BREATHING SPELL FOR PEACE

“democratic”

Breakdown in talks averted by Stalin
and Molotov to set back provocateurs

Premier Joseph Stalin and
Foreign Minister V. M. Molotov
of the Soviet Union held ,a five-
hour conference in Moscow Mon-
day night with representatives
of Britain, France and the
United States to avert break-
down of talks on the crucial
German crisis. The Soviet move
gave the world a fresh breath-
ing spell for peace amd proved
that the people can compel a
peaceful solution of differences.

This development temporarily
frustrated worldwide provoca-
tions designed by American war-
mongers to disrupt the Mos-
cow parleys. These provoca-
tions have seen the big business

press produce a new crop of
heroes in the

“anti-Communist” crusade—Ber-
li: black marketeers, Nazi street
hoodlums, white guard gansters
and kidnappers, and the peeping
toms of the un-American activ-
ities committee which announces

willing to smear Alger Hiss,
Carnegie Peace Foundation head
whose testimony the committee
has not been able to shake.

An Ottawa attempt to dis-

rupt the peace parleys .with
“Canada intelligence” reports
of Soviet planes massed in
Siberia to strike Canada fizzled
when Major-General Churchill
Mann, vice-chief of the general
staff told reporters, “I am go-
ing away happily on leave next
week.”

it is seeking chamber maids |

Followin
Morgan

IWA

were more than a stack of fig-
ures in a book, They were a
summation of the lives and
deaths of more than a quarter of
the coast’s industrial] workers
and their families. These 125,-
000 men, women and children
were not only in the courtroom
figuratively—scores of workers
came! off the job to crowd the
courtroom chairs.

They sat in rows and heard
in figures what was written on
the frames. They took -the. wit-
ness stand to give flesh and blood
to the black and white story of

JOSEF STALIN :

Reproduction of a new water
{color portrait by Soviet artist
V. Klimashin.

B.C. youth
juring pea

The B.C. section\of the Beaver Brigade has done a good job for peace }
B.C. youth won silver shock medals in the reconstruction work at Lidice, Czechoslovakia.

Teli the people back home that when the world honors a reconstructed Lidice as a shrine
of the anti-Nazi fight, they will be honoring a spot where we will have left our small mark
for peace on behalf of the youth and all good people of B.C. The Brigade won a pennant

and two eastern members w

Carl Katola from Vancouver won a meda

‘together with three Victoria

B.C. ELECTRIC

“We're not interested in those
things at all,” Carnothers inter-
jected. :

To Stanton’s plea that he-could
not conscientiously represent a
client with that amount of prepar-
‘ation Carrothers said, “It’s up to
you to take care of yourself. Other
representatives can do *the same.”

Mrs. Effie Jones remained with
advisors to carry on for the CRA.
“We hope they do a good job,”
‘Carrothers sarcastically told Stan-
ton, who replied in different vein,
“J hope so too.”

Grauer stated the company, would
seek further increases if the new
system “is unable to meet cost of
service,” or “if charges should
continue to increase,” or “if financ-
ing requirements should necessit-
ate a better showing respecting net
earnings.”

To company claims it had lost
$238,235 in Burnaby in six months,
Burnaby spokesmen replied that:
(Nevite Transportation Company,
bought by the BCE, had been a
highly-profitable concern.

Only municipality not represent-
ed was Richmond. R. M. Grauer,
brother to “Dal” Grauer, is reeve
of Richmond.

Hearings are continuing with
Vancouver Trades and Labor Coun-
cil, CRA, and several municipalities
to be heard from.

Vancouver LPP Committee is
publicly demanding: restoration of
origina] transit fares, cut in profits,
and reduced electric rates. It says

win awar

By “DUSTY” GREENWELL

on gold medals. , :
1, as did Elsie
ouths and one from Nanaimo.
at the International Conference of
Working Youth in Warsaw.
It was like entering a new world
to enter Czechoslovakia from the
Western Zone of Germany. The
Czech people with fighting spirit
are establishing a socialist nation.
We went immediately to the re-
Gonstruction camp at Lidice.
The Czech government has turn-
ed the job of reconstructing Lidice
over to the youth. When the vill-
age is finished it will be occupied
by Kladno miners. Miners are
miners in Nanaimo, B.C. or
Kladno, Czechoslovakia, and the
men here would have felt right
at home in the United Mine
Workers Hall just as I felt at
home with them.
The workers of Czechoslovakia
are solid for socialism and the
present government. Each week-
end they work voluntarily on re-
construction or harvesting. We
joined in a work brigade at
Kladno in a plant where ei IG
: sed government ex-
paren owe also visited Prague
‘and everywhere saw the same
unity and conscious purpose. The
people are stamping out the black-
market.
We visited the trade union head-
quarters and Fronta, the
only youth daily outside of the

