(GS Ne OpREKEE. Re Sua NRE Wes Page Four B.C. Workers NEws Published Weekly by : THE PROLETARIAN PUBLISHING ASS’'N Room 10, 163 West Hastings Street - Vancouyer, B.C. st — Subscription Rates — : Qne Year == $1530 Half Year 21-00 Three Months__$ -50 Single Copy —— -05 Make All Checks Payable to the B.C. WORKERS" NEWS Send All Copy and Manuscript to the Chairman of the Editorial Board — Send All Monies and Letters Per- taining to Advertising and Circulation to the Bustness Manager. Wancouver, B.C., July 19, 1935 THE WOODSWORTH MANIFESTO Following closely upon the release ot the manifesto and program of Stevens new party came the pre-election manifesto and program of Woodsworth and the C.C.F. Both are mere yote-snaring devices. Stevens openly declares that he desires to reform capitalism in order to perpetuate Ars Woodsworth desires to reform capitalism into socialism. And both programs are im- possible of realization. Woodsworth, while in words declaring for a “new social order,’ displays the greatest confusion as to how it is to be achieved. This confusion is exhibited at the very outset when he declares that “the great obstacle to a planned and socialized economic order is the monopolistic concentration of economic power in the hands of a small group of big financiers and industrialists,” when the ob- stacle is capitalist class ownership of the means of wealth production and the capital- ist State of force and violence to maintain that ownership. There is not a word about united struggle outside of parliament. Reliance, not only for the amelioration of the conditions of the suf- ferers from capitalism, but for the abolition of capitalism itself is placed solely on par- liamentary effort; and the building of a “new world” is tc be done within the capitalist parliamentary institutions and according to established capitalist rules. 3 “Control of finance,” says the manifesto, “i= the first step toward the control of the whole of economy’’—but what economy, and whose? Control of economy by the capitalist state is not a step toward socialism, or even toward better conditions for the workers under capitalism. Control of economy by the capitalist state means Fascism or State cap- italism, not socialism. The lack of understanding of the class character of the State is revealed in the mani- festo where it states: “We must bring our economic institutions, as our ancestors brought our political institutions, under public control] and administration”—the il- lusion thus being fostered that today the po- litical institutions are controlled by the peo- ple as a whole instead of by a class. There is not a word in the manifesto about non-contributory unemployment insurance, although under mass pressure many C.C.F. District Executive Councils and many C.C.F. Clubs put forward this demand. (If such a demand were in the manifesto it would be hard to explain why the C.C.F. members in the House (except Garland) voted for the Bennett unemployment bill). On the question of war the manifesto con- fuses and misleads the workers and the peo- ple generally by its attitude toward the gov- ernment’s responsibility for Canada’s par- ticipation in the next war. “Canada must not be allowed to drift into another capitalist war,’ declares Woods- worth. But Canada did not DRIFT into the last war and will not DRIFT into the next one, The Canadian bourgeoisie are not so inno- cent; they are consciously preparing to par- ticipate in the next war in order to protect their imperialistic world interests. The po- sition Woodsworth in the manifesto takes is that of “neutrality” in the next capitalist war. But should the workers and farmers take a neutral stand if Canada joins the great imperialist powers in a predatory, extermina- tory war against the Soviet Union? The reformists’ failure to understand the character of the State and the resire for the capitalists to establish a fascist state In a last desperate effort to preserve capitalism, is shown in the dangerous call in the mani- festo for amendments to the B.N.A. Act for the purpose of bestowing greater powers on the central (federal) government. Woodsworth even upbraids the MLiberal party for “holding out to our industrial and financial plutocrats the promise of even less state regulation and control than they have had to fear from the present government.” Woodsworth may not be aware of it, but such state regulation and centralization of power in the national government are steps toward fascism, and not steps toward social- ism so long as capitalist class ownership of PROTEST ON AUG. 4th The capitalist nations of the world are speeding up their war preparations. and italy, supported by Great Britain, is already rushing troops with their accompanying in- struments of death to Abyssinia, a proceed- ing which may be the beginning of another world war of unprecedented barbarity and slaughter. Japan, supported by the traitorous imperi- alist tool, Change Kai Shek, is carying more slices out of the body of bleeding China. Great Britain is rapidly