Asbestos

°

ry

ee planned, government-or-

ganized violence against the
striking Canadian seamen was fol-
lowed by a display of equally:
fierce brutality against the striking
miners at Asbestos. Both these
_ Struggles and some lesser strikes
€xpress the intensified attack of
big business and its governments
©N organized labor at home while
they pursue an° equally reaction-
ary’ and war-menacing _ policy
abroad, - The lessons they hold
for all labor and all progressive-
minded citizens are as obvious as
they are profound in meaning.
And woe to those leaders in the
labor and progressive movement
who fail to understand the lessons
of these struggles and who fail
ty draw the necessary conclusions.

Both in Canada and the United
States we are witnessing a cres-
Cendo of strike struggles. In the
US. as here, strike struggles have

a forced upon the workers by
Sections of big business that are
determined to subdue and weaken
abor and to intensify the exploit-
ation of their workers. In both
Countnes big business is attempt-
'8§ to cash in on the anti-Com-
Munist hysteria and the under-
mining of the labor movement
Which their red-baiting campaign
brought about.

Anterestingly enough, some of
‘hese great struggles involve unions
fre red-baiting labor leaders
are at the helm. Those who, like
alter Reuther of the UAW,
ave led ruinous, splitting, anti-
mmunist campaigns now find
emselves compelled by forces
a their control to acquiesce
the strike struggles of their
ae These events prove our
lies that red-baiting, union-
“ng and coddling up to big
sakes leaders and their politi-
S does not benefit the workers,
“*-Opposite is always the case.

e
ae Strikes in auto, asbestos
Strat uilding trades also demon-

ing e the great militancy and fight-
of pet of the rank and file
is i trade union movement.
Practically all these cases,

‘petrate.

miners, seamen. . .

with the exception of the seamen,
the rank and file compelled their
leaders to go along in the strike
struggles. . It was pressure from
below that brought these great
battles into being.

Another, and profound lesson
which the asbestos and seamen
strikes illustrate for us is that both
the Tory Drew-Duplessis forces
and the St. Laurent-Howe Liberal
politicians are, in the final analy-
sis, willing and, yes, enthusiastic
agents of the monopolies, the
trusts and finance capital. The
‘communist bogey” will, of course,
be exploited by either big busi-
ness party. This they are doing
in the case of the seamen to
justify the brutalities they per-
But where the ‘red
bogey’ does not lend itself too
readily they will resort to force,
violence and bloodshed just the
same. ‘That is what the two great
Canadian strikes reveal.

The Liberal government backs
the shipping interésts, many — of
which are foreign trusts, against
Canadian sailors. The RCMP
is unashamedly used to crack
skulls, bash in faces and other-
wise maim men who only _yester-

day risked their lives on all seven -

seas to bring victory against fas-
cism and reaction. Here the
Liberal government stands expos-
ed as the agency of big business
and as its gangster arm.

In the case of Asbestos, the

Tory Drew-Duplessis party stands
in all its naked ugliness as the

By J. B.
SALSBERG

HEN Local 1 of the
Canadian Seamen's
Union In Montreal condemned
the “unspeakable brutality’ of
Duplessis police against the
striking Asbestos miners, a
young man stood up to speak.
He was ferry Haughey,
cousin of James Cardinal Mc-
Guigan of Toronto, Canada’s
leading Roman Catholic dig-

nitary.

“As a Roman Catholic and
as a member of the CSU I

strongly support this resolu-
tion,” he said. “The police
have clubbed and _ arrested

striking asbestos workers just
as they have done to striking
seamen. In both cases the em-
ployers, their political hench-
men and police, are attacking
unions and their leaders be-
cause they are fighting to de-
fend their unions.”

... their fight is
your fight

bloody gendarme of a U.S. mon-
opoly against French-Canadian
miners. All the hypocritical spout-
ings of the Drews and Duplessis’
about championing the interests
of Canadians, “‘of our Christian
way of life,” appear in all their
hollowness and repulsiveness in
Asbestos. They betray the in-
terests of French-Canadian masses
on the altar of Yankee corpora-
tions. They violate the elemen-
tary right of Canadian workers
and even desecrate the church.
What hypocrites! What slavish
tools of big business!

- The newspapers of Friday last
week carried these headlines:
Police Storm Church, Jail 125
—Drag Mine Strikers Out of
Church Cellar — Police Seek
Strike Priest — and so on ad
nauseam. No, there were no
Communists leading the Asbestos

ed

strikers. It was the leaders of
Catholic Syndicates and local
priests who sensed the despera-
tion of their parishioners and
could not but side with them.