y

ds at Lidice
ce tour of Europe

Brandon of North Vancouver,
We wear our medals proudly

SEAMEN

We had received word only the
day before that Scotland Yard had
granted us permission to demon-
strate and we-had worked most of
the night to prepare the placards
dotted about the crowd. High on

lives’ spent in exploitation and
speed-up, working for less than

duce.

The union told first a story un-
derstood by every housewife:
price boosts have slashed real
wages a fifth since the last, agree-
ment was signed. To this add-
ed the fact that it takes $46.49
a week, after deductions, to sup-
port a family at a minimum level
of health and decency. Millwork-
ers average $5.25 less than this
before deductions—the basic rate
is $8.49 less. Loggers average fifty
dollars weekly but only part of
the year and pay $14 camp
board while still keeping a family

at home. (Loggers eat twice as

bed 7
—WARSAW much as the average adult,
so far. Six]proving the enormous output of

anergy in their work.)

If the woodworker “is not kill-
ed or crippled, he rapidly reaches
the age where he can no longer
maintain the pace to hold a job
as a logger or millworker. He
must in a comparatively few
years provide for his mainten-
ance in old age.”

The union showed the cause of
low. living standards. Page after
page of government and company
statistics documented a story of
fabulous super-profits coined by the
industry. Operators’ guilt was evi-
dent from their failure to challenge
by so much as a word the IWA’s
proof of their ability to pay.
Dollar value of lumber produc-

the monument above us flew the
Canadian flag and below it stretch-
ed a huge banner bearing our de-
mand: “Mr, High Commissioner —
End the Reign of Terror on the
Great Lakes.”
We voted to organize the dem-
onstration and so carry the story
of the Great Lakes struggle to the
British working people when we)
heard reports that Canada Steam-
ship Lines was arming its ships.
»Harry Gulkin, an: East Coast
seaman, opened the meeting with a
review of events since the CSU
broke the 84-hour week in 1946,
showing how operators had striven
to smash our union by open viol-
ence and vicious red-baiting, One
by one, other members told their
own stories of the struggle.
Among them was Frankie Free-
man, whose picture has been flash-
ed around, the world—held down by.

tion rose from $88,221,000 in 1939
to $147,665,000 in 1945 to $225,000,-
000 in 1947,

.The lumber and timber price in-
dex rose from 100 in 1939 to 170.7
in 1945 and 281.3 in 1948.

Profits? Bank of Canada fig-
ures show that the seven large
companies who have issued 1947
statements increased net income
to shareholders in 1947 to 308 per-
cent of 1946, 411 percent of 1939,
and 617 percent of 1986. ’ —

Piled on top of this is a huge

growth in assets and reserves.

‘This searing. indictment of
profiteering and exploitation left
the operators branded with re-
sponsibility not only for reduced
living standards of the wood-
worker, but also in large part for
the housing shortage and increas-
ed living costs facing the nation.

Modesty and justice of the wood-

half the value of what they pro-]>

Soviet Union.

While we were

the long delay in holding the hear-
ings “has played into the hands
of the BCE and caused public
suspicion of collusion.”

From Prague half the brigade

went to Sitno Castle in Slovakia
and the rest of us directly to the
conference at Warsaw.

Several of us visited
a plant which had been 60 percent
destroyed in five weeks of bomb-
ing prior to liberation by the Red
Army. It is completely remodelled
and 4500 men are producing 14
locomotives a month there.

in France we
were guests of the French youth
until we joined with them in the
July 14 Bastille Day Parade. Seven
hundred thousand people marched
through Paris under the slogan,
“Keep France Independent.”

four of Premier George Drew’s
provincials and surrounded by 30
or 40 RCMP. :
My own contribution to the meet-
ing was to call for financial sup-
port. The seven ships pledged a
total of $3,960. One London worker,
who donated a pound to our fund,
told me he considered it fitting that
the historic naval monument should
provide the setting for a different
but no less historic struggle.