increasing her air, naval and land forces, ac- companied by her usual hypocritical protests that she is endeavoring to avert war. Re- cently a great jingoistic naval demonstration was held in English waters, which recalls a similar naval demonstration and mobilization just before August, 1914. All the pomp and pageantry necessary to work up a war fever were present. Ganada; with her world imperialistic in- terests to be safeguarded, is also getting ready to play her part in the universal mass blood-letting. Imcreased expenditures for military, air and naval forces, building of- ficers’ corps, Bennett’s recent secret meet- ings with British warmongers in London— all are of sinister significance. The drive against radical labor organiza- tions as the first step toward crushing all working class organization, or rendering them subservient to the government as they were during the last world war, is another evidence of the preparation for war. The Canadian masses must be aroused to the danger and organized to resist it to the utmost, so that if, despite all efforts, war is forced upon the people, the united front against it will be able to accomplish the de- feat of our own government. The Ganadian League Against War and Fascism is organizing mass peace parades all over Canada to be held on August 4th, the twenty-first anniversary of the last world mass slaughter, in opposition to the plans of the imperialistic warmongers. All people who are opposed to war should unite on that day in a mighty nation-wide protest against the bloody war plans of the plunderers and murderers of mankind. SUPPORT THE ‘YOUNG WORKER’ The economic crisis has brought untold poverty, hardship and intensified exploita- tion upon the exploited masses of Canada and of the whole capitalist world; and upon no section of the working class have its ef- fects fallen more heavily than upon the youth. The youth are forced to work for lower wages and are speeded up more in industry, while the unemployed among them are segre- gated like lepers into forced labor camps under semi-military discipline; and if they leave them to petition the government for redress they are clubbed, imprisoned and shot down. In addition to such treatment they are facing the imminent danger of be- ing conscripted as cannon fodder in a war which is being prepared by the very class which so shamefully treat them now. To defend the interests of the youth of the eountry it is necessary to reach wider masses in order to arouse, educate and organize them for common struggle against exploitation, discrimination and being hurled into the holocaust of war. To do this great and ne- cessary work a powerful, militant youth press is indispensible. The YOUNG WORKER is the leading working class youth paper in Canada. But its value and role is not sufficiently under- stood by either youth or adult. Its influence must be widely extended in order to meet the needs of the toiling youth in this period of growing oppression, exploitation, sharpening class struggles and preparation for imperial- ist war. At present there is a nation-wide campaign being conducted for the extension of its cir- culation and the collection of money in order not only to have it reach a larger number of the youth, but also to improve it. : Eivery youth faced by capitalism with a future of unemployment, forced labor in a government slave compound, or ignominious death on a battlefield for capitalists’ profits should enthusiastically support the drive for the maintenance, growth and increased Cir- culation of the YOUNG WORKER. the means of wealth production remains and the capitalist state which protects it endures. Although rendering lip service to a desire for socialism, the manifesto of Woodsworth for the C. C.F. does not differ essentially from similar statements and programs of the British Labor Party when Ramsay Mac- Donald was at the helm, when that party, too, declared itself for ‘“‘socialism in our time.” And neither does it differ greatly from the Liberal party program nor from the program of Stevens. CORBIN MINERS ARE SENTENCED FERNIES, July 12.—John Falconer, president of the Corbin Miners’ Wnion, and Bill Condrato, were each fined $50 and $100 costs of appeal or four months hard labor in Nelson jail, by Judge Thomson in County Court here Thursday. Peter Queen was fined $25 or two months. John Press was acquitted, but $100, cost of appeal, was levied. The charges were in connection with the coal mine riot last April. William Corlett was found guilty of a charge of perjury and Liven 2 two-year suspended ‘sentence and ordered to enter a $500 bond to Keep the peace, ‘ be trebled. SOVIET UNION AND U.S. SIGN AGREEMENT No Mention of Old Debts or Soviet “‘Propa- ganda’’ WASHINGTON, July 14. —The Seviet Union and the United States have just Signed a new trade agree- ment whereby the trade be- tween the two countries will An outstanding feature is that there is no mention whatsoever made of the “debt” contracted by the Czarist and Kerensky re- gimes, which means a