful solution can only be achieved
when the attempts to turn the

Middle East into a military base —

for the Western imperialist
powers are ended and a serious
attempt is made to reach a
settlement based on the United
Nations decisions of 1947 which
have not yet been carried out.
. The Czechoslovakian-Egyptian

“arms argeement, by breaking

the Western monopoly of the
supply of arms to the Middle
East and thereby opening the
way to Four-Power negotiations
in ‘relation to the Middle East,
is a powerful blow against the
war plans of imperialism in
the Middle East and for peace.

It. is the imperative respon-
sibility of all supporters of
peace to expose the hypocritical
arguments of the imperialist
war camp and enlighten public
opinion on the true situation in
the Middle East.

Speede

the city wouldn’t have held
the -crowd. ett
‘But J. Quincy, nevertheless,
remained true to his credo in
life. As he was being borne
away by six pallbearers, eye-
witnesses claim that he sud-
denly sat bolt upright in his
casket. “Lay four of those
men off,” he thundered. This
done the story goes, he lay
down in peace.

5 a a

One would think that this

would ‘be the end of the ‘story
of J. Quincy Speede. But sev-
eral months later we met a
worker who had been an early
victim of J. Quincy’s MTS
speedup and layoff. ~

Here’s his story as told to
us at the time. “One night,”
he said, “I dreamt I. had died
and gone to the place where
most ae friends are. And
guess who was there, J. Quincy
Speede, that's who. ©

“And there he was back at
his old tricks. Hed cut the
furnace stokers from thirty a
shift to five and was figuring
out all kinds of devious means
to cut even further. He even

had Old Nick, himself, fearing

being laid off.

“And do you know what one
fellow said to me in this dream
of mine?” ik :

We confessed that we did not
know.

“This guy said it had really
been Hell there since J. Quincy
arrived.”

@ Reprinted from Canadian

UE News.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — OCTOBER 21, 1955 — PAGE 9