lows and comment ..

>

-*t've been watching them alt week—what do 1 do
now?”

’S LEAVE NATO

‘too long ago, Prime
1 Trudeau said he want-
tional debate on the
question, yet he recent-
ahead and renewed
TO treaty...
cost of NATO is $250
annually — an expen-
ce to pay for a 5,000-
ind force and some air-
money could go into
ul projects.
forces are armed with
f weapons and the en-
TO force in Europe acts
s a potential cause for
an a cause for peace.

onse to NATO. As one
ilds up forces, so does
. The potential escal-
wer is immense.

‘© aided de Gaulle in
ession of the student-
movement in May-June
r. He used NATO bases
re the armed forces.
e of strikes ended
de Gaulle’s need for
d forces.

O is also aiding such
s Portugal. NATO arms
uipment are used by

Portugal’s African colonies in
a subservient position...

At the present time it ap-
pears far more worthwhile for
Canada to withdraw from
NATO than to stay in it.

Editorial, the Ryersonian

DISBELIEF
Fifty students stormed a con-
gress of fortune tellers at Avel-
lino, Italy, shouting: “Millions
are starving .. . do something
instead of magic.”

Bae
STUDENTS & LABOR

Solidarity has come from a
somewhat unexpected source
in the Toronto Guild’s strike at
Lord Thomson's Peterborough
Examiner.

There, students from univer-
sities throughout Ontario (in-
cluding members of a college
branch of the old Industrial
Workers of the World), have
flocked to the Guild's picket
line, in numbers greater even
than those from Peterborough
unions. As many as 400 have
rallied to the picket lines at
a time, traveling in bus loads
in the eary hours of the morn-

29th.

ll be greatly exceeded.

tonous regularity.

ion will be acquired.

BONN’S ARMS SOAR

There will be a huge increase in arms expenditure
lest Germany in the next few years, Gerhard Schroder,
est German Defence Minister, announced on Novem-

The new arms program will upset West German finan-
planning, Minister Schroder admitted. At least 2,500
n marks will be allocated for arms in the next three
» and many observers in Bonn believe that this figure

The immediate program for strengthening the Bundes-

Mr, already the strongest military force in western

fope covers the following points:

@ More reservists will be called up, and a number of

which were due to be downgraded to training duties

Preserve their full action status.

e 88 new “Phantom” fighter-bombers will be pur-
in the U.S.A., together with 50 “Starfighters”. The

ase of new Starfighters has become necessary be-

} these planes in Bundeswehr sesvice crash with

@ The West German Navy will be equipped with 12
U-boats and four rocket-armed frigates,
e@ An undisclosed “large” number of anti-aircraft

The fire capacity of army brigades will be improved
purchase of 220 armoured howitzers.

Larger stocks of ammunition and fuel will be stored.
Special steps will be taken to increase the number
“service NCOs, necessary for a rapid expansion of
ideswehr in case of need.

ing to reach the struck plant
by daybreak, then sleeping
overnight on cement floors to
return to the lines next day.

In Los Angeles several hun-
dred students, including high-
school pupils, twice have turn-
ed out to demonstrate in sup-

- port of the Guild and other

unions in the strike against
Hearst's Herald-Examiner.

The spectacle of students
rallying to the side of labor is
one that hasn't been much
seen in the United States since
the 1930s, and the recement-
ing of an old alliance should
be a welcome development to
both. The action of the Madi-
son Guild this month in sup-
porting student editors in their
censorship fight at the Univer-
sity of Wisconsin shows that
it can, and should be, a two-
way street.

THE GUILD REPORTER

CONFERENCE FLOP

A conference called in
Stockholm to condemn the
Soviet Union for its role in the
Czechoslovakian events of last
August failed to agree on a te-
solution. The conference was
sponsored by the Lord Bertrand
Russell Peace Foundation. U.S.
born Ralph Schoenman is re-
ported to have led the violent-
ly anti-Soviet group at the
conference. Billed as a confer-
ence of socialists and intellec-
tuals, only 22 persons could be
persuaded to attend.

Daily World.
PIN-UPS BANNED

U.S. First Infantry Division
troops have been ordered to
dispose of collections of porno-
graphic pictures and limit
themselves to one “tasteful”
pin-up per man, the divisional
chief of staff's office an-

nounced.
—Toronto Star

BIRTHDAY GREETINGS

8

Heartiest Greetings to Com-
rade Bruce Magnuson on the
occasion of his 60th birthday.

Many more years of fruitful
work for the cause of the work-
ing class, socialism, and in
building the Communist Party.

Central Executive Committee
Communist Party of Canada

self-supporting, the government has moved to

Postal rates

An end to discrimination of institutional pub-
lications in postal rate increases was one of the
proposals made by the Canadian Labor Congress
when they submitted their Memorandum to the
government.

“We feel,” they say in mild tones, “that com-
mercial publications should not continue to en-
joy special postal rates while institutional pub-
ications should be so hard hit.”

And hard hit they are. In the labor field alone
a number of publications are either restricting
or suspending publication and others are facing
astronomical postal bills, with two to three thou-
sand percent increases.

What has really been taking place is that un-
der the guise of wanting to make the Post Office

a new way to quiet Aa hte Pet se
them out of being able to afford their own pub-
lications. Anybody knows that if it is money for
the post office that is “amg necessary that the
big U.S. publications like Time, Life, Readers:
Digest, etc. are a far better source of funds
than some trade union monthly.

But this new attack on labor should come as
no surprise in the light of the new labor legisla-
tion, enacted and proposed, at the provincial
level and the prospects that are being mooted
in the upcoming Woods Commission Report.

The ways in which government can perform
a service for monopoly in its onslaught against
the labor movement are many—and we pro-
bably haven’t yet seen them all. They range
from repressive legislation to guidelines, from
inflationary interest rates to financial imposi-
tions like the new postal rates.

How often too the government owned ai a
ganda machine wheels into motion to “make”
rather than present news. Just this last month
for example we were subjected to CBC news
from the West Coast to the effect that the by-
election outcome, in which Tommy Douglas
New Democratic Party leader and a Liberal
were the main contenders, would be just ni
and tuck. The truth, which the election result
revealed, was that the Liberals were being badly
beaten and the “just society” had begun to show
some cracks. But ema to, the government
gets you no star billing on the media,

Incidentally, in the bind because of these new
— rates are also the papers of the New

emocratic Party, one more gain for Trudeau
liberalism. ~

But there are still those who argue that gov-
ernments stand above classes, as impartial
arbitors—and that includes unfortunately all
too many in the labor movement. This is one
reason why as yet so,many members of unions
who support labor political action, still vote for
the party of the boss.

But its only by pressure and challenge from
labor and democratic forces that the bosses
government can be forced to retreat—even on
such a question as postal rates. It’s not a money
question alone but also the democratic rights
of opposition groups that is at stake.

“| hate to tell you, Fred but you've been made
: redundant!” _ :

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEBRUARY 21, 1969—Page 3