great climb-down by the hitherto haughty capitalist nation. Some die-hard members of congress were “shocked” at the government’s failure to collect at least some of the debt incurred by the overthrown class of Russia to carry on the imperialist War and to suppress the workers and peasants. The reactionary represen- tatives and senators also are furious because the agreement does not mention “soviet propaganda.” | isc ‘il =" \\ CW HN N S a \\ \) %, Mh str le (GEE LICKS aa, The Stevens Program By F. BIGGS H. H. Stevens has named the new capitalist party, the Reconstruction Party. There are different kinds of reconstruction. In the Soviet Union, following the last world war, the revolution and the civil war, the workers entered a period of recon- struction which was a program to repair the broken-down machinery of production and distribution. When these repairs had been effected the next step was to launch upon a pro- gram of construction—construction to build up socialism, and the suc- cess of this program has already been amply demonstrated in the first Five Year Plan, fulfilled in four years, and in the second Five Year Plan already well on to successful realization, oa The Capitalist Mess Nearly six years of the world erisis has just about wrecked the capitalist system of production and distribution in Canada. The destruc- tion it has wrought is visible on every hand; farmers with great crops eannot sell them, the railroads wail- ing about reduced earnings, the cap- italist industries by speed-up sys- tems reducing human material to human wreckage, the small business man fighting off bankruptcy from day to day, the youth of the country condemned by the capitalist poli- ticians to spend the best years of their lives in isolated camps at forced labor, and the million or more of unemployed whose meagre relief allowances are inadequate to supply even the bare necessities of a normal, healthy existence. Reconstruction—Por Whom? Well might the capitalist class choose some representative to at- tempt to stop the downward trend of capitalism. The rumblings from below, the stirring of the exploited workers and farmers, warn them "4 that they must act and act quickly if they are not to go down and out. Stevens is the man chosen for this work, the task of consolidating Ca- nadian capitalism. His program of reconstruction is a plan to recon- struct Canadian capitalism on the lines of the Pascist state. Socialist reconstruction and construction in the Soviet Union is bringing plenty, happiness, and intense interest in life to the workers; Stevens’ recon- struction will bring, if the workers of Canada permit it, more hard- Ship, poverty, oppression, and ruth- less exploitation of the workers and farmers, ‘because reconstruction under capitalism can only be engin- eered at the expense of the exploited classes. Learned From Hitler Stevens has learned much from the recent history of Europe. Both Mussolini and Hitler, in order to get a mass following, designed their platforms to appeal to the oppressed workers, farmers and small business men. They claimed to represent and lead these sections of the people against the rich, the big interests, and they shouted in all their propa- ganda that they were going to give the youth their much-needed place in life. When Pattullo introduced his Special Powers Act, it will be re- membered locally, he said “‘the youth must be saved.” Two of Stevens’ chief slogans are, “Save the Youth” and “‘Lax the Rich.” Demagogic Catch-words Stevens’ 15-point manifesto was very carefully written to deceive the people, to cover up his real plan which is to promote monopoly through government regulation of bie business. The small business man reading such phrases as “un- ethical business practices,” “unfair competition,’’ may believe that Ste- | Crush The Wretch! (J. B. MacLachlan m “N.S. Miner’’) Bennett was in Moncton, N.B., on July 9, 1930. The slave camp or- ganizer was haying all decency and truth burned out of his carcass with his lust for power. He said this in his hunt for votes: “The Conservative Party is ing to find worl: for all who are willing to work, or perish in the attempt. It is going to call parlia- ment together at the earliest pos- sible date after July 28, and take such steps as will end this tragic condition of unemployment, and bring prosperity to the country as Mr. King promises consideration of the problem of unemployment. I promise to end unemployment—which plan do you like best?” That lie is five years old. Five years ago there were 300,000 unem- ployed in Canada; today, after five years of Bennett and Tory misrule, there are more than 1,000,000 unem- ployed. During these five years Ben- nett has seen hundreds of thousands of young people leave School, and Bennett banged the door of life and hope in their faces. Bennett not only did not end un- employment, he has destroyed the last shred of liberty that young peo- ple enjoyed in Canada. He drove them from hearth and home out into the wilderness into slave camps. He dictated what