MOUNTING DISASTERS INSIDE THE COMMON MARKET

Mr. Eric Butler reports from London after a tour of Western Europe.

"The businessman in Venice was expressing what are obviously the thoughts of an increasing number of his fellow Italians: "The only hope for this country is another strong man like Mussolini. A strong leader is not yet in sight, but he will be welcomed when he arrives." There is a widespread fear that unless Italy's internal problems are dealt with before long, the Communists could come to power in the near future. The new Centre-Left coalition government, led by Signor Rumor, is desperately attempting to grapple with an inflation reflected by a 2.3 per cent increase in wholesale prices for June. There are unofficial reports of a deficit budget of as high as $11,000 million for 1974. The Government's proposals to try to curb inflation by a credit and prices squeeze must inevitably aggravate the growing industrial unrest and non-stop strikes.

"As one passes from Northern Italy into Switzerland one can find no evidence to suggest that the Swiss have suffered as a result of not being part of the much-publicised Common Market. It is true that the Swiss also have inflation, but they suffer less from the problems of social disintegration afflicting the bigger and more highly centralised nations. Switzerland provides much of interest to the student of political and social organisations. A high degree of unity has been achieved in this small Federation, comprising a number of different language groups, by applying the principle of decentralisation. Government is kept local and close to the people, with all the States having an equal say in the Federal Government. As far as I know, the Swiss are the only people in the world with the system of initiative referenda, this enabling electors who do not like any legislation to initiate action to have a referendum, on this legislation. If the British had the right to initiate referenda, the Heath Government would never have been able to push them into the Common Market against the wishes of the majority of the electors.

"On the day I entered France Dr. Joachim Zahn, managing director of the Mercedes-Benz car company, was quoted as having told shareholders that because of the growing international monetary crisis, the business climate in West Germany was worse than it had been for decades. A spokesman for the Federation of German Industry in Cologne supported Dr. Zahn with the comment that - "The situation has never been so critical since the war."
In France I quickly learned that the Pompidou Government is having no more success than other Common Market countries in combating inflation. The French press has been giving increasing space to the growing friction between West Germany and France. This friction not only stems from differences concerning foreign policy, but also from conflict about Common Market policies. The West German Foreign Minister, Herr Scheel, has been quoted as having said recently, "The French are insupportable. They get on everyone's nerves."

France is being criticised by representatives of the European Economic Commission in Brussels for trying to undermine the right of the Commissioners to act independently of national governments. M. Chirac, the French Agriculture Minister, is alleged to have accused M. Cheysson, a French member of the Commission, of not taking sufficient notice of French national interests. But as I was pointing out ten years ago to British audiences, the Treaty of Rome lays it down that members of the Commission are obliged to act without taking any instructions from any national government. The ultimate purpose of the E.E.C. is to produce a United States of Europe in which the member States are reduced to the role of mere provinces controlled by the Eurocrats.

"It is now beginning to dawn on an increased number of British Members of Parliament what the E.E.C. really is about. There was uproar in the British House of Commons when it was announced that the E.E.C. Commission has asked that the United Kingdom contribute an extra 33 million pounds to the E.E.C. budget. One Opposition Member told the Government Minister, Mr. Davies that "You have behaved in a way quite contrary to the national interest." And this is the hub of the problem now openly emerging inside the E.E.C.; the growing friction between those wishing to centralise power and the strong desire of the different groups of people to preserve their own identities and to have some control over their own affairs.

Even Mr. Hans Nord, secretary-general of the European Parliament, has bluntly stated in a recent White Paper "The feeling that you have to harmonize everything is in my personal view a heresy . . . Unfortunately, the Treaties of Rome in many instances require much harmonization and, therefore, the Commission is obliged to produce proposals."
Mr. Nord also warns "European bureaucracy and national democracy, if they are allowed to exist for a long time, may kill either one or the other."

"Typical of his type, Prime Minister Edward Heath brushes aside the growing conflict being produced by the Common Market, the soaring British food prices which entry into the E.E.C. made inevitable, and insists that all will be well in the long term. But reality is fast overtaking the grandiose theories of the centralisers. Even a group of British civil servants working at the British Mission in Brussels have prepared a report stating that the Common Market was a "disaster" for the United Kingdom. A furious Mr. Heath and his embarrassed Ministers have swung into vigorous action to have the existence of the report denied. But there is no doubt that the report's pessimistic conclusions are endorsed by a growing number of Britons working at Brussels.

The Common Agriculture policy is like something out of Alice in Wonderland, with the E.E.C. reducing the mounting pile of butter with massive exports to Russia at a subsidised price, which cost the E.E.C. taxpayers 112 million pounds in export subsidies. Now the Red Chinese are asking for the butter on similar terms.

"The current disasters of the Common Market are nothing compared with those to come. But at least the British people are learning by hard experience. And that is how it appears that Australians and others are determined to learn that centralisation does not pay."

REVOLUTIONARY TRAIL EMERGING

"Australia yesterday backed a Canadian proposal to send a Commonwealth police force into Rhodesia to supervise an independent agreement. The Prime Minister, Mr. Whitlam, indicated his support for the idea as Afro-Asian Commonwealth leaders pressed Britain hard for some positive action to end the illegal minority government of Mr. Ian Smith." - The Australian, 11th August.

Mr. Whitlam, whether he knows it or not, is endorsing all the aspirations of the International Communist Movement, expressed at the tri-Continental Conference held in Havana, Cuba, in January 1966. There is no longer any pretence that the original basis for Australia's policy towards Rhodesia - which claimed to endorse without question Britain's attitude in the conflict - now applies. Mr. Heath made it clear that Britain would oppose any suggestion of armed intervention from outside, and said, "There is no hope in hell of getting permanent sanctions through the British Parliament."

