se workers send strong appeal to American labor

By°ANNA LOUISE STRONG

.GAN—A thousand trade unionists, meeting last night in this bomb-threatened city, commissioned your correspondent to get a message out

laber and te try to get an answer.
war to a state federation) and as indirec

wing under the constant
seat of attack by Chiang-
<si-shek’s armies, the trade
unionists who have been
to establish contact with
ean workers, seized the
tunity af my visit to this
send the following message:

“You American workers ¢x-
erted all your energy to make
these bombs, planes and ma-
chine-guns with which our
people’s city is now menaced.
You made them im order to de-
fend democracy against Japarn-
ese military-fascism. Today,
your American government gives
them to Chiang Haishek so
that he can try to destroy
China’s democracy and insti-
tute 2. secret police, miltary-
fascist rule that will threaten
the peace of the whole- werld.
“Why does democratic America
support military dictatorship and
Gestapo methods in China? Why
does America send bombs, ma-
chine guns, planes and two bil-
jion dollars worth of surplus war
supplies to destroy our trade
unions, our production program
and the democratically elected
governments that we built with

-our labor and lives in the course
of our common war against Ja-
pan?

“Tf American workers permit
Ghiang Kai-shek to bomb and
strafe the democratic Liberated
Areas and to launch huge offen-
Sives which are entirely Ameri-
ean equipped, then be assured
that you yourselves will not es
cape the consequences. The war
America is Sending us threatens
the entire world. The reaction-—
aries you permit to fatten on us
will turn and enslave you next.”

The Ghinese workers, who have
heard that the CIO is planning
to send, a delegation to the Far
Hast, urged that the American
trade unionists “come and see
for yourseives what a prosperous,
democratic life we are building
and under what savage attacks
our peaceful society is laboring,
from the joint conspiracy of the
Chinese warlords and American
iniperialism.”

Im an effort to give American

They spoke as direct representatives of 410,000 organized workers of the Chin-Cha-Chi
¢ spokesmen for 1,500,000 organized workers of the adjoining Liberated Areas of North China-

Liberated Area

—Fur & Leather Wv-<er

The new ‘lend-lease’

trade unionists a picture of their
way of life, they included in the
message a review of their
achievements during and since

the war with Japan. Besides
organizing trade unions, they
said, they have secured “double

and even triple wages as com-
pared with one year ago” and
have for the first time secured
“a stable living standard.”

Every factory, they explained,
has workers’ recreation ciubs and
schools. Lhe government includes

many workers’ representatives,

they said, and “we cooperate with
management to
tion, so that private capitalists
can make fair profit while the
workers also improve their liveli-
hood.”

But mest important of all, they
said, “We have the right to speak
freely about all grievances for
the first time in our lives. Form-
erly practically serfs without any
rights under the rule of warlords
and secret police, we are today
self-respecting citizens of a demo-
cratic society.”

DeGaulle anti-Soviet plans
in new French constitution vote

PARIS—The opening bell in a hot election fight was sounded in France this week
when the Constituent Assembly gave its approval to a new constitution, while General
Charles De Gaulie, former French President, called on the people to reject it in a ref-
erendum scheduled for October 13.

ihe new constitution guaran-
tees the right of trade union mem-
bersbip and the right to strike. It
affirms the right of every man
to a job regardless of “his origins,
his opinions or his beliefs.” In a
clause embodying one of French
labors major demands, it pro-
vides for the nationalization of any
industry which “has acquired the
characteristics of a national public
service or 2 monopoly.”

This constitution, the second to
be voted on by the Frénch people
since their country’s liberation,
represents 2 compromise among
the views of the three major politi-
cal parties, the MRP (Popular Re-
publican Movement), the Commun-
ists' and the Socialists. It grants
wider powers to the President than
did the first constitution, which
#Hrench voters rejected last May.

GENERAL DeGAULLE
Erench bell-weather for Amngico-
U.S. anti-Soviet bicc.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 2

seen

However, in De Gaulle’s view, it
hasn’t gone far eneugh. The for-
mer President, whom the trade
unions regard as the spearhead of
French reaction, advocates that the
President be given all-embracing
authority. ’According to De Gaulk,
this is mecessary because there
may be 2 war between the U.S.
and the Soviet Union.

In the view of labor leaders, De

Gaulie himself is seeking the role
of President, but only if the office
carries with it the power that he
advocates. The labor leaders op-
pose in principle the concept that
the country should be run by one
Man ,and they also oppose De
Gaulle’s personal aspirations be—
cause they believe he is anxious to
draw Erance into an anti-Soviet
bloc.

US-Britain intent on
saving German trusts

BERLIN—The U.S.

and British authorities who are

planning the future of the German trusts are considering

plans which may eat heavily

into the pocketbooks of U.S.

and British taxpayers and may leave the big trusts intact.

