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WOMEN'S

news and views

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MEET MP’s OCT. 29

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CCW organizing lobby

CANADIAN HOUSEWIVES
8Yre spending “thoughtlessly,”: Fi-
nance Minster told the Canadian
Council of Women in Montreal
last week.. He urged “thrifti-
ness,” to become the fashion,
asking housewives to cut down
On purchases, to avoid “tempta-
tion.”

He’ said the government would
continue the policy of rearmament

even though it was causing “seri-.

Cus problems.” And he tacitly
admitted that it was the arms
program of, the government—tak-
ing up 50 percent of the budget
With an expenditure of nearly $2
billion a year—which is bringing
about runaway high prices. He
Proposed no government action
to curb \prices, placing the entire
Onus on the people to reduce their
Standard of living.

Meeting in Toronto last week,
the national executive board of
the Congress of Canadian Wo-
Men decided tor lead a “bring
Prices down” delegation to Ot-
tawa to meet with MP’s on Oc-

tober 29.

The executive heard officers of
the "Toronto chapters report their
Plans for a prices conference,
Caled for October 18.

_ Plans for a similar conference
im Fort William on October 25,
Sponsored by the Lakehead .chap-
ter, are underway.

_ Representatives at such con-
€rences, one of which was re-
Cently held in Vancouver, are be-

. Ing invited to participate in the

lobby to Ottawa.

_The lobby will seek federal sub-
Sidies on essential foods to be
Paid out of excess profits taxes;
revision of the cost-of-living in-
€x; and an embargo on _ ship-
Ments of beef to the U.S. until
anadian needs are met at prices

Day,

“Finance Minister Abbott, for
Whom the board of directors of
/the ‘Canadian Association of Con-
Sumers’ are apparently carrying
he torch, calls on housewives
°r a ‘thrift’ drive,’ said Mrs.
: azel_ Wigdor . CCW national
Xecutive secretary, in a prepar-
®d_ statement,

he average family can afford to.

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to ‘bring prices down’

“This is in reality the begin-
ning of a propaganda campaign,
directed towards Canadian wo-
men to cover the drift-drive poli-
cy of Abbott’s own government—
let inflation drift while the big

-corporations thrive,” she added.

“CCW members, their friends

and the majority of Canadian -

families: are in. the height of
fashion, according .to Mr. Ab-
bott’s own definition.

“Most of us have not seen a
roast of beef outside the butcher
store for months. The CCW ex-
ecutive: has just, had reports
from the midwest of mothers
wearing rubbers in place of shoes.

“Our thriftiness is not due to
a desire to be ‘fashionable,’ but
we feel sure it- has already been
in vogue in the majority of Can-
adian households long before Ab-
bott and the CAC gave it a
thought,”

Charlotte Carter gathers the facts

Charlotte Carter, co-author with her husband, Dyson Carter, of We Saw Socialism, is shown
here talking to a group of Ukrainian war orphans on her recent tour of the USSR. The Carters’
book is offered as a premium in the current Pacific Tribune subscription campaign.

JOAN HINTON EXPLAINS WHY SHE LEFT U.S

‘I could stand it no longer’, says

young American atomic scientist

‘SIX YEARS AGO, Joan Chase _

Hinton was a research assistant
at Los Alamos ‘where, from 19438
to 1945, she worked on,ythe pro-
ject which gave the United States

YOU’VE PROBABLY heard of
the organization which calls ‘it-
self the Canadian Association of
‘Consumers—it gets a lot of publi-
city in the dailies for saying
much and doing little. Although
it claims to be an organization
representing housewives, two

separate but very similar items

which. recently appeared in the
dailies should be enough to con-
vince most of us that the people
it really speaks for don’t do any
housework,

On September 21, Mrs. Mar-
shall, a director of the Canadian
Association of Consumers, called
on housewives to launch a “thrift”
campaign to beat inflation. And
on September 28, Finance Minis-
ter Douglas Abbott also appéaled
to housewives—yes, to practise
thrift in order to hurry along the
rearmament program.

Both of them are Asking us to
stop spending so much money,
and, according to Abbott, who
spends more than anybody, “a
little restraint here, ‘a little more
critical appraisal of value there,
an ingenious device for getting
with less expenditure somewhere
else can have a striking effect.”

Imagine the gall of the man!
Here most of us are scraping the
pennies just to get by and he
thinks we should use more “res-
traint.” Why? So we can accum-~
ulate tanks and guns ‘to defend
the horsemeat and margarine diet
he and his American friends have
-ordered for us. :

As for Mrs. Marshall, I have
seldom heard, anything so ridicu-
lous as the advice to save five or
ten cents a day. It’s more than
most of us can do to’ keep out
of debt and still’ live decently,
let alone save. And what would
our savings be worth with bigger,
but certainly not better, arms
budgets continuing to inflate the
dollar?

