|

 $t. Laurent -- choice of big business

‘By FRANK WILLIAMS
OTTAWA

ITH ereat .fanfare the

Liberal convention
came to the carefully pre-
arranged decision to choose
Louis St. Laurent as the next
leader of the party. Soon there-
fore, if only for a time, this cold,
calculating, corporation lawyer
will become the prime minister.
The election was a mockery. None
of the three candidates offered
any serious reason why he should
be selected. All _ the delegates
knew what they were supposed to
do, and the great majority of
them did so. It was a change from

the two previous Liberal conven-

tions of 1893 and 1919.

When St. Laurent does take
Over the job, Canadians can be
sure of a reactionary government
firmly set on a course headed to-
wards crisis and war, For St. Lau-_
rent will carry on the subordina-
tion of this country to the in-
terest of Wall Street; he will
work to break up the UN and
Play an active part in the anti-
Soviet intrigues that threaten
world peace; he will block any
attack on the housing crisis in
Canada or any serious attempt to
roll back prices; and he will carry
on vigorous attack on the civil
rights of Canadians.

St. Laurent is no reformer,
that is clear. He is the man of
St. James Street, a leading cor-
Poration lawyer who has spent
his life as counsel to the monopol-
ists and has sat on the boards of
such strongholds of finance-cap-
ital as the Bank of Montreal,
Metropolitan Life Assurance Com-
Pany and Gatineau Power Ltd.
Significantly, Metropolitan is.an
American corporation and Gatin-
eau is controlled in the U.S.. St.

‘Laurent has been trained to act

in the interests of his clients, and
his clients have always been the
enemies of the people,

When St. Laurent speaks of
loyalty to Canada, we can be
Sure that it is loyalty in word
alone. During the war (in his
speech of June 16, 1942) St. Lau-
rent coined the phrase “utilitarian
loyalty.” To fight against Hitler
is useful, but should not be com-
Pulsory, was his argument. It is
equally true today that his own
loyalty is utilitarian — to Wall
Street and not to the people of
Canada.

&

Today Canadians are confront-
ed with the fight for national in-
dependence against the American
Monopolists who seek to exploit
he resources of Canada in their
Selfish struggle to halt the pro-
8ress of the people towards so-
Cialism, Confronted with this is-
Sue, St, Laurent, as in his speech
of April 29 last, only speaks of
Canadian-U.S. “strategic inter-
dependence” and “our two peo-
Ples with the same ideas and

ideals and the same basic way of ~

life,”

St. Laurent led the way in
building up an anti-Soviet bloc at
the UN and advocating an all-
American war alliance. He has
Sone farther than his American
Mentors have dared to g0, Public-
ly. The St, Laurent policy is to
form a UN without the USSR
4nd the new democracies, all in
the name of unity.

In his speech of April 29, St.

aurent went down the line in
Support of the Truman anti-Com-
munist crusade. “Our national eX-

‘Istence (read: the profits of our

Monopolies) is threatened by the
Tsing tide of communism.” And,

Ur foreign policy is based on
he fact that Communist aggres-
Sion threatens the freedom and
Peace of every democratic coun-

Autograph? But this same signature

on secret war alliances... »

. » » » can doom this and thousands}

of Canadian youngsters to the fate

of these

try, including Canada.”

St. Laurent has deviated only
once from the Truman line. The
United States, under pressure, has
recognized the government of Is-
rael, St. Laurent stubbornly reé-
fuses to do. so,
®

The labor movement will ask in
vain for his sympathy on any of
their problems. He is not in Ot-
tawa to represent. them. He is
there as the watchdog of big busi-
ness. °

Rents and prices will not be
controlled by his government.
Low-rental housing for the lower
income groups is a basic need in
Canada. To get it we must have
government subsidies to keep
down rents. But twice last year
(October 27 and November 4) St.

Laurent went out of his way to...

declare that there would be: no
subsidized housing while he was
in the government,

His record as an enemy of civil
rights is well known. As minister
of justice he defended the barbar-
ous policy of the government to-
wards the Japanese-Canadians.
He engineered the secret order-
in-council of October, 1945, by
which the so-called “spy suspects”
were six months later detained
in secret, without counsel and
with no knowledge of the charges
against them. He has defended a
procedure which the Canadian
Bar Association itself has con-
demned.

