Page Four

BGe WOR her RSs

Nee WS

:

October 11, 1935.

BC. WorkKERS NEWS

Published Weekly by
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Room 10, 163 West Hastings Street - Wancouver, B.C.

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Vancouver, B.C., October 11, 1935

FATALISM AND SECTION 98

Angus MacInnis and one or two other
leaders of the CCF are now taken the posi-
tion that repeal of Section 98 of the Criminal
Code is not an important matter because the
capitalists have other laws by which to im-
prison workers who lead the struggle against
hunger, fascism and war. Such an attitude is
most dangerous and is evidence of the fatal-
ism and pacifism which characterizes the re-
actionary elements in the leadership of the
CCF.

It is true that the capitalists of Canada
have many laws by the use of which they can
imprison workers. But it is true also that
Section 98 is the most vicious and most un-
democratic of them all. Moreover, under
Section 98 the capitalists do what they can
not do legally under their other anti-labor
law, and that is, to outlaw labor organiza-
tions. Section 98 is being used today in Re-
gina to outlaw a trade union, the Relief Camp
Workers’ Union, and unless a mighty strug-
gle against it is developed it will be used
against trades unions to a greater extent in
the future.

An even more dangerous attitude is that
expressed by other leaders of the CCF, and
that is, that Section 98 should be kept on the
statute books so that it can be used against
recalcitrant capitalists and their political
agents—after the CCF secure a majority in
parliament.

When capitalism is overthrown and a S0v-
ernment of the toiling people is set up thay’
government will enact its own laws for deal-
ing with the deposed minority of exploiters.
There will be no need of capitalist laws.

The fight against Section 98 must go on.
And not only against Section 98, but against
all sedition, anti-picketing and other anti-
working class laws, as well ast against the
immigration laws under which wholesale de-
portations are carried out against the foreign
born workers as a part of the terror and
intimidation of the working people.

LIBERALS AND TRADE

The Liberal candidates are busy becloud-
ing the real issues in the federal election.
Wild promises to restore “trade” are being
made. And, of course, they mean foreign
trade. Like the Conservatives, they boast of
the great export trade developed during their
past administrations. :

Tt is true that exports increased during
both the Liberal and Conservative adminis-
trations. But the returns from the sale of
these exported commodities did not go into
the pockets of the common people who pro-
duced them. They went into the pockets of
the rich who expropriated them from the un-
paid labor of the producers. The commodi-
ties which the capitalists were able to ex-
port were commodities which the common
people were deprived of.

While the unemployed and
shivered from lack of clothes on their backs,
the capitalists exported out of the country
$1,931,000 worth more cloth in 1933 than
they did in 1930. While the feet of the chil-
dren of the poor were shoeless, the capitalists
exported $18,000,000 worth more leather and
leather goods in 1933 than in 1930. The
same applies to dairy products and many

other things. :
Robbing the producers of their product

their families

and selling it abroad while a great mass
of the people are compelled to go hungry.
ragged and in bare feet is not what the com-
mon people of Canada want, no matter how
the Liberal candidates rave about export
trade as a way out of the depression.

Communist and CCF members of parlia-
ment will fight for higher wages, for the re-
moval of sales taxes and for adequate sup-
port of the unemployed and their families
so that there will be more money in the
pockets of the common people to buy sorely
needed commodities instead of them being
shipped out of the country to further enrich
the capitalists. It is a greater HOME MAR-
KET, not further increases in exports, that
is needed by the people of Canada, and that
can be developed only by enabling the com-
mon people to buy more of the commodities
produced.

TELFORD AND THE TORIES

The slanders of Dr. Telford, CCF mouth-
piece and local leader, over the radio against
the Communists, charging them with being
in league with the Liberals, have aroused
deep resentment against him not only among
the people generally, but also in the ranks of
the CCF.

Telford knows that the Communists have
been denied the use of the radio in this prov-
ince by the government-appointed Radio
Commission; and when their candidate in
Vancouver Fast, for the first and only time,
is given an opportunity for fifteen minutes
over the air along with other candidates,
through the courtesy of the Action Commit-
tee of Ex-servicemen, the Doctor charges
that the expenses for this privilege were paid
by the Liberals. The Doctor lied deliberately.
As well as being an infamous liar and slan-
derer, he is a most abject coward to boot.

He was invited to address a mass meeting
of 2000 citizens on Cambie Street grounds to
back up his charges, and failed to appear.
But having unlimited use of the radio, he
hides behind a microphone and spreads his
foul falsehoods over the province.

