UN debates disarmament, high
budget ratio for military uses

NEW YORK—The fact that only a year after Allied victory the Big Four powers are
spending from 20 to 50 percent of their total national budgets for military purposes, will
serve as a grim backdrop when the United Nations General Assembly begins its debate on

world disarmament,

High on the 66-point Assembly
agenda, the disarmament debate
offers the first ray of hope that
the countless billions of dollars
of raw materiais and equip-
ment now being poured into
building military machines may
yet be used for reconstructing
2 world still impoverished after
nearly six years of war.

How the enormous military ex-
penditures of the Big Four are
stunting the economic welfare of
their own peoples as well as of
the smaller nations dependent on
them can be seen frem the fol-
lowing facts:

UNITED STATES:

Wearly 50 percent of the pro—
posed $36 billion budget for the
fiscal year 1947 has been allocated
to the military an amount
roughly equal to $125 for every
man, woman and child in the
U.S. The American taxpayer, har-
assed by inflationary prices, is pay-
ing 50 cents out of his tax dollar
to expand what is already the
most formidable military machine
in the world—while housing, edu-
cation programs and health are

brushed aside.

‘Private enterprise’ plays

a new role in

Manchuria

By ANNA LOUISE STRONG

HARBIN—Trade unions in the Communist-led Liberated
Area of Manchuria promote capitalism on the theory that
China is not ready for socialism and that the boss deserves a

profit for his risk.

Im the Tung Faho department
store this morning I met the
manager and the 20-year-old girl
mamed Sung who organized the
store last July. All 101 employees,
from clerks to janitors and itabor-
ers, are in the union now. 2

The Tung Faho store sold food
and miscellaneous goods for 20
years in Harbin. Under the Japa-
mese it went bankrupt, piling up

debts. After the Japanese col-
lapsed, there seemed to be no
way for the store to start up

again.

The owner lives in far-away
Shantung, behind the Kuomintang
battle lines. The clerks, living in
Chinese manner in a building in
the store’s courtyard, kept alive
by selling left-over stock on the
quiet.

When the clerks organized last
July, they approached the owner's

representatives to suggest the
store be re-opened. On their own
decison the workers got only

board and room at first. Monthly
wages were credited to them as a
debt against future profits and,
besides wages, they were to get
60 percent of the annual profits

“The owner wanted 70 percent
for himself,” Sung explained.
“This wasn’t fair since the clerks
shared the risk. We argued with
him: ‘Give us 2 decent life and
well work Lard to pull your store
out of the hole’ Finally he

agreed.” The owner may be bet-
ting that before the annual ac-
counting, Kuomintang troops will
take Harbin and he Can refuse to

pay the clerks. That's the
gamble.
The collective agreement per-

mitted and even encouraged em-
ployees to make suggestions about
buying as well as selling. By
September, the store was able to
pay the clerks half their money
wages, with the rest still accumu-
lating as a debt.

“Why did you give the boss any
profit?” TE asked him. “His store
was bankrupt and he is far away
in Shantung- Why not start your
own cooperative?”

“He owns the building, the fix-
tures and the reputation of a 20-
year business,” Sung answered.
“Qn his name we get credit and
bought our first stocks.” This is
the stand that most unions are
taking in trying to rebuild in-
dustry.

Other benefits the workers got,
Sung said, were the right to ex-
amine company books, a reduction
in working hours from 12 to 7,
and a recreation hall equipped for
basketball, ping-pong and other
games. Right now the workers
aren’t using the recreation hall
much. They're spending their
spare time organizing other clerks
in the area. Their local already
has over 1,000 members.

EUSSIA:

Although the Soviet Union cut
its Military budget by one-half
for the coming year, it is still
Spending between 20 percent and
25 percent of its estimatea $64
billion national budget for de
fence. A large percentage of. its
several million soldiers are des-
perately needed to advance the 5-
year reconstructio;
es m program.

Qut of a total budget of about
$15 billion, Britain vill spend
about 42 percent on its army,
navy and air forces—a crushing
burden for the average Britisher
who is still living under frugal
wartime standards. While the
country faces 2 serious produc-
tion crisis because of the labor
shortage, some two million men
are still in uniform, policing
countries all over the world.
FRANCE:

Bor the first three months of
1946, the French military received
close to 40 billion francs — nearly.
as much as the total amount al-
lotted for reconstruction for the
entire year. .

It remains to be seen whether,
faced with the nightmare of an
endless armaments race which is
erippling world recovery, the
Big Four can reach a_ suitable
compromise on the major politi-
cal and economic questions which
now divide them. Unless such an
agreement is reached, it is hardly
likely that any concrete disarm-
aments . program, including the
outlawing of the atom bomb, can
be worked out.

“We must not permit differences in economic and social systems

to stand in the way of peace.”

With this statement, President

Truman expressed the wishes of the worlds’ millions as he ad-
dressed the opening. session of the United Nations peneral

assembly. Only

@ few days previously,

with Czechoslovakia as

an example U.S. foreign policy was geared to the dollar. (Arrows
point te Russian and British delegations).

