‘@N those days in which we

live, the tiller of the soil,
the laborer, the artisan have
Sreater social and _ political
Power than ever possessed by
the same class before; so’ much

in this country of limited suf-
frage, their will must become

law.’—KEditorial in the Ontario .

Workman, July 18, 1872.

_ When editor-printer J. S. Wil-
liams penned these lines just five
years after Confederation he was
describing the unleashing of a
hew power in Canadian politics
and national affairs.

Remarkable was the emphasis
Placed on the essential unity of
farmer, unskilled and_ skilled
Worker, in the battle of working
People for a better life.

The same forces that gave birth
to Confederation—the coming to
Political maturity of a native
Capitalist class in Canada—also
Produced a stormy succession of
Working-class actions and an

awakening of the immense power -

of labor.

_The immediate post-Confedera-
tion years were marked by that
historic baptism of fire, the great
Printers’ strike in Toronto, which
drew 10,000 to a Queen’s Park
Solidarity rally; the mushroom
growth of the Nine Hour Leagues,
electrifying working men and
Women across the land with the
idea of organization.

It was the eve of the mighty

Movement that brought passage .

of the Trade Union Act of 1872
by Sir John A. MacDonald, legal-
Wing unions for the first time in
Canada. Before another year was
Out labor was to record another
triumphal “first”? — convening of
the Canadian Labor Union in 1873
— Canada’s first all-country labor
congress.

Represented at the congress was
Daniel John O’Donoghue, an Irish
Immigrant, member of the typo-
Sraphical union and a leader of
the Ottawa Trades Council.

«go Donoghue, often called the
father of the Canadian labor
Movement,” was elected a first
Vice-president of the Canadian
abor Union. The next year,
1874, he fought a byelection and
Won a seat in the Ontario legis-
ture — the first independent
labor member to sit in any legis-
ature or parliament in Canada,

4 post he occupied for five years.

The healthy demand for direct
abor representation in parlia-
Ment, for a parliamentary party
of the working class, came from
the bitter experiences of the
Printers and the struggles for the
Rine-hour ‘day. History was, to
See this grand idea often bypass-
€d and distorted by opportunists,
Careerists and reformists.

An article on the nine-hour
ay struggle appearing in the
Hamilton Standard in 1872 de-
Clared:

“Those parties to whom the

Workingman chiefly looked for
assistance and support in their
attempt to elevate the conditions
of their class, have, in the pre-

Sent great issue, signally failed

em.”’

The article goes on to score
the Reform party, the Tories and
Notably the U.S. businessmen, and
Continues:

_ “Another phase is that the
Chief opponents are principally
Yankees, men who have come
here and amassed fortunes at
the expense and by the aid of
he workingman and then used

€ gain they have got to ruin
€ future prosperity of the

Country, reckless of our future
So long as they obtain gold.”

here is only one workingclass

Political party that speaks as’

Sloquently and directly~ about
Present-day U.S. domination of
Our land: the Labor-Progressive
Party, é

After Canada’s first labor con-
Sess, there followed a period of
deep economic crisis. The idea
of @ central labor body was only
Tevived in 1883 when a much
More mature national convention,

So that if rightly directed, even *~

Reported to be the first in British Columbia, this steam logging railway was operated from the beach

at Kitsilane by the lioneer loggers.

‘Their will mus
become law’

the Canadian Labor Congress, met
at Dufferin Hall, 64 Queen
Street West in Toronte.
Throughout the years of the
struggle for trade union organ-
ization. there was repeated the
call for independent labor poli-
tical action. ;
The 1887 Congress convention
sounded a clarion call to the
working class of Canada, declar-
ing that it would “never be pro-
perly represented in parliament
or receive justice in the legisla-
tion of this country, until they
are represented by men of their
own class and members of this
Congress pledge themselves to
their utmost wherever practicable

By MARK FRANK

to bring out candidates for the
local and Dominion elections in
the constituencies in which they
reside.”