At one time the Telfords charged that the
Communists were in cahoots with the Con-
servatives. His switch to the charge that it
is the Liberals the Communists are in league
with had to be made because of the united
front between the Conservatives and the
CCF in North Winnipeg in support of the
CGF candidate Heaps.

For his endorsation of Heaps, the CCF
mayor and aldermen of Winnipeg, over the
protests of the two Communist aldermen,
rewarded the Conservative organizer of
Manitoba, the fascist ex-mayor Ralph Webb,
with a lease of sixty acres of Exhibition
grounds at the price of one dollar a year.
And the unprincipled Telford also recipro-
cates by slandering the Communists and urg-
ing the people to vote for Bennett’s candi-
dates as second choice to the CCF. This
means that in constituencies where a Com-
munist candidate is running, supported by a
united front of CCF, Communists and trade
unionists, as for instance Cartier riding in
Quebec. Telford supports the reactionary
Bennett’s candidate against the wishes of
and in opposition to the members of his own
party. For this shameless treachery of the
Telfords the Conservatives have endorsed
the CCF as against the Liberals. Thus is the
CCF dragged in the mire by the CCF Ananias
of the Air.

The cowardly and disgusting slanders of
Telford, which he indulges in because of his
hatred of Communism and because of his
gratitude toward the Conservatives for en-
tering into a united front in North Winni-
pegs against the Communist candidate Tim
Buck, are not endorsed by the membership
of the CCF. Their reply to Telford will be
the building of the united anti-capitalist front
of CCF, Communists, trades unionists and
all other anti-capitalist forces, despite the
mendacious utterances and actions of the
Telfords and Heapses who already have one
foot in the Tory tent.

Heaps Funks
— On Anti War

Tiberal Also Fails To
Declare Stand

By CARL HICHIN

WINNIPEG, Oct. 5 —Several hun-
dreds of North Winnipege’s elector-
ate learned Friday night that it is
one thing to profess abhorrence of
war prior to its outbreak and an- :
other to speak and organize against Se J
war after its outbreak, when A. A. a
Heaps, C.C.F., and G&. S. Booth, Lib-
eral, failed to address a meeting of
the First Voters’ Club, here, on the
subject of “My Stand on War.”

Booth, after previously accepting,
eancelled his promise to speak some
few hours prior to the meeting.
Heaps, first pleaded illmess as an ex
cuse, and then on the eve of the
meeting made an abusive declination
py telephone and issued a despicable,
lying leaflet intended to prevent at-
tendance at the meeting of large
numbers of the electorate.

Tim Buck, Communist,
only candidate to fill the :
ment. He received a mighty ovation
from the enthusiastic audience,
which crowded the hall to capacity,
svith some three to four hundred fail-
ing to gain admission.

SS

Demand a moratorium on
debts of farmers and small
business men facing bank-
ruptcy-

ee

was the
engage-

ABOLIRONS-NOUS L’ARTICLE 982

é EXTERMINATION
F ty

1 VE A RELIGION

CONFISCATION
DES RECOLTES

: DROIT DE PROPRIETE S ’

ABOLITION
DE LA FAMILLE

Tory Propaganda

~~

\

NN

NEGATION DU~

(Translation)

ELECT MALCOLM BRUCE! Shall we abolish Section 98?—It saves us from Communism.

Bridge River Miners Are Fighting

Operators And B. C. Liberal
Gov't For A Living Wage

<

By Machine Miner.

The conciliation board opened at
Goldbridze on September 25 and sat
for three days. The men were rep-
resented by Bill Pritchard, the min-
in= companies by Mr. Bingay, for-
merly of Trail Consolidated Mining
and Smelting Co., with Mr. Farris
actine as legal advisor to Mr. Bin-
fay, the chairman of the board be-
ing Judge McIntosh of Victoria.
Spokesman for the men were T-.
Downey, C. Ward and A. Meciver.

Throughout the proceedings tne
workers spokesman cross-examined
the operators and their witnesses
very effectively. Mr. Emmens and
Mr. James of the “Pioneer” had a
hard time on the stand, and it was
proven beyond a shadow of a doubt
that the mine owners had practised
discrimination by firing active mem-
bers of the strike.

