taking
ever, produced by the workers

another 30 percent

Call parliament now

To halt profiteering rampage

By NIGEL MORGAN

.

(An abridged text of radio broadcast by Nigel Morgan, provincial leader of the Labor-Progres-
Sive Party, over CBR network on Oct. 20, raises some timely issues for British Columbians.—Ed.)

ONSUMER prices are at

the highest peak in
twenty-five years.
corporation profits! You are
having a tough time to stretch
out your few dollars, particu-
larly you old age pensioners
trying to live on $40 a month,
you on fixed incomes, and you
thousands of low paid office and
industrial workers, employed
in industries that are not high-
ly unionized. In fact all who
work for a living by hand or
by brain are going to feel the
2.8 points rise in the cost of
living for September which is
the highest boost in 27 years.
It is authoritatively predicted
that the government’s cost-of-liv-
ing index will almost double
last month’s record increase, tv
go up five points. This next in-
crease will reflect the full ef-
fects of the federal government’s
cowardly policy of price de-con-
trol, which in addition to bring-
ing severe hardships to thous-
ands of consumers, is actually
laying the basis for a return to
the hungry thirties, depression
and mass unemployment.

The men who own stocks and
bonds for a living, however, are
in more money than

and farmers. Let us look at a

‘few typical examples at profit-

eering. From January to August
this year the CPR and CNR
collected 2% times the profit of
1939 for carrying passengers and
freight. Are they satisfied? No
sir! The railway barons demand
increase in

freight rates. Canada. Packers,

whose workers had to strike in

order to win a few cents an
hour increase, boosted its prof-
its by 14 percent in 1946. Simp-
sons Stores had over 10 mil-
lion dollars profit, boosting its
net earnings by 156 percent over
pre-war. Massey-Harris, farm
implements, made nearly three
times their pre-war profits last
year; while International Paper
hit the jackpot with close to
five times what they made in
1989. Consolidated Mining and
Smelting of Trail took 39% mil-
lions, nearly 10 times their 1939
earnings. Ogilvie Flour Mills,
Canadian General Electric,
Swifts, Canada Bread, and Do-
minion Textiles have recorded

the biggest profits in their his-

tory. And yet during the last
fortnight the government lifted
price ceilings on over a thous-
and commodities including such
important items as bread and
flour.

Do you know, my friends, the
Price of rye flour jumped from
$4.40 to $23.20 a barrel over

“night. It is this tory policy of

destroying price controls which
is working the hardship on the
Canadian people today, and that
lies behind the dangerous infla-

_ tionary trends. According to the

Department of National Rev-

enue, 20,000 Canadian corpora-

tions increased their profits in

1945 to 225 percent above the

average profit for the
and 1939. :
‘ e@

OTH labor and farmers Sa
the ordinary people in al
walks of life are alarmed over

years 1936

the calamitous effects of the -

Present government policy, not

only in the Federal field but also

in the provincial; not only oD
the prices question but also in

their attitude to labor legislation,

.farm income, taxation and ur-

fently needed social legislation.
Here in British Columbia for
example the Hart-Anscomb g0V-

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1947

So are

ernment wrote into the law Bill

' 39, promoted by the same big

business profiteers to hamstring
and undermine the trade union
movement, to snatch away la-
bor’s wartime gains and compel
the working people to accept
lower standards, and this in
spite of the fabulously increas-
ed profits just referred to. En-
couraged by the new repressive
measures such as fines against
unions and their officers, gov-
ernment supervised votes, months
of stalling and government red
tape in settlement of disputes,

virtual outlawing of the funda-~

mental right to strike and other
union busting provisos including
recognition of employees associa-
tions—a polite word for com-
pany unions, Slave labor legis-
lation was railroaded through
the legislature to create slave-
labor conditions, but there was
ene thing the authors of Bill
39 forgot to take into account,
and that was fascist legislation

NIGEL MORGAN

will not be accepted by the work-
ing people without a fight. The
labor-haters who urged the pas-
sage of Bill 39 said if it was
adopted there _ would be no
strikes because it was a law to
prevent strikes. But instead of
helping to eliminate industrial
strife, the iniquitous provisions
of this anti-labor act has stirred

up the worst kind of industrial _

chaos this province has ever

seen. Before the adoption of Bill

39, particularly during the criti-
cal war years, B.C. had an en-
viable record of sound labor re-
lations. The Honorable Mr. Ans-

