"THE only news at this moment

is the flood situation in our
province, particularly in the Fra-
ser Valley. We are asked by the
local press not to look for scape-
goats; that is to say—leave things
go so we will have bigger and
better floods later.

After the 1894 indundation in
the Valley, Premier Davie wired
the Dominion
government re-
garding preven-
tion of * such
floods, that “the
magnitude o f
the task places
it’ beyond the
ability of priv-
ate enterprise
and makes it
clearly the duty
of the state” to
tackle this
work.

Premier Davie just made one
miscalculation. The guiding rule
of all capitalist governments is
“chap government.” Such a gOv-
ernment could accomplish such a
task, but it won't. It shies at
spending the necessary money.
Such is the way of “free enter-
prise”. :

When the Tsar ruled in Russia
an engineering problem of equal

Y the time you read this col-
umn the people of Ontario
will have rendered their verdict.
At the moment, in a rising spiral
of Tory-inspired hysteria, the
people are being “saved” from the
“menace” of communism.

Back in 1930 I had the oppor-
tunity of an on-the-spot clcss-up
of the Hamburg
elections. In
those pre-Hitler
days the Nazis
were
their

ing their
yan kultur” and§
condemning
communism as
the main cause

of all the

evils which had
fallen upon the Weimar Republic.
The Social Democrats, baited by

the tory Junkers, were equally
loud in their anti-communist slan-
ders.

I can remember diligently seek-
ing to improve my understanding
of German by reading the election
Posters of the Nazis, tory Junkers

_ and Social Democrats. With minor
variations these political works of
art followed a similar .theme:
“Death to Communism”, “Build a
Free Germany”, “Stop the Com-

-munists”, “For a Strong Ger-
many” and so on.

e
: FEIGHTEEN years later I now

_ ““ nave the opportunity of ob-
serving on the spot, the provincial

Or Bill
Y Bi

or greater magnitude presented it-
self in the building of a canal be-
tween the Baltic and the White
Sea. Expert engineers from all
over Europe were called in to
study and estimate on the possi-
bilities of success. Their report
stated definitely that it was an
impossibility.

Today the canal is a fact. To
the Soviet government who built.
the canal, it was not an impossi-
bility. They were not interested in
“cheap government” but in the
long view and service to the Sov-
iet pcople. Hundreds of other un-
dertakings. in that country are in
the same class.

If our governments were not of
the “cheap” variety but were to
function in the service of the
people, the Fraser Valley water-
shed would be dotted all over with
dams that would hold the water
during the spate and the homes
and farms of the farmers and
other settlers would not now be
uuder water or floating down the
river.

But we must have cheap, short-
sighted government!

* x =
NOW that the press drive is
over, its successs greater than
ever before, it is fit and Proper
that I sheuld personally acknowl-
edge the thanks I owe to all those

elections in Canada’s key province
of Ontario. The stage setting and
the actors differ somewhat, but

‘the theme and the roles have a

sinister similarity to the pre-Hit-
ler era in Germany. This deadly
parallel is rendered more sinister
when one refuses to ignore all
that has occurred in the interven-
ing period—a world war, unsur-
passed in history for devastation,
death and destruction, kindled by
the incendiaries who hid their
foul acts behind anti-communist
shibboleths.

In this Ontario elections the
Communists are the only people
who, without qualification, raise
the issues closest to the hearts
and minds of the people—homes,
health, social security, peace!

“Defeat communism”, “Out
with the reds”, “Stop commun-
ism”—these exhortations with the
picture of this or that Tory stand-
ard-bearer, scream at the passer-
by from trees, poles, election of-
fices and store windows. Premier
George Drew and his Tory stal-
warts dedicate three-fifths of
their election harangues to the
“menace of communism”, one-
fifth to the CCF—just sufficient to
prod the leaders of that body into
their customary philistine ex-

planation of the lofty purity of °

their “socialism” as compared
to that of the communists. One-
fifth of the standardized Tory
speeches are dedicated to the fic-
titious subject of what the Tories
will do for the people—if elected,
with careful emphasis and apolo-
gy for what they have done to the

Published Weekly at 650 Howe Street
By THE TRIBUNE PUBLISHING COMPANY LTD.
Telephones: Editorial, MA. 5857; Business, MA. 5288

Tom McEwen

eee eee ne ed

Editor

| Subseription Rates: 1 Year, $2.50; 6 Months, $1.35.
Printed by Union Printers Ltd., 650 Howe Street, Vancouver. B.C

CTUTENQEUARNTHULEUQNTEGUCOULC LL HOHE

NA

Short Jabs

ALO

readers who made it possible for
our column to play a big part in
Uiat success. .

The work of raising our total.

cf $1,161 was done mostly by in-
dividuals, the largest amount
turned in by one individual being
$60. But we received two five-dol-
lar donations from crganizations
--the Chinese Workers Protective
Association of Vancouver and the
Central B.C. Lumbermen’s Coop-
crative Association.