Having the secret order-in-coun-
cil in his pocket, he had the ef-
frontery to declare to the House
of Commons that there were no
secret orders (December 5, 1945).
By this lie he made it easier for
the government to get its emer-
gency powers extended. When he
was found out some months later,
his excuse was forgetfulnéss,

As minister of justice he ac-
quiesced in the attacks of Duples-
sis on the Jehovah’s’ Witnesses
and on trade unionists. The Pad-
lock Act was “none of his affair.”
Not only did he never fight Du-
plessis on a question of principle
but he swallowed his pride to an-
nounce that he is quite prepared
to follow George Drew in his anti-
Communist crusade.

On the Lacroix Bill to outlaw
the LPP St. Laurent has main-
tained a stony silence, But in
July 1942 and February 1943 he
solemnly announced that com-
munism is now illegal in Canada
under the existing law. It did not
embarrass him to base this argu-
ment on a double-cross by the
late Ernest Lapointe in 1936, at
the time of the repeal of Section
98, when Lapointe slipped another
Since-forgotten section into the
Criminal Code as a substitute for
Section 98,
eo

So the Liberal Party throws off
the somewhat threadbare mask of
reform and steps out under the
open ‘leadership of the big shots.
The convention of 1893 attacked
monopoly; the convention of 1948
surrenders to monopoly.

The mantle of Laurier, who
fought clericalism, has fallen.at
last on St. Laurent, the complete
clerical, the agent of Vatican for-
eign policy; the mantle of Edward
Blake and Alexander Mackenzie,
who fought the CPR and the
monopolists, has fallen on St.
Laurent, onetime counsel to the
CPR and former director of the
Bank of Montreal.

Laurier, who proclaimed his
loyalty to the people, has been
succeeded by St. Laurent, whose
purely utilitarian loyalty is to the
people of St. James Street.

The lesson is there very plain
for Canadian labor to see,

Liberalism
offers war.

TY-NINE years as

leader of the Liberal
Party, 21 of them as prime
minister, have culminated
for 73-year-old William
Lyon Mackenzie King in an
address describing com-
munism as the “greatest
menace of our time”. and

‘the ominous warning that
‘“at. any hour,” Canadians ~

may be called upon to lay
down their lives in World
War 3.

It was Mackenzie King’s
valedictory speech to the
Liberal Party national con-
vention, called not to dis-
cuss policy and toa criticize
failures, but solely for the
purpose of electing a new
national leader.

The new leader had been
chosen long before the for-
mality of a vote was ob-
served, Louis St. Laurent,
clerical . reactionary, big
corporation lawyer, and
French Canadian © bigot,
was the only visible choice
if Quebec’s 65 federal] seats
were to be kept in the
Liberal fold.

King’s much-touted ad-
dress contained no refer-
ences to the main griev-
ances of the Canadian
people: housing, high
prices, runaway profits, the
decline of real wages, bad
labor legislation and a
foreign policy made in the
U.S. It was a collection of
platitudes which caused
even young Liberals to gag
until the party machine
steamrollered them into
silence. =
- Almost every Canadian
newspaper seized upon
King’s speech to headline
“communism” as the “men-
ace.” In’ that sense the
King-St. Laurent perform-
ance also was made in the
Us. :

King’s blunt announce-
ment of the likelihood of
war, which even President
Truman and Prime Minister
Atlee would hesitate to
make publicly, went as
follows:

“It may be that, at any
hour, the free nations may
be called upon again, as”
twice already they have in
the course of a single gen-
eration, to defend freedom,
not with their policies
alone, but with their lives.”

When connected witk his
remark that “Communism
is the greatest menace of
our times,” King’s warlike
utterance—which made mo
mention of the United Na-
tions—indicates that he has
given to the St. Laurent
leadership a heritage of
war and repression, both of
which have. been previously
emphasized in recent im-
portant policy statements
by both aged politicians.

St. Laurent’s task is to.
try to coerce or cajole the
people of Quebec into ac-
cepting this line of policy.
Therein lies the significance
of his choice by the big
capitalist interests who con-
trol the Liberal Party.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—AUGUST 20, 1948—PAGE 5