To us, as seamen, international
working class solidarity has a real
meaning, and to demonstrate it we
sent a pledge of solidarity to strik-
ing London dockworkers and. back-

workers’ wage proposals was seen
in the proof laid down that “if the
union made demands equivalent to
what the employers ask the pub-
lic, our request would be 96 cents
per hour or more, instead of 35
cents.”

Extent of speedup from 1945 to
1947 was pointed up by an increase
in log output of 36.4 percent, Bal-
anced against a 37.6 percent boost
in employment, this was shown. to
mean that “in 1947 a logger work-
ing a 40-hour week produced as
much as he did in a 48-hour week
in~ 1945.”

Toll of the bloodstained drive for
super-profits in woods and mills

ed it with a financial contribution.

was set forth in a. somber black-

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—AUGUST 27, 1948—PAGE }*

—PORT ALBERNI, B.C. |

A movement which, if taken up by other towns and com-
mittees, can spread across the country and compel the King
government to control prices and curb progteering, got under
way in this Island city this week.
g a prices protest parade staged by the Nigel
lection Committee of the Labor-Progressive Party
on August 14, Alberni Ratepayers’ Association, with the en-
dorsation of Port Alberni City Council, called an all-in con-
ference of organizations interested in fighting the government’s

callous prices policy. |

The preliminary meeting held in |
the city hall last Tuesday, reflect-
ing the enthusiasm generated by
the parade, was attended by mem-
bers of a wide cross-section of pop-
ular organizations—trade unions,
housewives’ fraternal and youth
organizations, women’s auxiliaries,
the CCF and LPP.

. With Mayor Jordan in the chair,
the meeting discussed and agreed
upon holding of a public rally in.
the RCEME hall, Glenwood, on
September 14, to protest inflated
prices and demand immediate gov-
ernment action.

All political parties will be) in-
vited to send a speaker to address
the rally, which will be presided
over by Mayor Jordan.

Recaliing that a similar citi-
zens’ meeting in Port Alberni in-
itiated the movement that forced
the provincial government to es-
tablish the B.C. Power Commis-
sion (leading to reduced power
rates), Mayor Jordan urged that
the movement be taken up by
other cities and municipalities.
Ald Walter Yates stressed the
need for an immediate roll-back of
prices, reimposition of price con-
trols and reintroduction of subsi-
dies and the excess profits tax.

“Those are the’ measures ‘the
government introduced during
the war to keep prices down.
They worked effectively then.
They can work equally effectively
now. The main obstacle is the
government’s own unwillingness
to do anything.. We must prod the
government so hard it will ha
to act,” he declared. ; :

bordered graph with a coffin--for
every 10 of the 724 men‘killed since
1938. It was shown that the indust-
ry has the worst accident record in
the world, a record steadily worsen-
ing as profits soar. “Every eleven
minutes of every work-day in the
lumber industry of British Colum-~
bia a worker is permanently oF —
temporarily injured. Every three
and a half working days a worker
is killed.

“Year after year mounting
profits have been used to build
enorMous reserves and to consol-
idate and extend the control of
half a dozen monopolists wh?
have been busily building up tim-
ber limits and merging formerly
independent sawmills into gigan-
tic combines. The IWA’s demands —
will not stop this process but do
present a practical program for
utilizing some of the inflated rev-
enues to better the conditions of
the woodworkers—one-fourth of
British Columbia’s industrial pop-
ulation.

This was a case for all B.C. to
hear—workers, shopkeepers, farm
ers, teachers, children—a case
fecting the prosperity of a province
more dependent on the woodwork-
ers’ payroll than any other factor:
What story could be more im
portant to tell the people? Report
ers for the dailies were there, but
their editors gave them a handful
of inches on an inside page—edit
ors who give front page promin-
ence to regular attacks on the dist
rict union by Fadling and such of
his supporters as those who sat i?
the courtroom for all the world 45

| though they were not doing all i?

their power to destroy the leaders
of the woodworkers’ battle.

The IWA case rests. The strike
vote is in readiness to be used if
need! be. Job stewards are pushing
closer to a goal of 100 percent O%
ganization in preparation for what
ever action may be necessary to
compel the lumber barons to yield
to the people of this province ‘i
portion of the super-profits that

lead to depression.