The owners were made to admit
that they actually compelled men
hired from Shalalth Employment O£-
fice to ride in the company favored
taxies which cost $5 each way. This
meant that a worker had to pay $10
before he could start on the job.
This employment office, which is 53
miles away from the mines was
proven by the workers’ spokesman.
as being a hardship upon the work-
ers, and even the chairman could
not see why the hiring of the men
could not be done in Goldbridge,
which is in the heart of the mining
area.

Mine Operators Openly Broke
Agreement.

The judge also pointed out the fact
to Mr. Ritchie, manager of the Way-
side Mine. that he had broken the
temporary agreement, which was set
up until after the findings of the
board, several times. One of the Way-
side witnesses unblushingly con-
fessed to having worked seventeen
and a half shifts in fourteen days,
working sometimes 12 to 14 hours a
day, whereas an 8-hour shift is called
for in the agreement. One of the
boss's favorites in the Wayside mine
worked his eight hours in the mine
and then put in his spare time of
four hours driving the company
truck.

Operators Agents Visit Flin-Flon.

The company’s agents, who one
month ago, asked for more time to
eather information. certainly made
a ood job of it. Their extended time
was used in touring Eastern Canada”
Flin-Flon and some camps in Que-
bee, no doubt Noranda. They man-
aged to leave out some of the camps
where there are half decent condi-
tions when they gave evidence. They
also failed to mention Atlin Camp.
They stated that Premier Mine is 2
silver mine which should be in the
men’s favor in any case since gold
has doubled its value in the last two
years, but Atlin and Premier have
better working conditions and high-
er wages. and they fail to mention
this.

Operators Want to Cut Wages.

After the company’s agents had
made a tour of the East the oper-
ators here had the nerve to put
forward a wage scale of $4.80 for
miners, 54 for muckers and $3.85
for outside workers. It should be
noted that the temporary wage
scale set for here until the findings
ef the Gonciliation Board were
brought down was $95.40 for min-
ers, $4.50 for muckers and $4 for
outside workers. The men’s de-
mands durine the strike last May
for $1 per day an all-around in-
erease, better living conditions,
cutting down of the speed-up, etc.

Increased Profits—Less Wages
—Speed-up

The miner’s spokesman bitterly
opposed the speed-up and the bonus
system.

A tew years ago, wth gold at
$20.67 per ounce, the cost of drift-
ine Was $9.50 a foot. Today, with
sold at $35 an ounce the cost of
drittine has been reduced by the
speed-up systeni to $6 a foot. A
few years ago the mimers earned
a bonus of $1 at 3 feet 8 inches
average break per shift. Today,
with a 6-foot average breali per
shift the miners are only able to
earn 2 bonus of 35 cents.

Mine Inspector Comes to Rescue of
Mine Operators,

Mr. Jackson, the District Mine In-
spector, who claims he has worked
in the mines for over 50 years (which
should bring him to the superannua-
tion stage of government employee)
landed the bonus system from the
stand, stating it gave the men their
chance to earn the extra dollar. Of
course, the company’s pound of flesh
is not forgotten.

The Inspector went to pieces be-
fore the miners’ spokesman when
it was clearly shown that the com-
pany knew of his intended visits
and had things im shape tor his
arrival.

Excessive Charges for Bed and Meals

The workers are paying $38 per
month for room and board. There
are three in a room. There are no
chairs, no tables, no clothes closets,
no dressers. Workers have to buy
a paper bag from the company store
in order to keep their best suit fil-to
go out in.

At the Gold Bridge Hotel, one man
to a rcoom, miners have to pay $40
per month for room and board. Still
the operators claim they are operat—
ine their stores and boarding houses
at a loss. The company bookkeeper
showed by figures a loss of several
hundred dollars, but an item of $50
for Bralorne and $40 for Pioneer un-
der miscellaneous profits.

Prospects of Building a Strong

Union.

While the findings of the Board
will take some time, the men are not
asleep. Pioneer and Bralorne, the
two main mines which roughly em-
ploy about 600 men are organized
95 per cent. The new organization
has no affiliation with any other la-
bor bodies, but their recent splendid
assistance to the striking longshore-
men and camp workers prove where
their sympathies lie.

The Bridge River Valley has many
smaller camps and prospects where-
in workers are employed who are
anxious to get into the organization
and this matter is being: attended to
by active miners who are desirous
of building a hundred per cent union
jn the Valley.

