Morgan.

t
'

tells of

Visit to USSR

When Nigel Morgan,

LPP provincial leader, landed

at Moscow airport a few months ago and was being driven
into the heart of the great city, his first impression was of
thousands of building cranes” erecting new apartment blocks
and he turned to his host and said, “I don’t see much evidence

of

« “Slums?” said the Russian. |
No, no slums. But we still have
Some very old houses. As a
Matter of fact, that ‘may be.
@ Bood place to start your tour
ot our country.”

tapes later the driver was
ing them down some of the
SO ancient streets of Mos-
ss i: and Morgan saw old wood-
wh Ouses which have been lived
Smce the time of the tsars.
see of them, however, were in
tess of being demolished to
ake way for new buildings.

‘I Soon learned that my host’s
action was typical of all Soviet
: People, who are anxious to show

YOu the bad as well as the good,”
Tgan told a large audience at
* Public meeting in Pender audi-
otum last Sunday evening.
Bhi bad represents the old,
aM is rapidly changing. But
ag a visitor understands

Hat Russia was like‘ before the

‘Volution, he cannot properly
epetaise what has been achiev-

Since 1917.”

Describing the Soviet people
_.Modest, eager to listen and
aes to learn,’ Morgan. em-
ue ized that “they are also a
Rfident people, conscious of
ne Strength and their ability
ree forward from social-
to communism.”
_reace cenquers war,” is a
Ussn Seen everywhere in the
R, said the speaker. It is
tures on billboards, shines
the from neon signs. “Why,
mee €ven have it on their
a nboxes,” he said, pulling
4 & Soviet box of matches
Prove his point.

1 Canadian newspapers frequent-
oe ud the capitalist system as
Which “respects the rights
Soe individual” and assert
Conte the USSR “the individual
Sena, for nothing.” No one who
Rtas any time in the Soviet
al Could be deceived by such
: Sehood, said Morgan.
hea above
Lpp
that
the;

everything else I saw,
and experienced,” said the
Spokesman, “I would’ say
What most impressed me was
in tie oem for the individual
tem ; USSR. Under their sys-
” hen are not only creating
hey Uildings, new cities and a
Velonin®Y of life—they are de-

"DE a new kind of people.

sO og xt

These? their children reflect it.
litte €re a wonderful kind of
tien) People; self - disciplined,
: pet sure of themselves —
dese. sie. isn’t the proper word to
chi), saat them, for they are still
Worg aS but ‘mature’ is the only
the; _ C22 think of to illustrate
Con, fee arising out of the
&g OS under which they live
in » Teflecting their confidence

future” Own and their ‘country’s

of eoviet children have the best
them ‘tything. I visited 700 of
Cam at a Children’s Pioneer
Song» Near Moscow. They were
tion M4 daughters of construc-
the Workers, and their camp had
SWin: €st educational facilities,
S; playgrounds, swimming
_ €verything, But so much

Impressive than all this
People ‘ fact that these little
T)

. ad their own self-gov-
nt council — a council

those slums Clement Attlee spoke about.”

where the children met and seri-
ously discussed how to improve
the administration of their camp,
and other affairs.

“I was in Moscow when Pre-
mier Nehru of India arrived,
and saw the great welcome he
received. I stopped to talk to
one little boy waving a small
red flag with ‘Mir’—Peace’—
on it. He knew what peace
meant, and asked me if I had
any children. When I answer-
ed that I had a boy just about
his age, he gave me his flag
to take home to him.

‘J could talk for a long time
about the children, but I want
to say something about the
grown-ups, too. In a way Soviet
people never stop growing, for
education is something that
doesn’t.end with school days. In
factories that I visited I found
that. a large percentage of the
workers were taking courses of
one kind ‘or another.

. 5 og x it

Morgan described family life
in the Soviet Union as “very
solid” because there is sex equal-
ity under socialism and “real
freedom is the basis on which
stable family relations are built.”

People are well qa in the So-
viet Union, and conditions are
constantly improving, he said. In
addition to more material things
(“I saw 11 lanes of cars, bumper

to bumper, in Moscow during a'

rush period’) the cultural life
of the people grows richer from
year to year.

Mrs. Mona Morgan, who at-
tended the World Assembly for
Peace in Helsinki and: also visit-
ed the Soviet Union with a Can-
adian women’s delegation, spoke
briefly on her experiences. She
concluded hy saying that dur-
ing the period she was away
from Canada “the world took

on a new look—the peace look.
It is up to us to see that the
door. that was opened at Geneva
shall never close.”

The meeting, organized by the
LPP’s city committee, was chair-
ed by Maurice Rush.

Continued from page I

cal. It would start to put Gen-
eva into practice.

And already editorials are be-
ing written warning against tak-
ing Geneva seriously. .Right
across the country the cry is be-
ing raised: “Don’t let down our
guard! Don’t cut military ex-
penditures!” External Affairs
Minister Lester B. Pearson sets
the tone of these editorials.

But the people of Canada think
otherwise.

Having through the cold war
years voiced their demand for
peace, the people of Canada now
want to know:

“Why don’t we reduce this
huge arms burden, and spend
the money on education, health
insurance, better housing and
public investment into such na-
tion-building projects as a pub-
licly constructed and operated
Trans-Canada natural gas pipe-
line?”

The time has come to demand
that Ottawa start putting Gen-
eva into practice, at home as
well as abroad.

Let us take elementary educa-
tion as the best immediate ex-
ample of what can be done.

The Labor-Progressive party’s
submission to the October con-
ference of the federal govern-
ment with the provinces con-
tains what amounts to a stroke
,of genius when it proposes to
;pay the. cost of elementary edu-
cation out of the income and
corporation profit taxes collect-
ed by Ottawa.