-comb said recently in a public

address broadcast to the people
of the province, that Bill 39 was
a law to protect labor from its
leaders. But, Mr. Anscomb, the
Nazis used tons of newsprint to
tell of their true love for the
workers in pre-war days. In Hit-
ler Germany an early decree, the

roclamation for tne protection
of German labor, said (and I
quote):
disrupt and destroy unions.” Re-
member even when they seized
‘the unions and arrested their
leaders in the big putsch on May
2nd, 1933, they said it was “in
the interests of the German
workers.”

upne Labor-Progressive Party

urges the government to drop -

all present charges under Bill
39 and to convene (at the earli-

est possible date) the Provin-.

cial Legislature to amend this
unpopular and unworkable law—
Already one of the biggest of
the four so called _ illegal
strikes has been settled

the packing industry and it is
‘anticipated another one involv-

“We do not want to

‘ing 350 boilermakers' will be
settled tonight.

e
ODAY consumer prices are

climbing skywards like Jack’s

beanstalk. Mackenzie King has -

allowed the big business profit-
eers to knock the bottom out
of Canada’s standard of living.
Your dollar is worth half of the
1939 dollar.

It is a crime and shame, and
it should be stopped. Tim Buck,
national leader of the Labor-
Progressive Party, has demand-
ed that Mr. King call a Special

Session of the Dominion Parlia-

ment to restore price controls,
and to adopt a program which
would protect standards of liv-
ing atid the future of Canada.
Here are facts to remember:
Canadian workers and farmers
are producing more, faster than
ever before. This year our fac-
tories and farms will produce
12 billion dollars’ worth! More
than twice 1939 production.
Twelve billion dollars would

, equal $1,000 for every Canadian

man, woman and child, or $4,-
500 for the average family—if
profiteering was curbed and the
national income shared out more
fairly.

A year ago the L-PP warned
that the liberals .and tories at
Ottawa were giving big busi-
ness the green light for the pres-
ent brutal profiteering rampage.
The L-PP is fighting to defend
the bread and butter of the peo-
ple, for higher wages for the
workers, for better prices for the
farmers, for proper increases in
old-age and veterans’ pensions.

A year ago Prime Minister
Mackenzie King said that once
price and profit controls were
done away with, you could de-
pend on “free enterprise” to low-
er prices and to build homes.
Just the opposite has happened:
the rich are getting richer, the
people are being fleeced on the
job and when they buy.

‘SPECIAL session is rendered
necessary by the runaway
prices increases, by the Dollar
crisis, by the need to plan long-
term aid free of political strings

and intervention to the people ©

of the war-devastated lands.
British Europe and Asia, by the
urgent need for measures to pro-
‘tect the people of Canada against
the effects of economic crisis
which already threatens the
economy of this country. As

measures to meet these needs

the L-PP proposes that parlia-
ment should adopt vigorous
measures to stop price increases
by (1) prohibiting further price
increases by re-establishing price
controls; (2) restoring govern-
ment subsidies on essential con-
sumer goods and _ prosecuting
those found guilty of profiteer-
ing; (3) repeal the decision that
the excess profits tax shall cease
to operate at December 31 next.

Impose, a 100 percent profits tax

on all monopolies and cartels;
(4) bring all grain, meat, pork
and dairy products under govern-
ment marketing control to elim-
inate monopoly and speculators’
profits, raise the price to the
farmer and at the same time
reduce prices and increase Can-
adian exports of foodstuffs to
Britain, Europe and Asia.

Support the L-PP Plan to beat
high prices and fight depres-
sion!

Demand that Parliament meet

in Special Session now! To
provide more for the needy and
less for the greedy. Let King and
the M.P.’s know that you de-
mand action!

Short Jabs

RRESS notices of the past few days. announce the passing of one
_ of the outstanding figures in ‘socialist’ history in “England, Sid-
ney Webb, latterly known as Lord Passfield, who became a lord
rather unwillingly and then only to carry the bariner of the Labor
hie Party in the House of ‘Lords. ;
Obituary ! Sidney Webb was a Fabian, ‘one of a group
f of intellectuals who, as Engels puts it, had “under-
standing enough to realize the inevitability -of the social revolution,
but who could not possibly trust this gigantic task to’ the rough
proletariat alone and are therefore kind enough to set themselves at
the head. Fear of revolution is their. fundamental ‘principle. They
are the ‘educated’ par excellence. The class struggle was anathema
to them so they hated the Marxists. But they became the theore-

' ticians of the Labor Party.