No, Abbott’s pretzel policy
doesn’t make sense any way you
look at it, not even when it’s

e

expounded by the so-called Can-°

adian Association of Consumers.
SG = ox,

COMING BACK to a pet sub-
ject of mine, children’s books,

I’d like to pass along some in- .

formation from the Czechoslo-
vakia State Publishing House for
Children’s Books which has the
job* of producing books that will
help form good. reading habits
and that will encourage a way
of thinking and am attitude to-
ward life consistent with the aims
of socialism.

The editors have clearly de-
fined what they believe should
be thé aim of books for children.
They should instill love of coun-
try, love of progress, love of the
working people of the whole
world, understanding of* nature,
a positive attitude toward school,
work and the collective.

For the smallest children this
means’ first of all books which

will give them a true picture.

of. the world around them, their
homes, the things they see in the
street, nature as it really is.

‘Destructive comedy is ruled out,

kumor at the expense of others
in which the climax comes when
someone falls into a puddle or a
pot crashes on his head. Like-
wise little locomotives that jump
the track in search of advenure,
little geese who wish they were
ganders, have given away to stor-
ies that show how real locomo-
tives run, how animals really be-
have, and what life is really like.
: The editors at the children’s
publishing house are themselves
young people who believe their
work can be improved. Every
book is carefully planned and dis-
cussed’among themselves and the
artists concerned, and then with
teachers and children before it

’ js published. No wonder then,

that the demand for books has
doubled in one year with nearly
three million copies being’ printed
in 1951.—B.G.

the world’s first atomic bomb. To-
day, the young atomic scientist
and her American husband are
in China, wonking on an animal
‘ breeding farm in Inner Mongolia.

What induced her to leave her

native America and place her
. talents’ at the disposal of the
Chinese people? In a letter to
the Federation of American
Scientists, published in People’s
China, Joan Hinton explains the
feelings that prompted her de-
cision.

“By 1948, I could stand it no
ldnger,” she writes. My friends
all seemed to be going back into
secret: work. .Were they crazy?
Were we who sstudied physics

to spend all our lives thinking ,

up means of mass extermination?
. +... Memory of Hiroshima —

150,000 lives . . . .,each a living,
thinking human being with hopes
and desires, failures and suc-
cesses, a life of his or her own—
all gone. And I had held the
bomb in my hand.”

‘She contrasts the U.S. govern-
ment’s war preparations, its at-
tack on civil liberties, its cur-
tailment of living standards, with
what she has learned in China.

“Perhaps the main thing is
‘that people of the East do not
want war... . They are occu-
pied with’ building up their own
countries, pulling them out of.
their centuries of feudalism,
changing them as fast as possible
into modern industrialized lands
_with abundance for all.

“I used to think that American
aid would mean a lot to China.
A country so backward — how
could she develop without Ameri-
can help? But where there is a
will there is a way, and the
Chinese people have a will so
strong that nothing#America can
do will ever stop it.

“They will think of plenty of
ways and they will develop fast:
The only obstacle to their devel-
opment would be war. They are
not afraid of America. If she
must fight, China will show that
she is made of steel—but China
will never start a war, for war
is against her every interest.”

* * *

JOAN HINTON relates some
of her experiences in China.
-“My first job was working in
an iron factory packed away in
mountains of Shensi. What were
they making there? They were
melting up American-made hand
grenades, shells, wings from
crashed planes sent from Amer-

. ica to Chiang Kai-shek, steel and

aluminum Weapons: sent by
America to kill them and making

‘them into cooking pots,, ploughs

and hoes. :

“Since then, all China has been
liberated and she now has more
regular factories day by day.

_ Skilled mechanics and engineers

are being trained. Though some
places still work by hand, others
are forging ahead still faster with
machines and sfill others are
using machines to make ma-
chines. It will not take her long.”

The young scientist closes her
letter with this appeal: “The

people of China want peace. The -

people of the world want peace,
including the people of America
. .. One person refusing to work
on secret projects, refusing to

work on war, ©f course, does no’

good. But all of you at ~home,
united together, have a_ very
special strength in ‘your hands.

“I only want to say to you:
uSe your strength, use whatever
you can to -work actively for

\ peace and against war. As long

as there is war, science will never
be free. Are we scientists going
to spend our lives in slavery
for madmen who want to destroy
the world? :
“At home one gets frightened.
Listening to so much war talk
one begins to believe that if we
do not prepare for war the other
side will and we will be destroyed.
“But now I have been living
on the other side for some time
and know for sure that this is
a lot of lies, and that China
wants peace with all she has.
She will never attack America,
nor will any of her allies. If
you people would only. believe
this, if you could only see for

. yourselves as I am seeing, I am.

sure you would not hesitate for
a minute to work for peace with
every ounce of strength you
have.” 2 :

TED HARRIS

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE — OCTOBER 5, 1951 — PAGE It

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