VILL the government break on the sales tax? It’s possible. The heat is on in Victoria trom two directions —from the people and from big business. If the overwhelming majority in this province, as in- dividuals and through organiza- tions, insist on their MLA’s tak- ing 3 stand against the sales tax, then something has got to go. It could be the government or the sales tax bill, which has yet-to be introduced. But so far as the Coalition is concerned, not much will be settled on the floor of the House. It will be setled in cau- cus. Granted enough pressure, a revolt of Coalition backbench- ers could take place and lead to scrapping of the bill. If the government continues to crack the whip to force the bill through—as it did on Harold Winch’s motion against the sales tax—it faces the likeli- hood of defeat in the next pro- incial elections anyway. Late last week, particularly after. Anscomb’s budget speech, the protests started rolling in. Some -were read in the House by CCF members. Coalitionists’ didn’t read their protest mess- ages on the floor, but there was a stormy Coalition caucus. Who's protesting? A handful of “reds”? Already the protest is broad enough to represent a cross-section of the province. Wires and letters are coming from labor groups, farm organ- izations, Boards of Trade, Re- tial Merchants’ Associations and municipal councils. In some constituencies thousands of vot- ers are mailing postcards. It’s a convincing sampie of public resentment. Yet the gov- ernment is hard-boiled enough to need more than 2 sample be- fore it changes its mind. Its determination to push through the sales tax will be shaken only when each MLA’s desk is filled to overflowing with expressions of the anger indicated by pro- tests already sent. "THERE'S a sickening con- trast between glowing pass-’ ages in schoo] texts about rep- resentative government and the ‘way the government cracks the whip over its machine majority. When Harold Winch moved against the sales tax Premier. Johnson took no chance on his members’ fear of constituency ‘ The week in the House The Coalition has added $160 a year to living costs reaction. “The government can- not accept this . . . want of confidence motion,” he de- clared. This put Coalitionists in the position where they would have brought on an election if the sales tax was repudiated. “TI expected the «government to whip its followers into line,” Herbert Gargrave (CCF-Mac- kenzie), taunted. He was an- ‘swered with a courtly, smiling nod from “Boss’ Johnson, cyni- cally acknowledging the charge and implying, ‘So what are you going. to do about it?” After the CCF had flayed what Harold Winch termed “a graduated income tax in re- verse” the division bells rang and the members rose to be counied before the people. Against the sales tax stood the entire CCF, Tom Uphill (La- bor-Fernie), and Coalitionists W. A. CG. Bennett (South Okan- agan) and Mrs. Tillie Rolston (Vancouver-Point Grey) 13 in all. For the sales tax stood the government and. its machine majority—32 in all. Many oppose it privately. Four-fifths of their constituents oppose it. But big business wants it. This is what the government champions as “democracy”. There will be perhaps a week left from the time you read this column before the sales tax bill comes up for crucial second reading. If passed, the bill is certain to increase labor pressure for big wage increases, in 1948. On four items alone, the govern- ment will have increased the cost of living of a worker’s fam- ily in Vancouver by some $160 was elected. These items are milk ‘prices, transportation (street car or automobile), sales tax and domestic light and gas. e . HIILE the cards are stack- in the House, speeches on both sides reflect in a hundred ways the impact of public feel- ing on a lot of other issues. Not since the depression has: a government in B.C, faced such widespread opposition on sO many questions. These include the “timber steal’ act of last session, the slave labor law, Bill 39 (around which there is developing reactionary pressure to worsen its straightjacket pro- visions with so-called anti-Com- munist clauses), health insur- By _ BRUCE MICKLEBURGH ance and workmen’s compensa- tion, the automobile “safety plan” bonanza for insurance companies, and prices of milk and gasoline. wonder almost speaker salts with wild talk about a “communist” and “to- talitarian” threat from abroad. This threat is ‘supposed to be at the root of everything the people through their organiza- Small Coalition his remarks every down tions are doing to protect them- selves against the assaults of the Coalition government and its big business masters. These daily blasts are the govern- ment’s number one weapon in its attempt to prevent the elec- tion of a CCF government. They are part of the drive to destroy civil liberties in Canada. Progressives have more cause for concern at Harold Winch’s servile and formal capitulation to government red-baiting in his speech on the budget. His long statement on the LPP re- iterated most of the slanders from the government side, as- sured the Premier that the CCF would join the