Is that the “American way” to mortgage the lives of American boys for the sake of extra billions from Europe and South America and the Far East when we are not making use of half what the good Lord gave us right here at home? Is following England on the path of world imperialism the American way?

What is American about the insane scramble of the old imperialists to become a World Power? Who wants to be a World Power? What ordinary, normal American?

Being a world power has done nothing for the people of England. See how they live now. See how little they have of material things, how little democracy.

The world power business is an obsession. For world power means millions bowing down to you. It means dictatorship in your subject countries and leads by quick stages to dictatorship at home. It means competition in armaments building and that means war. Armaments have never yet been built to rust in storerooms and never will be. Every wise man drew that conclusion from the first world war. Lord Grey of Fallodon, British Foreign Secretary from 1905 to 1915, wrote: “Great armaments lead inevitably to war. If there are armaments on one side, there must be armaments on other sides… The increase of armaments that is intended in each nation to produce consciousness of strength and a sense of security, does not produce these effects. On the contrary, it produces a consciousness of the strength of other nations and a sense of fear. Tear begets suspicion and distrust and evil imaginings of all sorts.”

A commonplace in the years following 1918. Forgotten now in the hysteria and panic of a new armaments race resulting from nothing but the interimperialist dog-fight to redivide the world. (Th. Dreiser America Is Worth Saving)

Hobart, Tuesday. Raging bush fires have turned Southern Tasmania into an inferno which has killed an estimated 50 people, destroyed whole townships, and is threatening Hobart itself, the State capital (population 120,000).

The State Governor has declared a state of emergency on the island, as thousands of fire-fighters battle to block the advance of the solid wall of flame.

At least 450 houses have been destroyed, including 60 in the suburbs of Hobart. Crops have been devastated, and hundreds of dead cattle and bush animals lie scattered across the countryside. Men driving their families out of the danger area found they were engaged in а race against death, with flames reaching out at them from all sides, and a blanket of smoke blotting out sun and sky. Most got though, but some did not.

City workers jammed public transport services in a frantic rush to got home as news of the fire danger in the suburbs reached them.

Tonight the sight of stunned families squatting in the street with a few meagre possessions round them is a frequent one in many suburbs.

The authorities fear that the final death toll may be much higher than the 50 estimated by police sо far.

In the mountainside suburb of Ferntree, 41. houses and a hotel were destroyed and all communications were cut off.

There were fears for the safety of the 150 residents but later it was learned they had been safely evacuated.

Four fire-fighters were burned to death as they tried to hold back the flames at Lenah Valley, another Hobart suburb.

An appeal was launched tonight for relief for the hundreds of refugees who have policed into relief centres here seeking accommodation, food and clothing.

Tonight the flames, fanned by treacherously changing winds of up to 70 miles an hour, were still rolling down 4,500 ft. Mount Wellington, which towers over Hobart. (Morning Star, 1967)

1. For the Liberal Party to be treated as a serious organisation, there must be a great deal of money backing this remnant of a once powerful party, whose president is a director of 12 companies, some of them operating in British colonies. (Daily Worker)

2. Once more the two big parties of American capitalism have rulled off a very useful trick. They have kept the allegiance of American masses in their fold and have prevented the rise of a powerful third party. (Daily Worker)

3. A 12-men Soviet steel delegation arrived at London airport last night to start a three week visit at the invitation of the Government.

4. Britons will be among over 100 experts meeting at Luxembourg today to discuss improved mining safety.

5. Paris bakery owners yesterday called off a two-day refusal to sell bread launched as a part of a bitter struggle to starve Paris into agreeing to an increase in bread prices.

6. Polio struck Manchester again when seven new cases ended a period of two days respite in the epidemic.

7. Typhoon Freda killed seven people, injured nine and left 4,000 homeless when she swept across Northern Formosa on Sunday, according to police reports yesterday.

8. The Chartists had not planned to assemble in arms on Kensington Common. Or march thence to the Houses of Parliament.

American imperialists, while driving on to conquer the world in order to keep their bloated, parasitic economic system in operation, are at the same time madly dreaming visions of expansion such as have never been entertained by any ruling class in history. They foresee an empire which could dwarf that of Chenghis Khan, that of Rome, of Great Britain, of Nazi Germany. With American bases dotting the whole globe, and American airplanes dominating the world’s airlines, with the American Navy controlling the Seven Seas, with the American army equipped with A-bombs and other superlethal weapons and over-running vast land areas, with American industry monopolizing world capitalist production, with the US government telling the rest of the world what to do, with all loads leading to Washington, — what a paradise of profit and power this could be for the big capitalist world conquerors of Wall Street! It would constitute the perfect empire, the entire globe under our capitalist ruling class, the final realization of all dreams of all the tyrants of world history. (W. Foster)