African negroes barred from UN, expose slave labor conditions

NEW YORK.—The gold-mining interests of the Union of South Africa, who make}.

an average yearly profit of $200,000,000 — more than three times the amount they pay
their 320,000 Negro laborers—are counting on Premier Jan Christian Smuts to put over a
neat little deal for them at the United Nations.

~ Oust Franco,
is TUC demand

By JOHN BRANDON

LONDON—In its sharpest
split with the government
since the Labor Party came
to power 15 months ago, the
British Trades Union Con-
gress brushed aside a_ plea
for mo action from Prime
Minister Clement Attlee and
demanded that all relations

with Franco Spain be severed.
immediately
afterward, the
TUC’s 78th an-
nual conven-
tion, by a vote
of 3,557,000 to
2,444,000, reject-
ed a resolution
condemning the
Labor govern-
ments foreign
policy. The de-
feated resolu-
tion had been
attacked by
Attlee as filled
with “Communistic misrepre-
sentations,’ The big vote for
the resolution showed 2a substan-
fial increase in the Labor gov-
ernment opposition. Last year for-
eign policy critics were overwhelm-
ingly defeated at every turn.

The rejected resolution hit spe-
officially at British actions m
Greece and Germany and de-
nounced the conduct of relations
with Russia as “Anglo-American
domination and isolation of the
Soviet Union.” The convention
will probably confine its action on
Greece to endorsement of the gen-
eral council report, which _criti-
eizes the Greek government for
removing elected trade union
leaders.

In his address to the Congress,
devoted mainly to a verbal on-
slaught against Communists, Att
lee asked the unions to help the
government recruit for the arm-
ed forces because of the “dis-
_turbing features” in world af
fairs, He also renewed his appeal
for increased production.

A bitter dispute centered around
the employment of Polish treops
under General Anders, who op-
poses the present Polish govern
ment. Delegates characterized the
Polish troops who refuse to re-
turn home as “arrogant fascists”
who sport “Hitler decorations.”

Premier Smuts, the 76-year-old
British Hmpire statesman, is here
to request UN approval for the
outright annexation of Southwest
Africa, a territory that was man-—
dated to Smuts’ povernment after
World War L

If the South African Premier
succeeds, the mining corporations
will have a free hand to exploit
tens of thousands of Southwest
African natives in the newly dis-
covered gold fields in Orange
State.

Forbidden by the government
to send a representative of their
own to the UN General Assembly,
8 million Negroes—who form four-
fifths of the population—are re
lying on Senator Hyman B. Bas-
mer of the South African Parlia-
ment to register their protests
against Smuts’ proposals.

Senator Basner, who was sent
here by a number of South Af-
rican labor and progressive or-
ganizations, is the white repre—
sentative of a constituency which
numbers some 4 million Negroes.
He has no official standing at
UN but is here, as he explains,
to act as a “lobbying agent” for
South Africans.

Here are a few of the points
he made on conditions in his
country at a press conference
ealled by the Council on African
Affairs: :

@ Negroes are denied. the
Fight te hold property or worlx
at a skilled trade. They there-
fore have uo other choice but
to slave in the mines 12 toe 14
hours 2 day for 50 cents at

back-breaking and dangerous

jobs. The 40,000 white workers
get 10 times as much pay.

@ The Negroes are forced to
hire out to the mine owners
for i2-month stretches, living
im miserable compounds far
away from their families. They
are subjected to Nazi-like pass
laws which prevent them from
going anywhere without the
mine operators’ approval They
have no right to organize or
hold meetings.

@ When, six weeks ago, the
Negro miners strack for high-
er pay and improved conditions,

Premier Smuts ordered the
strike broken. A number were
killed, hundreds were beaten

up and jailed, until the strilk-
ers were bludgeoned back to the
mines. These workers have not
had a pay imcrease since 1914.

@ U.S. corporations own #
“considerable share” im the
South African mines. ;

Senator Basner sharply repudi-:
ated Premier Smuts’? claim that
the whole people of Southwest
Africa approved annexation by
the union: Only a handful of
tribal chiefs, and not the popu-
lation, have consented to it,’ the
Senator stated. “And it is no-
torious that the tribal chiefs are
tools of the South African gov-
ernment.” i

Premier Smuts, rankling at the
attacks on his governments labor
policies, is trying to block dis-
cussion on this subject at the
WN General Assembly on the
grounds that this is an “inter-
nal” matter that only concerns
South Africa.

Underground drilling in the fabulously rich gold fields at Johan-

nesburg,

South Africa. The miners are subjected to ruthless

imperialistic Jimcrow oppression and exploitation, compelled to
work a 14-hour day for 50c, and mass imprisonment when they

strike.

Little wonder that Britain wants to annex the man-

dated territory of Tanganyika, also rich in gold and diamonds:

US navy blockades American peace trade

By ANNA LOUISE STRONG

HARBIN—North Manchuria could give jobs to tens of thousands of American and British workers and relieve pres-
sure on the U.S. and British food supply if only the American Navy would let trade ships through.

