The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-04-18
By MAURICE sPEcroR

bAOA W ACDIOLO LIE CIGulI W liz ulluGIS
at the company stores and to provide
work of at least four days work
week. The twelve thousand miners
of Nova Scotia inclusive of the main
tenance stats, affecting fifty thousand
men women and children, went out
on strike that has already lasted
over seven weeks.
But behind the provocative cutting
off of credits and sabotage of produc-
ton was the determination of BESCO
to force a ten per cent wage cut be-
low the 1924 rates, a determination
in line with the whole past policy of
the corporation to redues the living
standards of the miners to the level
of coolies and no less in line with the
whole world wide capitalist offensive
on the miners of the world under
Dawes capitalism.
THE present one hundred per cent
4 strike is by no means the first
great struggle of the miners against
this ruthless corporation. At the pres
ent time when the Canadian middle
classes, the politicians, priests, pars-
ons, social service workers etc. are
Systematically confusing the root
causes of the struggle and blurring
the class issues involved by their
relief propaganda, it is necessary to
shout from the house tops that cap
italism and only capitalism is respons-
ible for the oppression, starvation and
degradation of the miners.
Nova Scotia is one of the. sorest
spots in Canadian capitalism. 1t is
dominated by the gigantic British
Empire Steel corporation, one Of those
war and post war products of capital
list, concentration and monopoly.
DESCO was formed by the merger
- Of all the coal, iron and steel and
shipbuilding companies of Nova SEQ
tia,
The merger was considerably facili-
tated by the coal-land leases by which
the kept politicians of the provincial
government graciously gave to Besco
practically all the coal in Nova Scotia
-one of the richest fields in the
world.
IRON its inception, the policy of
L Besco has been par excellence to
get something for nothing. In the
process of justification, the already
inflated capitalization of it's consti-
tuent companies was still furthered
watered to the tune Of over $19,000,-
000l Successive governments have
pampered Besco to a sickening degree.
1t has received over $S,000,000 in
bounties and nearly three-quarters of
a million dollars in remission Of du-
ties at the hands of kindly capitalist
politicians who will not hear word
about "demoralizing doles" for the
unemployed.
For services to government depart
melts, Besco has received no less
than $77,13S,459. 1t has charged the
government $3s a ton for rails which
1t was able to deliver to the foreign
market for $24 ton. But the APP
petite of a corporation whose aim is
to batten by restricting output and
intensifying exploitation, is Unsuitable.
Besco demands a still higher tariff
from the government and still further
wage reductions for the men.
ENACED by such an incarnation OF
4 capitalism as Besco, the miners of
Nova Scotia have been driven along
the channels of militancy and class
consciousness. Their condition has
been that of direct poverty, and semi
starvation. Theirs has been the low
est wage scale of any district in the
coal industry of North America. Work
ing an average of about one hundred
and fifty days year in the last three
years, the Nova Scotia miner has
averaged between $500 and $1,000
year.
AS a consequence of such condi-
tions the miners have been forced to
strike for wage contract every year.
AS at the beginning of this year, the