clothes they should wear, what food they must eat and how often they should eat, when they go- should go to bed and when they should get out of bed. No black Slave ever earned his poor keep under more servile conditions; no black slave was ever forced to toil for less. Bennett lie@ when he said he would end unemployment. The truth is he ended all ,freedom for the young manhood of Canada. Ben- not content with blasting all | | nett, hope for the youth of Canada, has deliberately imported into Canada the very Slave laws that caused civil war in the land to the south of us, laws which were passed, not by the House of Commons at Ottawa, but by a dozen rich slavers in the Bennett eabinet. Im the slavery days in the South, when a poor slave ran away from his master—just as Bennett's slaves ran away from his slave camps in B.C. and Alberta—they had a law that prohibited people from giving a runaway Slave food, clothes or Shelter. Bennett and his twelve rich cabinet ministers passed a law a few weeks ago making it a crim- inal offense for anyone to give food, clothes or shelter, or a ride in a car to any of Bennett’s runaway slaves recently in Regina. Bennett cannot create work and wages, but he can certainly create new and unheard of crimes for his runaway slaves. It’s a erime now, under Bennett rule, for an unemployed man to walk east out of Regina! This shameless Tory who was £0- ing to end unemployment if only people would vote him into power has used that power to stamp as a crime every decent and humane act towards his unemployed slave camp strikers. Under his rule freedom perished, hope for the youth died, and unemployment was multiplied four times over, and the very peace. order and discipline of the strikers drives the enslaving maniac to blood- shed. It’s the duty of all decent people to tear up Bennetts runaway slave law and throw it in his teeth by sending money and food to the trekkers. Bennett will soon have to whine again for the votes of the people of CGanada; it shall be the duty of every freedom-loving man and woman to crush the wretch. vens will put restrictions on the big chain stores, or perhaps close them down. The hundreds of thousands of poor farmers burdened by debt and mortgages may think that Stevens is their champion when he writes about “‘inereased taxes on large in- comes,” “Legislation to ensure fair prices for the farmers’ products,” “the appointment of a Dominion ag- ricultural board to formulate a demo- cratic scheme for control and direc- tion ‘of marketing of agricultural products,”' “restriction of interest rates to a much lower level,” “five per cent on mortgages should be ample,” ete. Building False Hopes Many industrial workers will think that Stevens is their friend when the new party “‘protects against the pur- chase and sale of labor as mere mer echandise. It demands all labor prob- lems Shall be approached from the human standpoint, realizing that un- less the workers secure fair wages and reasonable hours the whole stan- dard of living in Canada must sink to lower levels.” The National Hous- ing program will give the impression that there is to be a great boom for the building trades. The Stevens manifesto does not say that the forced labor camps for Single unemployed will be abolished. Its section on public works suggests that building highways in various parts of the country will absorb large number of the youth; but this may well mean simply a transfer of the present camps to new territory. What Stevens Means When Stevens talks about the “human standpoint” he means the “capitalist standpoint.’ When he mentions the need for ‘fair wages’ he means fair from the capitalist point of view, not from that of the workers. He does not tell how his prosram is to provide a market for the sale of farm products. Last De- cemiber there were 40 million pounds of butter in cold storage in Canada; Jast year’s crop of wheat is still un- sold. Will the farmers be able to pay even the five per cent interest or mortgages that he proposes? The Communist program advocates aboli- tion of all farm debts and mortgages. During the ten years from 1923 to 1933 the Canadian National Railways are reported to have failed by over $500,000,000 to earn the interest and charges in respect of the bonds and obligations. The manifesto of the new party says a plan is being drafted to solve the railway prob- lem. Being a capitalist plan it can only be one to insure the bond-hold- ers payment of their interest at the expense of the railway workers. An Enemy of Labor The manifesto shows that behind all his fancy phrases Stevens is an enemy of labor. There is no mention of repealing the infamous Section 98. He will make as much use of it as Bennett. The proposal for uniform wage scales through Canada is a ter- rible threat to labor. It is a purely fascist measure. Under it the Med- eral government would set wages and conditions for all classes of work, the effect being to ignore, or render illegal, all trade unions, and to outlaw all struggles of the work- ers to better these “legal” wages and conditions. Stevens promises to give kind con- sideration to the veterans, but when it is realized that there are 38,000 unemployed veterans in Canada, and 47,500 war pensioners, it will take more than kind consideration to pro- vide them with a decent standard of living. Only One Solution The workers of B.C. have passed through great struggles in the past year. The loggers’ strike, the Cor- bin strike, the fishermen’s strike, the relief camp workers’ strike, the longshoremen’s strike, and the many unemployed demonstrations through-— out the province. The closing down WEBB BE JAILE't WINNIPEG, July 16.