This demand only began to
take real form at the historic
1906 and 1917 conventions of the
Trades and Labor Congress.

At the 1917 convention the de-
cision was made to form a na-
tional Canadian labor party on
the model of the British Labor
party. Conferences of all work-
ing class organizations in all
provinces were to be called.

The 1919-20 Farmer-Labor gov-
ernment of Ontario was one of
its direct results with two labor
members in the cabinet.

At the 1923 convention the
leadership of the day took the
Congress off the path of indepen-
dent political action and the idea
of a Canadian Labor party.

*

Today’s non-partisan policy of
the Trades and Labor Congress
and the Canadian Congress of
Labor’s blank cheque to the CCF
dissipates and disunites that re-
markable force of Canadian labor
which “if rightly directed,” could
make its programs the law of

:the land.

If labor in the. eighteen-seven-
ties, almost 85 years ago, con-
sidered itself a decisive force,

Give Canada a flag

By VICTOR HOPWOOD

ONTROVERSY has raged many _

times in our hist ry around
the question of a distinctive Can-
adian flag. One of the hottest
of these perennial discussions
came at the end of the war against
fascism. In the course of it a
joint committee of the Commons
and Senate was established to Te-
commend a distinctive Canadian
flag to parliament.

A flag eliminated early in the
discussion, because of popular
dislike, was one proposed by Col.
Duguid. It had a Union Jack in
the top flagpole quarter, and a
Fleur-de-lis in the fly, with a
maple leaf between them and be-
low them. Its fate shows how
impossible it is to make a flag up
by putting symbols together. :

People take a flag to their
hearts when it is linked in strug-
gle with their aspirations. aa
editorial on Duguid’s flag in the
paper of the Canadian servicemen
overseas, The Maple Leaf, says
volumes about what a Canadian
flag must (and must not) be. The
editorial said: J

“No! Servicemen speak out
loud for a truly Canadian flag.
_.. Each mail brings additional
dozens of letters from, for as

ost art, angry men an
eth ot all ranks which, with
hardly a dissenting voice, and
in forthright and often unprint-
able terms, condemn the flag de-
sign . :'. ‘an abortion,’ ‘to the
devil with the Fleur-de-lis and
the Union Jack,’ ‘to the devil
with the ancestors — a Cana-

dian flag.’”

Many flags have played a living

7 in Canadian history. The
a cross on the blue field, with
Fleur-de-lis in the blue, is the
flag of Quebec today. 3 ;
In one of its many variants this
is the flag which flew at Cartier’s
masthead when he discovered

Canada. It is the flag which
Champlain raised on the rock of
Quebec when he founded New
France. At Carillon and later at
Sainte-Foy it became the symbol
of the heroism of French Cana-
dians in the defense of their
country. It was Montcalm’s ban-
ner when he was defeated on the
Plains of Abraham.

French Canadian poets have
paid tribute to the blue flag with
the white cross. Cremazie wrote
his famous “Le Drapeau de Caril-
lon” in its honor. Frechette paid
a tribute to it which every Can-
adian will doubtless apply to the
distinctive flag for all Canada
when it comes.

Frechette as an old man tells
his son that the flag of Great
Britain is an honorable one which
should not be disrespected. The
young man asks, “But, father, if
I dare, is there not another, our
own?” “Ah,” replies the father,
“that is another question. That
flag we kneel to kiss.”

8B

The great popular struggles
for democracy in Canada have
produced their historic flags.

At the battle of St. Eustache
the Patriots in 1837 fought under
a banner which displayed a
branch of maple and a fish. The
government of William Lyon
Mackenzie on Navy Island had a
flag of two stars, representing the
two nations of Canada.

Up till December 1869 the
Hudson’s Bay Company flag had
flown over Fort Garry. It was
the red ensign with the Union
Jack in the top corner next the
flagpole, and the letters “HBC”
in the fly.