Coalition in fight- ing “Communism” any time, and attempted to project the CCF as a “third force’ and main bul- wark against Communism. In essence this reflected an opportunist estimation that there are more votes to be gained by joining the big busi- ness red-baiters in a_ united front against the LPP than by repudiating the principal wea- pon of reaction...The fact is that the people cannot. turn’ out the government through unity behind the CCF without defeat- ing red-baiting. It is for the growing numbers of CCF fol- lowers who realize this elemen- tal fact to check the ruinous line pursued. by both’ Winch and Cameron which threatens the prospect of Coalition defeat. Czech people remember By CHARLES ZEMAN R. Juraj Slavik, former Czechoslovak ambassador to the United States, on resigning his post in protest against de- veluopments in Czechoslovakia, declared that he would fight for “freedom in Czechoslovakia.” By his action he has become the darling of the commercial press and the radio commenta- tors. : But millions of Czech and Slo- vak workers and farmers are not shedding tears over his res- ignation. For Slavik was one of the most unpopular men in Czechoslovakia in the early thir- ties. fo As minister of the interior and commander of the state police and gendarmeie, Slavik in 1931 and 1931 ordered the shooting down of dozens of agricultural and industrial workers who were fighting for union recognition, jobs and a minimum wage. His policemen and gendarmes broke up peaceful labor rallies in the towns of Polomka, Clerny Balog, Kosuty, Zilina, Michalo- vece and Fryvaldov. After each attack several workers were dead and scores were wounded. Arrests and long prison terms followed for those union officials who arranged the rallies. Ste- fan Major, former Communist member of parliament and pres- ent manager of the Communist daily Pravda at Bratislava, was stripped of parliamentary im- munity and sentenced -to two ‘. years imprisonment on the bas- is of testimony given by Slav- ik’s agents. Premier Klement Gottwald, then member of parliament and general secretary of the Com- munist Party of Czechoslovakia, was also stripped of parliamen- tary immunity and sentenced to prison. Communist newspapers were suppressed., i Slavik was at that time one of the leaders of the reaction-— usm HONORING OL’ BILL DANCE and SOCIAL In aid of PACIFIC TRIBUNE _ PRESS DRIVE - Saturday, April 3rd FISHERMEN’S HALL 138 E. Cordova ~ 8:30 P.M. Admission 56c¢ Auspices Press Builders Committee GMT TRU I TTTTATT TUM TTTRAUUTT UAE TTTHHATHUH ary Agrarian Party of big land- owners, bankers and industrial- ists. They were in deadly fear of the workers and farmers of Czechslovakia who found them- selves betrayed, down-trodden and exploited. G "THE working people of Czech- oslovakia were promised in 1918 that the new _ republic would be a socialist state. They elected a socialist majority to parliament. Instead, they dis- covered that all political and economic power was slipping in- to the hands of bankers and industrailists, and the owners of big estates. The Agrarians gained power by sowing division in the ranks of trade unions and socialists and through di- rect intervention by French and American capitalists. But in 1931 and 1982 as a re- sult of a severe economic crisis in Czechoslovakia the working people began to demand their rights. Almost a million unem- ployéd workers of a population UNIALUUMUSUTRLRSLU ELT SRUAE PACIFIC TRIBUNE PRESS DANCE Clinton Hall 2605 E. Pender St. FRI., MARCH 26th 9 to 12 P.M. se ahs of 15,000,000 demanded “work and bread.” Agricultural work- ers, who received 40 cents a day, and industrial workers, who received 70 cents a day, de- manded wage increases. House- wives protested against the high cost of sugar (at 10 cents a pound) and other necessities of life. ’ Slavik answered their demands with bullets and long prison terms. It was Slavik and others of his Agrarian friends who drove thousands of German workers into the arms of the Henlein Sudeten German Party. Slavik’s police brutally reached its height among the German speeking working people. Ger- man Communists were beaten, imprisoned and killed while the : Henlein Nazis received police protection. Many a German found himself forced into . the Henlein party believing that ‘this was the only party that could afford to give him protec- — tion which the Communists were unable to give. ° . 4 4 Pe b FILM Will Be Shown} Afi UKRAINIAN LABOR TEMPLE} 805 E. Pender __ ; Thrilling drama of one of Rus- sia’s greatest leaders, General } Suvorov. Russian dialogue, English type MONDAY AND TUESDAY March 29th and 30th : Continued Showing. - Starts 7 o’Clock Pender Auditorium FRIDAY, APRIL 2nd At 8:15 P.M. THE RYERSON CLUB—_LPP '— PRESENTS — seeps pt Earl Robinson — Famous mage and Composer ‘PEOPLE'S SONGS’ — IN AID OF THE PACIFIC TRIBUNE PRESS DRIVE | Roll up and share an uproarious eve- ning with the composer of ‘Ballad for “The Lonesome Train” and “JOE HILL’ TICKETS 50 Cents __ 2 ia From THE PEOPLE'S COOPERATIVE BOOK STORE: a Americans, Sewee oe is: 1 PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 27, 1948—PAGE 9