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“Bang on, Mr. President, great salute to that test ban treaty!”

The power sellout

ANEW round of top-level talks
between Canada and the U.S. on
the Columbia River treaty will
open in Washington on December
2. This was announced a few days
ago by External Affairs Minister
Paul Martin, who will meet with

U.S. Interior Secretary Stewart
Udall.

Martin told newspaper reporters
that it is not likely the treaty will
come before Parliament before
eriakmas but that it is still pos-
sible.

The most sinister remark by the
External Affairs Minister was that
in the 4% months which negotia-
tions have been going on there has
been the fullest co-operation with
the B.C. government.

Now, everybody is all for co-

Our readers will recall that last

week we carried a report of a

special study made by the general
manager of the Saskatchewan

. Power Corporation, David Cass-

Beggs, who pointed out the vital
need for Columbia water for the
Prairie provinces.

Cass - Beggs showed how the
Columbia could be diverted near
Golden to provide water for irriga-
tion of millions of acres of Prairie
lands. He also made the point that
the present Columbia treaty would
rule out this possibility.

From all this one inevitable con-
clusion must force itself on the
Canadian people: the stakes at is-
sue in the present power negotia-
tions affect all Canada, and that
a powerful outcry from all patri-

otic Canadians is needed to block

the gigantic sellout now underway.

Vicky in the London Evening Standard

os operation. But in this instance the ‘
| remark can have only one mean-

: ing: that the Federal government

' is going all the way down the line

with Premier Bennett’s plans for

selling out the Columbia River to

the U.S.

On page five of this paper there
i is animportant article by the
i editor of Canada’s leading engin-
: eering publication which warns
that time is short for the people of
' Canada to regain control of their
i destiny ... and that the Columbia
i treaty is one of our last chances.

_ The article by J. G. Ripley gives
an expert’s analysis of what’s
: , wrong with the treaty and why it
| must be fought while there is still
4 time.

f On. another page is an important
article by Tim Buck, chairman of
the Communist Party of Canada,
: -which shows how the Columbia
iN treaty and the recent Ottawa an-
nouncement of a new power policy
jeopardize Canada.

Pacific Tribune

Editor — TOM McEWEN _.
‘Associate Editor—MAURICE RUSK

1. AR nC RE ONES ign

‘Authorized~as second class tail by
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and for payment of postage’ in Gash

Published weekly at:
Room 6 — 426 Main Street
Vancouver 4, B.C.
Phone MUtual 5-5288
Subscription Rates:

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tries (except Australia): $4.00 .on
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‘all other countries: $5.00 "one year:

Greetings to NDP

T HE Pacific Tribune extends
its greetings to the delegates at -
tending the B.C. convention of the
New Democratic Party which
opens this coming weekend.

The deliberations of this con-
vention will be closely watched by
many tens of thousands of work-
ing people who seein the NDP
their hope for an alternative pro-
gressive government in B.C. to
Social Credit, Liberal and Tory
parties of big business.

Working men and women ex-
pect from this convention an ob-
jective examination of the failure
of the NDP to live up to the high
hopes that rode with it in the last
provincial election.

Above all, progressive-minded
citizens look to this convention to
adopt policies which will show the
way ahead in the fight to unite the
working class, small farmers and
small business people in the
struggle to curb the big monopo-
lies and win policies which will
open the way for greater progress
in B.C.

In this issue of the PT there
appears an Open Letter address-
ed to the NDP convention by the
B.C. Communist Party which
takes issue with the main policies
adopted by right wing leaders of
the NDP and trade union move-

‘ment.

The letter is openly critical of
the “soft sell” policy which play-
ed down the major issues in this
election, which sought to discour-
age open trade union and labor
support in the vain hope of win-
ning support among “‘the business
community” which seems to have

been the main goal of the top
leaders.

One thing appears evident from
the provincial election result: that
in every large working class riding
Social Credit gained very large
support, and that in many labor
seats, hitherto considered “safe”
for the NDP, Social Credit threat-
ened seriously or in some instances
defeated an NDPer.

Although some may point to
certain objective factors which
may have helped the Socreds, the
large drop in NDP votes was itself
the strongest indication that the
NDP policy failed to “light a fire”
among labor and farm voters.

It should be clear that the poli-
cies of the NDP failed to givea
dynamic lead which could have
united all sections of the people
who want genuine reforms.