Then Louis Riel’s provisional

government of Rupert’s Land
raised its flag. Its emblems were
the shamrock and Fleur-de-lis. . It
was a flag that Macdonald’s govy-
ernment in Ottawa was eventuai-

ly to tear down. But in the

meantime, under Riel’s leader-
ship, the Canadian Northwest was
to take shape. \

Even the British red ensign

with the Canadian coat of arms in ~

its fly, which is used as Canada’s
distinctive if not official flag,
has had its part in the drama of
the fight for Canadian independ-
ence. i
There was a time when the
British admiralty would not per-
mit Canadians to fly this flag—
in their mind it was a defaced
British merchant marine flag. A
British consul in a South Ameri-
can port even went so far as to
order a Canadian ship to remove
it. In the end the British govy-
ernment had to accept the fact—
that usage had made a defaced
British flag a stopgap for a Can-
adian flag.
&

The joint committee of the
Senate and Commons which sat
in 1945 and 1946 finally recom-
mended that Canada adopt a Brit-
ish red ensign with a maple leaf
in golden autumn colors in the
fly. But the flag was never
adopted by parliament.

The reason doubtless is that
French Canada unanimously, and
most English-speaking Canadians
were opposed to any flag which
gave the Union Jack the most
prominent place. ;

The flag which has received
widest support of any Canadian
flag in recent years was turned
down by the committee, although
it had been endorsed by the Que-
bee legislature, most French Can-
adians and English-speaking Can-
adians. e

It is the flag proposed by the
La Ligue Du Drapeau Nationale.
This flag is divided diagonally in-
to a red upper triangle and a

how much more se can it lay
claim to such status today.

Trade unionists today number
1,267,911, as registered at Jan-
uary 1, 1954. Fifteen years ago
in 1939, there were 358,967 — a
quarter of today’s membership.
The TLC alone, which in 1901
had a membership of 8,381, now
reports 596,004 — the largest
single trade union centre in the
country.

This is a phenomenal growth
and a far crv from the “labor-
circles” of Lower Canada in the
early eighteen hundreds; the
Nova Scotia unions of the eight-
een-twenties; the pioneer Societe
Typographique Canadienne of
Quebec City of 1827 or the To-
ronto printers’ union of 1834.

Today’s labor movement stands
before mightier tasks than it has
ever faced in its history — this
time not simply as the organiza-
tion of a class fighting for im-
mediate economi¢ ends, but that
force which will give national
leadership at a moment in Can-
ada’s history when its indepen-
dence is threatened by the reck-
less policies of its present rulers.

Well may it take a page from
the editors of the Ontario Work-
man who in an appeal to the
working-classes of Ontario, July
11, 1872, outlined this credo:

“In politics the Ontario Work-
man does not recognize either
of the present political parties.
It will enunciate and continue
to advocate such measures as
shall tend best to re-adjust the
distribution of the advantages
and privileges of the Dominion,
measures that will open up and |
develop the resources of the
whole country, believing that
the true course of greatness is
in the fullest and freest devel-
opment of all the natural ad-
vantages of a country, assisted
by all the means modern art
has placed at our disposal.”

LOUIS JOSEPH PAPINEAU
“At the battle of St. Eustache

_ the Patriots in 1837 fought under

a banner which displayed a
branch of maple and a fish.’

lower white triangle. It has a
green maple leaf in its centre.
“This may or may not. be the
flag that the people of Canada
will eventually choose. But as
its advocates sav, it contains his-
toric Canadian colors, “united
but not in fusion.” . It contains
the distinctive Canadian emblem
of the maple leaf. No foreign
symbol, dominant or otherwise,
appears. ae
As the fight for independence
from U.S. domination grows in
Canada, the desire for a distine-
tive Canadian flag will grow until
it is realized. As the Labor-Pro-
gressive party declares ‘in ‘its leg-
islative program, it, is necessary.
to. “strengthen our. democratic
pride in ,Canada by adoption of
a Canadian flag.” oe
Everyone can and.‘should have
ideas onwhat the flag: should be.
But the people-as a whole will
decide: et :

' PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JUNE 25, 1954 — PAGE 9