Rose trial judge distorted facts,
states defence counsel at appeal

MONTREAL — Judgment in the appeal of Fred Rose from his conviction has
been reserved until late November, following hearing of argument by five judges here. The

appeal took eight days to debate and saw heated clashes between

heads the defense, and Special
Should the present appeal fail,
was granted. '

Main defense arguments were
based on Cohen’s statement that
the trial judge had distorted the
facts as revealed by evidence
when he made his charge to the
jury. Defense declared, as well,
that the tactics of the Crown in
introducing evidence about the
“shadowing” of Tim Buck in
Montreal in. 1943 was designed to
“prejudice and poison the minds

igh prices plus low wages show
anger of approaching depression

NEW YORK—Sober evidence of the danger of an approaching depression can be found
by stacking Department of Commerce figures on business inventories alongside indexes of
the upward trend in retail prices and the slump in wages.

To organize Quebec

Next week some 27,000 mem-
bers of the International Wood-
workers: of America in British
Columbia will start balloting on
@ referendum to aetermine wheth-
er they are willing! to pay an
assessment of one dollar a mem-
ber into a special fund to be
used for the union’s projected
drive to organize Quebec’s estim-
ated 100,000 woodworkers. i

Agreement to take the refer-
endum in all IWA districts was
reached at the recent internation-
al convention. If approved, it will
authorize the international to con-
tribute a sum equal to the amount
raised in B.C. to the special org-
anizational fund.

Voting starts on November 15
and concludes December 25.

PACIFIC FRIBUNE — PAGE 2

Business inventories in Aug-
ust were at an all-time high of
$31,200,000,000, according to the
Commerce Department. The rapid
growth in stockpiling of goods
Can be seen from the fact that
the monthly rate of increase be-
tween August, 1945, and May,
1946, was about $189 million, while
between May, 1946, and August,
1946, the increase averaged $933
million.

One of the main reasons for big
inventories in recent months has
been hoarding goods and creating
artificial famines in order to force
the removal of price controls.

However, the Commerce Depart-
ment itself warns that “once the
business pipelines are filled, the
increase in inventories may shift
quickly from a voluntary to an
involuntary accumulation because
buying slackens or increases less
than anticipated.”

Government figures show that
by July, 1946, payrolis had fallen
35 percent below the 1944 peak.
Retail prices have reached the
highest point in 25 years. The
U-S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
reports the cost of living at 46
percent above August, 1939. Food
has risen by over 83 percent in
the same pericd and clothing by
Over 59 percent. Government sur-
veys also demonstrate that labor
has already: drained its wartime
Savings and will have nothing to
fall back on in 2 depressien.

Industry, however, has cush-
ioned itself against a slump with
the highest profits in history. It
is estimated that net profits after

taxes in the current quarter will
Tun at the annual rate of nearly
$14 billion. Peak wartime profits,
reached in 1943, were $9.9 billion.

Crown Prosecutor Brais.

Joseph Cohen, KC... who

Leave to appeal the sentence,

of the jury.” Similarly, the in-
quiry by the Crown into the poli-
tical belief of variouS witnesses
Was irrelevant, the sole purpose
being to bias the jurors, accord-
ing to the defense. This was in
Sharp contradiction to Mr. Justice
Lazure’s opening remarks that

Sec.-General Trygvie Lie of the
United Nations bitterly denounc-
€d the Franco regime, declaring
‘it will remain a constant cause
ef mistrust and disagreement
between United Nations found-

ers’. The issue of Spain will be
high on the agenda of the UN
assembly this week. Mear-—
while Franco, with the aid of
high German nazis is turning
Spain into an armed camp, and
terror agaimst the antifascist
people of Spain is reaching a
new high.

the trial had nothing to de with
politics.

Coben also attacked the intro-
duction of alleged Russian Em-
bassy documents, claiming that
they were diplomatically immune.
Defense also argued that they
were not allowed to cross-exanzine
Gerdon Lunan, who was found in
contempt of court. Other ar

| ments were based on lack of par-

ticulars and the claim that the
Crown had withheld documents
from the defense until they were
handicapped.

The question of bail for the im
Prisoned Cartier MP. takes on
new interest in view of the de
ferred judgment. WNo reply has
yet been received by the four-man
Gelegation which went to Ottawa
two weeks ago to intercede with
the minister of justice on Rose's
behalf. : ;

The delegation, which was com-
posed of Michael Buhay, Montreal
city councillor, Alex. Gauld, lead
ing trade unicnist, Madame Te
brun and Mrs. Esther Wise, car
ried with it over 4,000 signatures
of Cartier citizens demanding that
the government grant bail to Rose
pending his appeal. The petitions
were gathered in two hours oF
canvassing one Sunday morning.

Minister of Justice Douis St
Laurent was either too busy oF
unwilling to receive the petition-
ers, but left word that the matter
was outside of his jurisdiction:
The Justice Department, he said,
cannot interfere with judges on
the matter of bail. ;

This political subterfuge was
quickly exposed by Michael Bu-
hay, who heads the Fred Rose d&
fense€ committee, by pointing eut
that it was the counsel for the
Department of Justice who -was
responsible for the refusal of bail.
If the minister instructed his
counsel to waive the spurious ob-
jections, then bail would undoubt-
edly be granted. ;

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER §, 1946