But that mattered little to Drew’s
political ally and colleague,
Maurice Duplessis; any more than
the justice of the seamen’s case
matters to St. Laurent, Chevrier,
Howe and Mitchell.

For the forward-looking people
of Canada and the working class,
in the first place, the heroic strug-
gles of the seamen and the Asbes-
tos miners must constitute two sec-
tors of the same battle. Regard-
less of all other differences that
may exist in labor and progressive
ranks, an unbreakable unity must
be established in an overpowering
support movement for both these
embattled unions.

It isn’t sufficient to feel sympa-
thetic towards the sailors or As-

bestos miners. Nor is it enough
to give a few pennies or an odd
dollar for their support. What
is necessary, above everything
else, is for the trade unions and
the labor movement to lead the
entire country in a political cru-
sade to compel the Liberal and
Tory governments to end their
war on the organized workers; to
halt their brutal attacks upon
these fighting men; to bring about
immediate settlements of both
strikes with the respective unions.

The federal election campaign
offers the people of Canada an
unparalleled opportunity to play
a direct and decisive role in forc-
ing the parties of big business to
retreat and to bring about victory
for the seamen and the Asbestos
miners. Such a victory will re-
sult in immeasurable gains for all
workers, all unions, all labor or-
ganizations and all progressive
people.

'Ted
Tinsley

—NEW YORK

PEECH delivered by Profess-
a or Arch Farch, expert on
tf t Rastern affairs for the

» State department.

Friends:

pty as expert on Far East-
ah ise to comment briefly
is e Situation in China today.
A Make the mistake of
ng that all is lost, simply

cause the leaders of the Na-

“nalist government are lost.
Sbody,
them, bu

at any rate, can find
t what would you do

T have been asked, in my ca- _

if you were Chiang Kai-shek?
Appear on the balcony?
Anyone who has seen the de-
fenses which the Nationalist
army leaders have ordered for
Shanghai, recognizes the great

spirit of Chiang’s government. _

Already conscripted workmen
nave; erected a splendid wooden
fence around the city. This
fence is built on the same sound
engineering , principles that go
into the construction of an an
infant’s playpen. The fence, how-
ever, is not quite so sturdy. It
is living proof that $200 of the
many billions we have poured
into Nationalist China has not
been wasted. ;

The future of Christian civil-
ization in China now rests firm-
ly in the hands of China's Mos-
lems. I have this on the author-
ity of General Claire Chen-
nault who called upon China’s

_Moslems in Ninghsia to pre-
serve their liberty.

General Ma Hung-Kui is in
full command in Ninghsia. The
next highest ranking generals in
his army are his two sons. In
fact, none but members of Gen-
eral Ma’s family are allowed to
lead the people in their strug-
gle to preserve liberty. |

As a representative of the
state department I can not al-
low the assurance of an ultimate
Nationalist victory in China to
blind us to great problems which
exist there today. Perhaps the
biggest question facing those
who would preserve Nationalist
China, is how to keep the sol-
diers out of the cocktail lounge
of the Palace hotel in Shanghai.

Only recently the New York
Times reported that three Na-
tionalist soldiers who entered
the cocktail lounge were order-

ed out by the headwaiter who
informed them that the tab
would be too heavy to pick up.

At the Park hotel, the Nation-
alist army has posted MP’s to
keep Chiang’s GI’s from eating

. any of this hotel’s famous Pe-

king duck. The soldiers are there
to protect the dry martinis and
the Peking duck. It would be a
political error of the first mag-
nitude .to let these soldiers eat
and drink what they are sup-
posed to defend. _

Furthermore, those of the
Nationalist leaders who read
the Chicago Tribune are well
uware that the Chinese People’s
army organizes a “sinoling good
odors corps” in every c’ty it oc-
cupies. Only if the Pa.ace and
Park hotels are firmly guarded
can the Nationalist defenders
throw the “smelling gond odors
corps” off the trail. —

We, of the state department,
have other reasons to be opti-
mistic. Recently Mark Sullivan
wrote in the New York Herald
Tribune that the advance of the
People’s army will hurt the
Democratic party in America. Is
it not logical to hope that Mao
Tse-Tung will immediately or-
der a retreat to Yenan to pre-
vent a Hoover victory in 1988?

In the words of Nathaniel
Peffer, who wrote on China in
the New York Times magazine
section, “The time has come for
a thorough re-examination of
America’s course in Asia since
the war .. .” Indeed, the time
has come. In fact, it is high
time. But do not despair! Be-
hind the stout stockades around
Shanghai you can still buy a
dry Martini and a breast of Pe-
king duck! Nationalist China
is not yet dead!

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — MAY 20, 1949 — PAGE 5