Failure of the NDP to do that
left many voters to be influenced
by other factors, and failing to see
any new course, voted for the
Socreds. ;

Unless the coming convention
abandons these right wing policies
and projects a program to unite
labor and the people in the
struggle against the big monopo-
lies who are selling out our natural
resources to the U.S. trusts, and
to stop turning our province into
a base for U.S. nuclear arms, the
NDP will continue to fail the
workers of this province.

We hope the delegates and all
NDP supporters will study the
Communist Party’s Open Letter
and weigh up their own views in
the light of the analysis made
there. :

Tom
McEwen

This week’s guest columnist, pinch-
hitting for Tom McEwen who is recuperat-
ing from an operation, is the well-known
U.S. economist VICTOR PERLO. His
column “Some Contradictions in U.S. Cap
italist Circles,” is slightly abridged

@

Policy differences within big busi-

ness do not change the world, but
may make it easier for progressive
social forces to do so. What are these
policy differences today and how do
they affect Washington policy? Y. Yudin
tackles this tricky problem in the in-
fluential Soviet monthly, World Econ-
omics and International Relations.

With some exceptions, I-think he did
a good job of assembling amd making
a coherent pattern out of the assembl-
ed material. As Yudin notes, some
positions cannot be explained ration-
ally. But usually there are visible con-
nections between a capitalist’s profit
interest and his policy.

For ten years after World War II
the main conflicts were between Wall
Street and provincial financiers—as in
Robert R. Young’s and Murchison’ s bids
for corporate empire. That conflict
receded as the Wall Streeters emerged
stronger than ever. Now dissension
rises conspicuously within the old
groups — the Rockefellers, Morgans,
Mellons and Du Ponts,

The central issue—how to deal with
the crisis for U.S. imperialism caused

by the decisive change in the world
balance of forces — the reversible
gains of socialism over capitalism and
the marked loss of ground to imper-
ialist rivals. Vital parts of this are
the seemingly intractable internal pro-
blems of slower economic growth and
chronic unemployment.

Throughout the postwar years Am-
erican monopolists based themselves
on the cold war and the arms race,
on using foreign aid to gain more
positions abroad, and on blocking East-
West trade. They considered rising
military expenditures as the main
means of stimulating the economy and
guaranteeing themselves high profits.

But these policies no longer work—
even in the narrow sense of raising
profits for most big businessmen. So
the division widens between those who
continue to place their chips on con-
tinuation of the arms race and the
cold war, and those who wish to ex-
plore alternative courses of action.
The latter do not repudiate the form-
er policy, but tend to tone it down.
The conflict is expressed in budget
and tax policy, in foreign aid and
foreign trade questions,

* * +

These issues arose before, especial-
ly in 1957-58, when Humphrey and Wil-
son in the Eisenhower Administration
advocated some easing of the cold
war tempo. But the division is sharp-
er and the moderate side stronger
now than formerly.

On every issue Yudin finds the Rock-
efellers the decisive advocates of the
more aggressive course. This group
has considerably increased its econ-
omic power, and its political influence
even more clearly. It has seized a whole
series of new industrial positions, es-

-~ pecially in armament industries.

ing,

Correspondingly, it has led the drive
to step up the arms race, most con-
spicuously in the Rockefeller Brother’s
report advocating a $3 billion per year
rise in the arms budget. The Rocke-
feller positions were strengthened in
the Kennedy Administration, which until
recently actually outdid the Rockefeller
program for raising military spend-

* * *

Armament business has been in-
creasingly concentrated in the big air-
craft and missile companies, with steel,
auto and chemical companies losing
ground. Owners of the latter do not
like to see billions of profits trans-
ferred from their pockets to others
through the tax-budget route. So the
Morgan interests, Ford, the Cleveland
group and many producing for local
markets support leveling off armament
spending — and some of them a cut —
while placing special emphasis on tax
reduction.

There has been a similar intensi-,
fication of East-West trade—exempli-
fied in the debate over sales of wheat
to the USSR—and here the disposition
of forces is roughly the same, The
Rockefeller oil crowd, fearing compe-
tition from Soviet oil, stands on the old
embargo positions, despite the bur-
geoning East-West trade profit ofEur- .
opean and Japanese capialists. Most
American companies want a major
change in this policy.

With the nuclear test ban treaty, those
forces wishing to reconsider foreign
policy are strengthened, The decision
of the questions discussed will largely
decide the fate of the present ad-
ministration in the 1964 elections.

November 15, 1963—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 4