Mr. Lee Kwan Yew of Singapore also opposed such a step, making a mockery of the oft-repeated Labor claim that Asian neighbors supported Australia's attitude to Rhodesia. As Mr. Lee said, "A lot of people sitting round the table and who are not going to die are saying let's start another Vietnam."

The thing, which sickens an increasing number of Australians, is the double standard so obvious in the Whitlam foreign policy. If Australia is to oppose minority governments, this attitude should be applied without fear on favour, and we would now be taking sanctions against the vast majority of "independent" nations in Africa. What about sanctions against General Amin in Uganda? or Kaunda of Zambia, who has his Opposition languishing in goal? let alone the Communist countries, which have had minority government in the hands of the Communist Party since the outset of totalitarian control?

One man must be delighted with Mr. Whitlam's behaviour - the terrorist leader and communist tool Herbert Chitepo, who has certainly not been wasting his time in Australia. Australia's Communist Weekly, Tribune (July 24-30th) carried an article by Denis Freney, which described a conference held at Minto, the Communist training school, to hear Chitepo outline plans for increased terrorist invasions of Rhodesia. Special funds were to be established to aid the communist guerillas led by Chitepo. Telegrams were sent to Mr. Whitlam, Dr. Cairns and Mr. Grassby, urging the banning of a Portuguese Trade Mission due in Australia. The Tribune (July 31 - Aug. 6) reported Chitepo addressing a meeting of Communist activists at Party H.Q. in Sydney. Mr. Laurie Aarons, introducing Chitepo, said that the visit was of great importance. A group in Adelaide calling themselves the Mozambique Liberation Movement was reported by the same issue of Tribune as organising a tour for a speaker from FRELIMO to Australia.

The stage has been reached where the International Communist Movement can be seen shaping Australia's foreign policy, with the active help of Labor politicians and only token murmurs of opposition from other parties.

COMMUNIST BRAINWASHING IN SCHOOLS

Mr. Jeremy Lee reports on interesting developments in a prominent Melbourne High School. Invited to debate a member of the Communist Party at a seminar "Is China a threat to Australia?" Mr. Lee dealt with the constant theme of China's foreign policy since the ASLIA conference in 1949, the graphic warning of the top Communist Chang Lao, who defected to the West in 1957, the famous global strategy "Long Live the People's War", announced by Lin Piao in September 1965, the Tri-Continental Conference in January 1966, and China's escalating activities in S.E. Asia and Africa.

Mr. Lee's opponent presented a slide-talk picturing a recent visit to China. Obviously designed for presentation to young students, the talk was illustrated with carefully interspersed quotations from Chairman Mao, and a subtle denigration both of Hong Kong and Australia. However, hearing two sides enabled the youngsters to ask some embarrassing questions at the conclusion of the speakers' presentations.

Why was China nuclear testing? What about China's massive drug exports? At this stage two strangers in the audience sought to divert attention by telling students that Mr. Lee's speech could only be understood in the context of the "back-ground" of the League, and proceeded to make highly-coloured allegations that the League was a mixture of Hitler, Machiavelli and Rasputin, and aimed to put all those who disagreed with it into gas-ovens!

However there is a sense of fair play amongst many young people, who could sense that this was a pre-arranged exercise. Their questions were not being answered, and at the conclusion of the debate some of the students were interested to know why a fair debate was being thus manipulated. The master-in-charge, apologising to Mr. Lee at the conclusion, said that the two were strangers to the school. It seems that there are those who are so concerned for Australian students that they will at all costs "protect" them from hearing both sides. It would be interesting to know how many other High Schools have been treated to the slick brainwash in the slide-programme.

THE BEAR HUG

"The Soviet-American Trade Agreement, not yet a year old, has already started a stampede by American businessmen to be in on what many believe will be a trade bonanza...But the early optimism is beginning to be tinged by some warning signals. Could the friendly Russian bear-hug turn into a squeeze?" - The Australian, August 14th.

The massive increase in exports to the Soviet has already resulted in a windfall this year to the Kremlin. When the Russians contracted for the purchase of $1,000 million wheat from the U.S.A. (resulting in panic buying of wheat on the domestic market in America) devaluation of the $U.S. has already knocked millions from the original agreed price. As Australia's wheat exports are also contracted for in $U.S. it would be instructive to learn how much the ever-increasing slide has cost Australia.

Anthony Sampson, writing in The Age (14/8/73) quoted the exiled Czech, economist Ota Sik: "He explained that Mr. Brezhnev had realised, since the Czech revolution in the late sixties that he could not improve the Soviet industrial performance through unleashing the market forces without also unleashing demands for political freedom, and as a result, he was simply buying the technology and management of the Western Corporations in order to acquire greater industrial growth - without disturbing his bureaucracy and police state. . . The multi-national corporations cannot ignore the moral and political consequences; they are being invited to provide support for a totalitarian system without questioning the end results."

He goes on: "The resemblance between centralised governments and centralised corporations has often been noted. The U.S. Tariff Commission in its report on multi-nationals in February this year, made the point... "In the largest and most sophisticated multi-national corporations, planning and subsequent monitoring of plan fulfillment have reached a scope and level of detail that, ironically, resemble more than superficially the national planning procedures of communist countries."

Mr. Sampson makes a point that we have been making for years. The present crucial struggle in the world is misrepresented if it is described as a struggle between Communism and Capitalism. The real nature of the struggle is a clash between centralised power in a few hands, and the freedom of the individual. Centralised power, whether it be in the hands of a Capitalist or Communist country, a multi-national corporation, or in the hands of international financiers is, as L.D. Byrne has put it, "The policy of Satanism."