For about half a century Webb and his wife, Beatrice Webb,
were constant in their advocacy ‘of the policies of that body and
were looked upon as top-ranking leaders in that policy, which con-
sisted in ‘cheating’ the Liberals into accepting socialism. “Permeat-
ing Liberalism: with Socialism,” they called it. :

Webb and his wife collaborated in writing the most objective
work on British trade unionism that has yet been written, the
‘History of Trade Unionism,’ and in doing so acquired a training
that served them well when, about fifteen years ago, they visited the
Soviet Union to find out for themselves what was happening in that
country. _ an

When in the Soviet Union they had an opportunity to see and ~
study the part that was being shouldered by the trade unions, by the
workers. :

A friend of mine in the leadership of the Red International of
Labor Unions told. me, in a personal conversation, that of all the
interested visitors that had come to the Soviet Union to satisfy
themselves as to what was happening there, the Webbs made the
best impression on the Russian leaders.

They showed by the questions they asked and the things they
wanted to see and learn about, that they were already possessed
of a revolutionary knowledge that enabled them to understand the
social processes at work, a knowledge that grew out of their in-
tensely objective study of the British trade union movement.

This estimate of them was fully borne out. It was proved to me
later when I read the book they wrote embodying the findings of

‘their stay in the land of Socialism, ‘Soviet Communism’. This book

of the Webbs is the most objective piece of writing so far published
about the working and underlying principles of the Soviet system
by an outsider. : ree tee ge

* The effect of, the trip on these two Fabians themselves, was
such that Beatrice Webb wrote for both of them, before her death
a few years ago, that they had come to see that the years they had _
spent propagating Fabian doctrines were largely wasted.

She admitted that the Marxist program had solved prob-
lems that the Fabians could only talk about. :
Most of the Fabians are forgotten today, or will be soon. In-

stead of ‘permeating’ liberalism with socialism, their socialism be-

?
~

came permeated with liberalism. Few of their names will go down

in history—alone of them all, probably the Webbs and Shaw will
get that recognition from the working class. “rae
So it is with a note of regret we record the passing of
an old anti-Marxist who had the to know,
and the courage to admit, after fifty years ‘of battle, that he
was wrong and the Marxists were right.

men who rule Russia today “were ignorant peasants 27 years

ago.” This amazing, but unfounded statement, is. credited to Chief
Justice Wendel B. Farris, by the morning dope-sheet in Vancouver.
Further, “our learned friend” asks, “Could it not be. their inferiority ©

. complex that causes them to put obstacles in the Way of peace?”

Pe We have waited to see a denial and ©

Who is ignorant ? 2 request for an apblogy from the News- _

Herald, but since none is fortheoming we

are forced to believe the report is correct. é =.

There is no lawyer double-talk about these two slanderous’ as- |

sertions: “the men who rule Russia” can have no other meaning ~~

than the Soviet government and for a paid official of the Dominion

government to make such a statement in public, even to a gang of ©
real estate sharks such as attended the banquet where the state-

ment is alleged to have been made, is the grossest kind of an insult, —

not only to the Russian people’s ‘government, but to the Canadian
and Russian people alike.

If such an outrageous statement had appeared in a Soviet paper
about the governments of Canada or the U.S., it would be made the
occasion for a demand that the Soviet government apologize and
suppress the paper in which it was printed. : 2

There may be an explanation,-however. It ‘maybe’ due to the.
atmosphere in which the legal fraternity “lives in. L
an atmosphere compounded of what passes for ‘knowledge in the |
backwoods of New Brunswick, Ontario and British Columbia, with —
a seasoning of what is alleged to be ‘thinking’ in the law schools. o

The Russians “are outcasts in the world that we know as civi- _

ized and know nothing of our affairs,” says our highly cultured Chief _
Justice. Pe

And if fhere is any one, foolish enough to believe with Chief
Justice Farris that the Russians put obstacles in the way of peace,
let them read and study the resolution put to the U.N. Assembly by —
Vishinsky when he named the American war-mongers: es

In part it reads: eS :

“3. The United Nations Organization believes it necesary
to urge the governments of all countries to forbid, under
pain of criminal prosecution, propaganda for war in any
form, and to take measures to prevent and stop propaganda
for war as an activity dangerous to the public and threaten-
ing the vital interests of the peace-loving peoples.

“4, The United Nations Organization reaffirms the ne ~
cessity for the implementation of the decision of the General |
Assembly of December 14, 1946, on the reduction of arma-
ments, and of the decision of the General Assembly of Jan-
uary 24, 1946, concerning the exclusion from national arma-
ments of atomic weapons and all other basic armaments
destined for mass destruction .. .”

Canada, U.S. and Britain voted it down. Who are putting

obstacles in the way of peace? We would suggest that the Chief
Justice ponder one of Huxley’s: splendid axioms which says the
“deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without _

evidence,” :
PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE {4 —

a—that is,