Purses and politicians

When historians of the future begin to sum-up the activities of the majority of MP’s who have calloused their backsides sitting in the House of Commons they’ll have to devote a special chapter to hypocrisy and venality; that’s the only conclusion possible to arrive at after listening to a Tory and Liberal tell a television audience that they are unaware of the sources of their 1968 elec- tion campaign funds.

In the case of the Liberal the amount involved was $68,000, the source of which he seemed to think was rather vulgar to discuss since, he said, he wasn’t aware of where the money came from. The Tory was in a little better shape; he only spent $35,000 during the 1968 campaign, and naturally it’s a higher form of purity to not be able to recall where the lesser amount came from.

Obviously these fellows are without talent. If they had mulled over the problem they might have come up with several answers. Leprechauns, for instance. A group of these good natured creatures left the money on their doorsteps. They did it because they ad- mired them as progressive-minded candidates who agreed with the abolition of serfdom.

If not Leprechauns how about senior citizens? That would sound

good: some several score of old age pensioners mortgaged their $80.

a month for the next 500 years because they knew the candidates would fight for the rights of the poor and vote themselves an increase in parliamentary salary.

Or how about prayer? The $68,000 man prayed hard for weeks and his pleas were answered by an anonymous donor who left the money in the back seat of the candidate’s cadillac. The $35,000 man also prayed but gave only a 50% effort and received only a 50% return.

According to both men one thing is certain: election campaign funds supplied to capitalist politicians do not come from anyone with an axe to grind. Corporations stay aloof from politics and don’t care which of the old line parties is in power, which, I sup- pose, is partially true in the sense that they know whichever side wins will deliver the nation on a platter on command.

Perhaps some day one of these well-heeled political burglars will, in a moment of madness get up in the House of Commons and tell all: “I received several thousands of dollars in campaign funds from the mining industry,” he’ll reveal. “But I realize now that I hired myself out as a bone to a mastiff.” His colleagues will then carry him out of the House and drop him down an elevator shaft.

But until that happens you had better watch your step if a capi- talist politician stops you on the street and asks what time it is.

~ He may be sizing up your watch to see if its worth stealing.

Slavery—root of racism

By ROBERT HUNT

“Canadians in search of sun- shine and adventure should visit South Africa at any time,” says an item on travel page of Satur- day Night magazine.

Using the vernacular, I was a “Limey” engaged in the deep sea merchant service travelling to South East and West Africa, the Island of Madagascar, among other places in the equatorial part of the world.

The Union of South Africa first became known to the “‘civ- ilized” world in the latter part of the nineteenth century, as- sociated with the names of Doc- tor Stanley, David Livingstone and Cecil Rhodes.

The story of David Living- stone being lost in the jungle was a_ successful _ publicity

stunt — one that would have made our present-day experts of brainwashing with envy. British capitalists were look-

technique green

ing for new worlds to conquer and found in South Africa a country ideally suited for finan- cial infiltration and exploitation. The discovery of minerals, gold and diamonds, was the be- ginning of a struggle between the British and Afrikanders (Boers) that culminated in the horrible example of British im- perialism, the Boer War.

South African labor, white and colored, were being organ- ized in the railway and mining industry by militant socialist labor leaders.

The railway strike in this per- iod was the first challenge and momentous struggle of organized labor in South Africa . .. the government reacted with unpre- cedented force and violence, in- stituting martial law.

The use of soldiers, machine’

guns and barbed wire in the streets of Johannesburg, depor- tation of English labor leaders, jail sentences for South Africans, white and colored.

The dreaded disease of sili- cosis attacked miners without

BOOK REVIEW

Ireland and the Irish Ques- tion — A Collection of Writings by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. International Publishers, $3.65 in Canada, Paperback. Also available from Progress Books Toronto, $3.25, Cloth.

* * s The ranks of Canadian Marx-

- ists have been enriched, during

the whole course of this coun- try, by the migration of working class refugees from European national and social battlefields. Many came to the New World direct from scenes of violent struggles—lost battles against exploiters; domestic, foreign or both.

This 516-page book is a col- lection in chronological order of the writings of Marx and Engels having reference to the struggles of the first victims of British imperialism, the Irish people.