That would amount to about
$300 million a year if certain
national standards as set by the
teachers’ organizations were to
be established.

It would leave untouched con-
stitutional provincial rights over
public education because it is
proposed that this money be paid
as a statutory grant to the pro-
vinces, which would turn it over
to the municipalities on the basis
of the number of children of ele-
mentary school age in the area.

Canadian public education is

Labor alderman honored |

Ald. Jacob Penner, veteran labor representative on
Winnipeg Council and his wife, Rose, were guests at a party
‘attended by some 400 supporters to honor Ald. Penner on his
75th birthday. Here they stand before the birthday cake.

in a crisis. The population is
steadily growing by natural in-
crease and immigration. We are
short of teachers.

Trustee Edna Ryerson of To-
ronto has written: “The perspec-
tive in the next ten years could
be a shortage of 38,000 qualified
teachers . . . unless there is a

change in government policy to |

teacher training.”

There is a shortage of schools |
and four-hour shift “schools”. are j

encountered. Classrooms are

overcrowded.

‘This apart
f ro m ‘the
growing pub-
lic debate over
U.S. - publish-
ed textbooks,
the high cost
of higher edu-
cation and the
gross. discrim-
ination against

working class
MORRIS and farm -chil-
dren.

There could be a good start
made to tackle all these problems
if right now the municipalities
were relieved of the cost of pub-
lic education altogether, and if
the provinces also had their bur-
den lightened. :

Education can no longer be
a charge on the home and pro-
perty taxes of a municipal area.
Canada long ago grew out of
the horse -and-buggy school
system, but the financing of
the school system is still in
that stage. Hence the crisis
in education.

This problem is universally re-
cognized. The school trustees’
association has done remarkably
good work in investigating the

‘}problem. The mayors’ and reeves’

conventions were unanimous in
their demand on the higher gov-
ernments to use their tax monies
for improving local services.
The practice in ‘the past few
years has been to look to the
provincial treasuries for assist-
ance, and this has been forth-
coming, although not adequately.
In the richer provinces like
Ontario and British Columbia,
it has, been possible to deal par-

|; tially with the question, but not

in a Satisfactory way. Many
politics are played in school
grants. But, in the “have-not”

provinces of the Maritimes, New-
foundland, Saskatchewan and to
some -extent Manitoba, the pro-
vincial incomes do not enable
the governments to give ‘Teally

fundamental aid to the munici-;

palities. :

Now the Labor - Progressive
party comes forward with a new
proposal, which will be .widely
taken up by all sorts of people.

Let the federal government
assume this cost out of income
and corporation profits taxes.
These taxes are the most demo-
cratic, because they are based
at least on the principle of
ability to pay. They are per-
manent taxes, not subject to
the ups and downs ‘of other
revenues. :

And — what more favorable

‘moment could be chosen for the

solution. of this problem than
now — when the world faces the
prospect of peace instead of war
and when reduction of the arms
burden frees public monies for
social services? What more pre-
cious social service is there than
elementary education?

PACIFIC TRIBUNE —

e

Reduce arms, spend
money on education

: Canadians in the present peri-
,od of high production especially,
‘would not object to paying in-
come taxes if this money were
used for education, for health
insurance, for housing.—

So the main’ municipal issue
lat the moment, around which
‘thé maximum number of Cana-
dians can be rallied, is clearly
that of demanding the reduction

of arms expenditures and the
spending of*some of this money
on education.

been advanced by the LPP. But
Geneva and the prospects of 2
successful struggle to follow up
the spirit of Geneva by demand-
ing it be put into practice —
hewing to the path of the prac-
tical struggle for peace — now
make possible really wide-
spread cooperation on the ques-
tion: militarization — or edu-
cation?

Most of Canada’s 2400 muni-
eipalities are going into elee-
tions this fall. They can be the
scene of a great people’s debate
which brings the question of
peace right down to the muni-
cipal mill rate.

Real progress can be made to
increase the democracy of . the
municipal governments, to make
the town and city councils and
school boards fortresses of de-
mocracy, and to involve the pro-
vincial legislatures too — in the
battle against the still-continu-
ing harsh line of the federal gov-
ernment towards the practical
steps which are now demanded
to put Geneva into practice.

The LPP. will do everything it
can to ensure that in municipal
elections right across the coun-
try progressive candidates will
;run on this central issue and
hammer home the great lesson
of Geneva as it applies to the
‘social services, and in the first
|place, education. _ :

No one is proposing that Can-
ada reduces her arms single-
‘handedly. But. Canada is a
member of the United Nations
sub-committee on disarmament
on which Health and Welfare
Minister Paul Martin is Canada’s
délegate.

What is to stop Martin ad-
vocating an immediate reduc-
tion of armaments and pledg-
ing Canada’s complete coopera-
tion by suggesting that this
country, in its next fiscal year,
would be glad to reduce its
arms expenditures from the
1954-5 level of almost $2 billion
to the 1949 pre-Korea level of
$361 “million?

The people of the world would
greet such a proposal. Everyone
is awaiting the reduction of arm-
aments. Let Canada give a lead.

The only path by which we
can be sure that it will be done
is—if the people speak out, if
the people act. It can’t be left
to St. Laurent, Pearson and Mar-
tin, not. to any provincial pre-
mier, and not to any local mayor
and council.

We face a fight on this—but in
very favorable circumstances,
when lasting peace is within our
grasp. As always, the people will
decide, in the right way. _ But,
as always, they need leadership.

Let all progressives take steps
to see that this matter is at the
very heart of the municipal elec-
tions this year.

SEPTEMBER 23, 1955 — PAGE 7

For a long time this idea has .