To thank all these good friends
as they deserve is not possible,
but they will understand how
muth I appreciate. their work if
I say that, personally, I feel re-
warded for the many years I have
spent in the labor movement.

The drive for cash is over but
the drive for new readers goes
on. Among these “Ol’ Bill column-
ists’ I am sure there are many
who would like to help in this
work. We have no quota to aim
at, but every new reader is a nail
in the coffin of capitalism. Sc I
want the help of everybody who
worked in the drive — to secure
new readers. Send me your name
and address if you can help and
I will send you a, subscription
bood. Last year our column led
the province in getting subs. Let’s
try to do it again!

GTN ee

As We See It

NL

people since they were elected!

Hoisting their election slogan of
the “People First’, the CCF in
Ontario sets as its first task “De-
feat the Communists’, by placing
two young. legal luminaries,
neither of them ever heard of, be-
fore, either in the world of labor
or of law, against the Labor-Pro-
gressive MPP’s for Trinity and
Bellwoods, J. B. Salsberg and A.
A. MacLeod.

e

"TORY election propaganda dif-

fers in no respect from the-

Hitlerite motif of the big lie. The
Tories charge the CCF—and the
Liberals—with “communism”. The
Liberals pooh-pooh the charge,
and outstrip their accusers in the
smear game, as a prelude to their
attacks on Tory leadership in
economic and social progress.

But the CCF far outstrips the
Liberals in rising to the Tory anti-
communist bait. Not only does it
deliberately seek to split the vote,
as in Trinity and Bellwoods, but
it publicly rejects, with tiresome
monotony, LPP support in all
other constituencies. In its bid for
“respectability” it spreads confu-
sion and doubt—and weakens the
very obvious possibilities of giv-
ing a smashing defeat to Tory-
Liberal reaction in Ontario.

In Ontario as elsewhere there
are hundreds of rank-and-file
CCF’ers who are deeply disturbed
at the palpably stupid pronounce-
ments made by CCF leader E. B.
Joliffe. And I also recall that
there were many German Social
Democratic workers who were
deeply disturbed at the stupid
splitting pronouncements of Schu-
macher and Scheidemann in the
days before Hitler’s rise to power.

I dare to hope, as the import-
ance of the Yale CCF victory
shows, that CCF-LPP-labor and
people's unity will not only sweep
out Tory reaction, but that the
CCF leadership may yet learn
that its slogan, the “People First,”
when smeared with Tory anti-
communism, is treason to the
cause they espouse. |

Handwriting on the wall

HE people are catching up with the old line parties. The

handwriting is on the wall.

Three quarters of a million petitioners backed the recent
consumers’ delegation to Ottwa, yet Abbott said it was a
“communist front” and the Mounties barred the housewives.

But Mounties could not prevent Liberal and Tory heads
from rolling when the voters went to the polls these last
two weeks...

The CC¥ swept the Tory stronghold of Yale. Next the
would-be Canadian dictator Drew suffered personal defeat
as the CCF slashed the standing of his Tory party in the
Ontario house and the LPP held its own. Finally came the
smashing victories of the CCF over the Liberals in the
Ontario and Vancouver Center federal byelections.

Mackenzie King wails that the,CCF is winning because

‘the people do not understand that the Liberal government

is really looking after their interests when it boosts the
cost of living.

He accuses opponents of over-emphasizing the worst
aspects of the situation and complains of ‘the constant
criticism in Commons by opposition political parties’ which
want “to see the government weakened.” He follows this
with the implicit threat that “it is fortunate for all but the
CCF that opportunity should have been afforded, thus early,
of seeing these under-currents at work,” and winds up by
saying “it would be a mistake to attach too much significance
to CCF gains in the present.”

The government conceives it has a “higher loyalty”
than loyalty to the electors. It will continue on its course of
wrecking the United Nations, hatching war, making Canada
a Wall Street colony, boosting profits, smashing labor and
putting Canadian democracy and patriotism in a straight-
jacket.

The people are answering by a growing unity at the
polls. The recent elections are conclusive proof that labor,
farmers, and all the little people of Canada can join together
in federal and provincial elections to sweep out the old line

“And remember, in addition to your club, the ICA
Act is on your side.”

Looking backward

(From the files of the People’s Advocate, June 10, 1938)

OTT AWA—Cooperative Commonealth Federation mem-
bers in the House of Commons on Monday night launched
a strong attack on the Quebec padlock law, demanding that
the government refer it to the Supreme Court to test its
constitutionality, despite the attitude of Hon. Ernest La-
pointe, minister of justice, who literally told CCF leader J-
S. Woodsworth that what the government did was its
own business..

J. S. Woodsworth stressed the lack of definition of com
munism in the act which enabled the provincial government
to denounce any opponent as a communist. The CCF, he
said, had been attacked by Premier Duplessis as “a cO™”
munist-inspired organization.”

_ ‘There was even the possibility that McGill University
might be padlocked, the CCF leader stated, pointing out that
the law had been used as a threat to prevent certain individ-
uals from speaking there.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 11, 1948—PAGE °