The exploitation of this col- ony, because of its very fertile soil so close to England, took the form of seizure of the arable land areas and their sale or grant to English aristocrats and others loyal to the crown. The conquered people were allowed by some “new” owners to cultivate small hold- ings at high rentals—a form of exploitation that in time re- duced the Irish people to beg- gary. This process since the first successful Anglo-Norman on- slaughts of 1169-71, met until present times with bitter resist- ance from the Irish.

Frederick Engels (married into the Irish Burns family) knew the country well and com- pleted 139 pages of a “History

British °

®

hy = . es

STION

AWD THE! QUE

: Ss ue % sy

*

: pate a

O

FREDERICK ENGEIS

of Ireland” which are included in this collection together with a further 60 pages of detailed notes toward the completion of the unfinished chapters. Some comments from Engels will help estimate the content of this valuable collection:

“These people live in the most wretched clay huts searcely good enough for cat- tle pens; have scant food all winter long . . . they have potatoes half enough for 30 weeks in the year and the rest of the year, nothing ... In the spring . . . wife and chil- dren go forth to beg and tramp the country with their kettle in their hands. Mean- while the husband, after planting potatoes for the next year, goes in search of work either in Ireland or England and returns at the potato har- vest to hid family. This is the condition in which nine-tenths

of the Irish country

live . . .” (Condition Working Class in Ef p. 40.)

In a matter of months (

ber, 1847), Engels in a neWy

{J

per article, had to descridl gy (ep

onset of the famine of 1 like earlier ones, a result 0 of Irish land control: A “Starving Ireland is © ing in the most terrible”, vulsions. The workho

overflowing with begge® J

ruined property ownels refusing to pay the Poot and the hungry people # in their thousands to ™ the barns and stables farmers and even of thé olic priests .. . It though the Irish

ter as they did last Irish immigration to

is getting more ala :

day. It is estimat rf average of 50,000 arrive year is already ove (p. 44)

The historic guilt of

eA : t administration of tha jest

spelled out in the mani the

those ships that carried fugees. Their holds wer with scores of tons of It stuffs—shipped by the “Jandowners” to thell © iii in England, while oa fl, Irish died of starvation: © iyi

sh {0 ni

cause one vegetable, init and the only one the yh

people could afford. t0 grow on their tiny P t h struck down by I

years, but the dying be nied that food. What of the fight-ba¢ Engels (p. 211): “The English kn0

diverse races WI

The Welsh, who held & it) ciously to their fh

“ne

and language, completely with fj

tish

Empire. The Scott’ ss ir

though rebellious ™% and since almost exterminated first bY uh ernment and then ) own aristocracy, The think of rebellion.

of the Channel i

bitterly against Fran.) ‘

the Great Revoluti

‘)

Only with the Irish yp A)

lish could not cOP® | oft son for this is the sist resilience of yas? } After the most 59 ott y

pression, after ev® them,

to exterminate a Irish, following ef spite, stood stron’

ever before.” we

will 10 of hunger as calmly 1"

so fat © 7 year; the number °° 00,08)

aril) perio

mar

1s, other food growth on ie a flourished during thosé re |

a w hoe

f uy oe reconcile people 0 the

anne fol,

af In the adult yeat 5 im,

respect to color of their skin, rrent | 40! due to the British mine owners’ and Engels, the CU Gq @ ii disregard of their workers’ wel- rectionary movemen enthag fare. White miners were sent list of such efforts, ? «gem )

by generation) was the 100

back to Cornwall, England, to en Irish Republican Broth’ fol

die at home. Native miners were

sent back to their compounds was betrayed by ated Nl

and villages to die. and the leadership J at Mine workers, white and col- brutal conditions. first at

ored,- were under a labor con- of Marx through the © qavb jf

national, -and J. oct Jenny as a tireless & 10 and reporting journ@ = pig) circulation Europe?” ives

tract and could not leave of their own volition. Colored miners received less than half the pay of their white brothers, classi- fied as unskilled and forbidden to use the machine tools then in use, thereby creating an unlim- ited supply of cheap labor whose status was, and is today, that of virtual slaves.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, MAY 12, 1972—PAGE 10

de ae ee ei

At a territorial folk art festival in the Trade Union House in

Khabarovsk (Soviet Far East). 100 native dancers and sj

b d sin - ented samples of the folklore of the small nationalities inhabiting this ter itory—the Nanais, Uichi, and Udegeis. Amateur art groups regularly function in the numerous villages where these nationalities live. — Photo: Ulchi “Bear Holiday” dance.

e stoly’ at? ters, reports, i here with the analy takes of strategy 4