—The ar’ of Col. R. H. Webb, Conseryat member for Assiniboia in the Ma” toba lesislature and ex-mayor a | Winnipes, has been demanded | Fred Donner, member of the Me 48 toba Relief Campers’« Strike Ccy mittee, as a test of capitalist 138 against the advocacy of force <3 violence by a member of the ca jj talist class. t The fascist Webb, who some ye 4 ago advocated throwing all Reds ij # the Red River, speakine at the <¥% nual celebration of the Wiinniy 4 Orange Lodge was reported to heq Said: “In Flin Flon” (northern miniz - town where police brutally broke] strike) “a group of he-men haz) gotten together and when an ag 4 tator comes along they tar ai J feather him ... If the governme } fails to pass laws dealing wii” Communists then we shall ha to tale the law imto our oy hands.” Donner declared that no Comr nist, however enthusiastic, Wo | ever advocate tarring and feather) | of human beings just because oF difference of opinion. The matter is up to Chief Cc% stable Smith and Attorney-Genew Major as “suardians of law and <« der’ to put the frothy-mouthed f | cist Webb in jail. 4 High Cost OF | _ Slave Camp Family of Seven On| Relief Get Less For the rotten grub and “accon modations” for young workers in fj Slave Camps, plus the graft to Db litical heelers and the salaries f broken down Colonels, Majors ar Sswivel-chair Generals, the gover ment has paid $15,000,000 in Br alone since the compounds we started in 1931. The cost per man per month $50, of which amount less than { is paid in wages. A man with wife and five childre receives in normal relief allowanj $42.50, which is less than it cos to keep a Slave Camp worker ali for the same length of time, and tt family have just as good or betts food and shelter than the Slay Camp worker. Eyen the single ma on relief getting $12.60 per mont is better off than the Slave Cam inmate. Why the Camps? : It costs approximately $250, per month to: keep 5000 to 6000 me in the camps, while the total cos for 90,000 persons on direct relief } slightly more than $650,000 pj month. Providing soft jobs for military o} ficers and political heelers is not th only, or even the chief reason fc the establishment of the Slay Camps. One reason is, to segregate an isolate the single unemployed fror the masses of workers in the dense! populated centers, thus splitting th ranks of the militant workers ar making it easier to crush both. Another reason is that the camy serve as the opening wedge to fu military training of the young me of the country in prepaartion f the approaching new world war. SELL-OUT FAKER IS CONDEMNEI By RAY STARK SEATTLE, July 11.—Gus Brow New York I.S.W. secretary, was bi terly condemned at the last meetil of the Marine Firemen’s Union f his strike sabotage and splitti tactics. The rank and file bitter scored him as a faker worki against the best interests of the rar and file and an agent of the shi owners and waterfront employers. The condemnation grew from ft latest action in ordering the crew the Robert Inchenbach in Seattle n to strike for better conditions, a1 the threat that upon their arrival « the east coast the men who did stril would be expelled from the union. Tells Boss to Fire Crew When the Robert Inchenbach a Tivyed on the east coast Brown i formed the captain that it w proper to discharge the entire cre and that new men would immec ately be sent from the union hall replace them. This was done, wi the result that union members bro! a threatened strike of their fellc workers. “Brown is a typical strike-breaki official,’’ commented one rank 2 file member. ““We've got to get x of these fellows before we'll have real international umnion.”’ three thousand out of work, the lo of the Chinese and Japanese ma kets for lumber, which will depri as many more of jobs, indica clearly that these struggles for bre are to be continuous from now oa The workers must not allow the selves to be fooled into waiting i the Reconstruction Party to sol their problems. There is only one solution to t workers’ problems and that is u ceasing struggle against the capitz ist Bennett today and the capitali Stevens tomorrow. A united worki elass can struggle hard enough prevent Stevens carrying on whe Bennett leaves off; a united struge ean develop to the point where t proposed fascist reconstruction capitalism can be squashed, and t of the mines at Anyox, throwing construction of socialism begun.