Good creamery butter sells here at 25c a pound, fresh meat at 8 te 10c a pound, eggs at 21c a dozen, bread at 5c for
by rail to Tsitsihar, dozens of peddlars at every station were crying fried chickens at Z25c.

a pound loaf. When I went

Manchuria suffers from a glut
of food, which cannot be shipped
outside because of the Kuomin-
tang blockade. Behind that block-
ade is the American Navy, with
its great naval base at Tsingtao.
Although the new Chinese Navy
does the patrolling of Manchur-
jan coasts, a permit from the
U.S. Navy, which gave the Chin-
ese Navy all its ships, would let
any trading ‘ship through.

Manchuria could feed the In-
dian famine and the South China
famine, and supply cheap food

Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov and Captain Bisset of
the ‘Queen Elizabeth’ on the bridge of the big ship as
she enters New York harbor, where the former is at-
tending sessions of the United Nations.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 2

wherever it was needed, in re-
turn for urgently needed textiles,
trucks, tractors, farm implements,
gasoline and other commodities.

Hundreds of thousands of Man-
churian peasants need clothing
and can’t go outdoors without it.
Many are actually naked, hiding
their bodies with straw. Worst
off are the farm laborers and ten-
ant farmers, who make up half
the farm population of Manchur-
ia. They haven’t seen a yard of
cotton goods for years.

The Japanese gave cotton ra-
tions to the villages that produc-
ed grain, but the Chinese land-
lords, village agents for the Jap-
anese, kept the cotton goods for
their own profit, letting the la-
borers freeze naked. These land-
lords have been thrown out of
power by the new Democratic
Government of North Manchuria
—called Communist by the world
because there are Communists in
it—but that doesn’t make new
clothes.

Whenever Chiang Kai-shek gets
into power, he restores village
rule to the landlords who helped
the Japanese. That is why the
Liberated Areas of Manchuria
resist Chiang’s rule and why Chi-
ang blockades their coasts. But
it doesn’t explain why the Amer-
ican Navy should help blockade
American trade.

B
What, no spies?

NEW YORK—The dime novel
spy scare involving Oak Ridge,
Tenn. atomic energy plants, start-
ed last March by Ernie Adamson
of the House Un-American Af-
fairs Committee, was laid to rest
this week.

Rep. John S. Wood, chairman
of the committee, announced:
“We haven’t been able to find
any spies. In my opinion, there
are no spies at Oak Ridge.”

Adamson’s wild spy charges
were whipped into 2 propaganda
flame last summer by Rep. J.
Parnell Thomas just before work-
ers at three Oak Ridge plants
voted in an election to determine
their union representation.

Redistribution must be
on representative basis

OTTAWA — Two British Columbia constituencies and
the one Yukon riding will probably be affected when the
House of Commons elects a committee at its next session —
to undertake the redistribution of federal seats. :

Under the redistribution bill
passed this year, British Colum-
bia gets two new seats and the
constituencies most likely to be
divided when the boundaries are
redrawn are Vancouver South and
New Westminster, both of which
had more than 60,000 *names on
the 1945 voters’ lists.

In Vancouver South, now rep-
resented by Howard Green, Pro-
eressive-Conservative, with an
over-all ‘majority, division of the
constituency is not expected to
weaken the Conservative Party’s
traditional hold on the seat.

In New Westminster, how-
ever, Tom Reid, Liberal, polled
only one third of the votes
east in last year’s election and
the combined CCE and LPP
vote, had it been united) would
have defeated him. It is expec-
ted that the riding will be di-
vided to cut the.main urban
areas, New Westminster city
and South Burnaby, from the
Fraser Walley with its big
rural vote. This, the Liberals
feel, will at least give them
some chance to hold the Fraser
Valley seat.

Alternatively, South Burnaby
may be taken from New West-
minster and united with North
Burnaby, now ineluded in the
sprawling North Vancouver rid-
ing, to create a Burnaby seat.

The proposal to add Mackenzie
District to the already vast Yu-
kon ‘Territory constituency, rep-
resented on a minority vote by
George Black, Progressive Con-
servative, in face of a divided
labor vote, is not likely to meet
with favor either in the Yukon
or Mackenzie.

Yukon voters outside the twe
main centers, Whitehorse and
Dawson City, see little of their
member now. Inclusion of Mac
kenzie will make it virtually im-
possible for amy member to cover
the huge and sparsely populated
region stretching from the BC
and Alberta borders to the Arc
tic Sea at Aklavik and from the
Alaska boundary across to the
Mackenzie River.

Residents of the key Macken
Zie points, Yellowknife, Nor
man, Eldorado and Aklavil;
have long been clamoring for
local representative government
in place of the commission con-
trolied from Ottawa and for
direct representation - in the
House, particularly in view of
the tremendous importance of
Mackenzie to the country’s
economy. They are not likely
to be content with the proposal —
to attach them to the Yuker ~
constituency with little more
opportunity to obtain satisfac
tion of their demands.

BS)

Don‘t forget the boys —

Bill Freisen, Jack Rockandel”
and Robert Daniels are in Okalla”
jail for the next few months be”
cause they took an active part
in helpmg the ITU picket the
union busting Daily WProvince-
publishers. |

They need books, papers, snd
above all, smokes to help 2w2y¥
the tedious prison hours. Send)
them lots of smokes, books, and:
letiers of encouragement.

¥

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1946