The authorities hold the view
that U-S. and British investors in
the German trusts, which con-
trolled 95 per cent of the German
war machine, must be compensat-
ed if the trusts are dissolved, as
they are supposed to be under the
Potsdam agreement.

Two proposals being considered
are that the investors be com=-
pensated in dollars or pounds de-
rived from the proceeds of Ger-
man exports; or that compensation
be in German currency. The first
would mean that U.S. and British

taxpayers will have to pay the bill,
because only exports from  Ger-
Many can relieve them of the
cost of financing Germany's es-
sential imports.

In the second case, the German
currency would inevitably be
“blocked” and would therefore
have to be reinvested in buying
up the plants of the dissolved
trusts. In other words, the trusts
would continue to exist, but under
the ownership of U.S. and British

‘big business instead of German.

. International

increase produc-—

Hawaiin sugar barons
. seek to crush unions —

By JOHN EEINECKE
HONOLULU—The Hawaiian sugar strike which ‘began

Sept. 1; has developed into a

clear-cut showdown fight on

the part of the “Big Five’’—the tightly-knit group of mon-
opolists which for three generations has enjoyed undisputed
control of HMawaii—to crush effective trade unionism.

The line of propaganda which
employers have been unfolding
was summed up this week in 2
radio address delivered by Henry
A. White, President of Hawaiian
Pineapple Co, Ltd.

White flatly accused the CIO
Longshoremen’s
and Warehousemen’s Union of
wishing to overthrow capital
ism in Hawaii, denounced the
CIO Political Action Commit-
tee as the DLWU’s political arm
and called for “local” tmions
free from “mainland domina-
tion” and foreigm connections.
In an effort to prove to work-
ers that he was talking in their

best interests, White laid heavy

stress on the fact that the Thww
is seeking 2 union shop on sugar
plantations, warning that this wilt
impair the “freedom” of the
workers.
The strategy of the sugar in-
dustry appears to be to prolong
the strike until 1947, when it will
be able to realize about $7,000,000
more onthe sugar which would
normally be produced this’ year
than if it compromised and be
gan production now. Only hitch
is that the sugar cane is already
suffering from lack of water The
plantations are trying to mobilize
supervisors to carry on irrigation
but the union is determined te
keep the water supply shut off.

‘boom and

Rising prices herald ©

bust’ in US

By GLADYS CARTER

NEW YORK—U-:S. big business is heading the country
toward another “boom and bust,” Reconversion Director John
R. Steelman warned this week m a report to the President
“If prices keep on rising and precipitate a wage-price spiral,

business and agriculture will
selves out of the market and
asserted.

In the last three months, prices
have shot up more than they did in
the 38 preceding months, Steelman
revealed. Continuation oof this
trend, he said, “might choke off
demand, upset business stabiliza-
tion and precipitate an early and
severe price collapse, with serious
economic and social consequences.”

Alongside the rising prices, the
reconversion director’s report
showed that wages have dropped
from an April 1946 average of
$47.12 a week to a July average of
$43.07. The steel wage increase
of 18.5 cents an hour, which has
been popularly regarded as a na-
tional pattern for other wage set-
tlements, is actually far higher
than most, Steelmah said, while
profits after taxes “are at the high-
est point in history.” :

Even if consumers can main-
tain their present purchasing pow-
er, the danger of depression still
exists, the report pointed sout. Con-
sumers will have to “increase their
total expenditures far above even
their current high levels if the
goods are to be sold,” it said.

“There can be no doubt,” it add-
ed, “that in some industries the
profit position is such that prices
could be reduced and profits still
be maintained at a satisfactory
level. This will be even more true
in the coming year as volume in-
creases and unit costs come down.”

However, in his recommenda-
tions Steelman ignored his own
conclusions by failing tq call for
more vigorous price controls and
by advocating stringent wage con-
trols.

President Truman, commenting

pee ee |
Bevin's Greece

ATHENS. — Representatives Of
the French, Dutch and Belgian re-
sistance movements were refused
visas to enter Greece when they
sought to attend a congress of
the Greek resistance movement,
EAM. The French National Coun-
cil of Resistance. charged that this
action, plus the later banning of
the EAM parley, is further proof
that Greece is being run by a fas-
cist-minded dictatorship.

find they have priced then»
into a depression,” the report

On the report, similarly; ignored its
most salient points. Brushing
aside the fact that production has
been hela down not by labor but
by the refusal of big business to
produce within the framework of
price controls, the President de
clared that the solution to the
problem is for workers to redouble
their efforts for higher output.

Truman stressed the necessity
of not permitting “a further in-
crease in prices,” but he failed to
deal with the pressing problem of
rolling: back already - inflated
prices.

Sar

PRESIDENT TRUMAN

“. - comes the ‘bust’ ”.
FRIDAY, OCEFOBER ii, 1946