Farmers & Consumers

Robbed By B.C. Gov't

A SHORT ANALYSIS OF
THE B.C. MARKETING
ACT

To the Vancouver Citizen
and His Wite:

Through the long months
of winter, you and your
family looked forward to the
time when you would be able
to wade into the new potatoes,
cabbage, lettuce and toma-
toes, grown in profusion a few
short miles away. You took
your biggest shopping - bag,
expecting to fill it with pro-
duce that would please the ap-
petite, and bring the red glow
of health to the faces of your
children.

You were bitterly disappointed,
were you not? Like a giant with
a mighty hammer, the Marketing
Act shattered the dreams of thous-
ands like yourself. Price cards with
ballooned figures sent you home with
a sack of old spuds and your shop-
ping-bage empty.

The Government says that the Act
is for your protection — that they
cannot allow your héalth to be en-
dangered by low-grade produce. Then
the Government proceeded to set up
a “Board” that arbitrarily places
you on short rations, or prevents
you from buying at all.

INCREASED PRICES BRING

PROSPERITY?

Plain arithmetic tells you that

your dollar is worth around 50 cents

in the vegetable market. Who gets
the difference? The grower? Let us
take a typical case—tomatoes, Firse
crop B. C. Hothouse sold in Water
Street for $4.25 a crate. When and
jf the grower obtained permission to
market his tomatoes, he received
from $1.50 to $1.80 a crate. The
wholesaler ,the broker and the
“Board” split the difference—32.50
to $2.75. Wall you be startled to
learn thatthe same grade of toma-
toes, grown in the same hothouse,
sold on the Edmonton market for
$2.75 per crate? Had we the space
we could analyse prices to producer
and consumer in other branches of
agriculture and we would find the
same result in greater or lesser de-
gree.
AN EXPENSIVE MACHINE

What does our benevolent “Board”
do with its share of the spoils? It
needs it badly, in order to provide -
fat salaries, packed expense ac-
counts, and a fleet of automobiles,
for an army of officials, whose chief
job seems to be the prevention of
growers from crashinrs barricades,
in order to beat the Act, that is sup-
posed to work in their interests—
and yours.

You wanted those new potatoes,
didn’t you? ‘The “Board” said that
you could have them at $1.50 a sack,
no less. Then they proceeded to play
Horatio at the Bridge, to ensure that
you would be properly gouged.

Did you read the words of Frank
Wiesens, K.C., Counsel for Wancou-
yer Growers Ltd., in Supreme Court
in Victoria on September 3rd? We
quote:

“It (the BG. C. Marketing Act) is

>ducer at the same time.

terest.

A big cost-
ly. machine is being built to impose
levies and tolls, and raise prices to
the consumer, and at the same time
make it impossible for the producers
to get a return.”

THE NATIONAL QUESTION

Perhaps you have been led to be-
lieve that the failure of the Act to
work in your interest, should be at-
tributed to the fact that 60 per cent
of the vegetable growers are Chin-
ese. If so, then why is it that simi-
lar results to producer and consumer
exist among the Dairy Farmers in
the Fraser Valley and the Fruit
Growers in the Okanagan, where
similar marketing boards are oper-
ating. Here the growers are practi-
cally 100 per cent of the white race.
Why has the pressure exerted by
the growers in New Brunswick for-
ced that government to abandon the
Potato Marketing Act? Will that
government, or the Government of
B. G make good the loss of time
and money, together with the whole-
sale waste of badly needed food in-
volved in the operation of an Act
definitely created in order to “‘soak”’
both the growers and yourselves?

You have already concluded that
this Act can never work in your in-
We must now decide on the
best method of its abolition.
WE SUGGEST TO YOU THE

FOLLOWING:

That you send an individual let-
ter of protest to Hon. Dr. KX. C.
MacDonald, Minister of Agricul-
ture, Legislative Buildings, Vic-
toria, B. €.
2. Phat you write letters to express
your opinion in the Vancouver
daily press.
That you consistently publicise
this issue among your friends and
acquaintances,
That you bring the matter for-
ward at all meetings of any or-
ganization to which you may be-
long, with a view to the forward-
ing of a resolution to the Minister
of Agriculture.

9

soaking the consumer and the pro-

Our Reply

The drawing to the left

of the above cart
the Conservative Party. Without apologies
ture allegedly depicting Soviet conditions, bri

SHALL WE ABOLI\
SECTION 98?

SX
PoLicE
TERROR
oO

bem

toon is being circulated in Quebec Province by
to R. B. Bennett, a few changes in the pic-
ngs it home to Canada.

SH

SHORT JABS |

By OP Bill

From the days of Tom Paine til?)
the bottom fell out of the anti-reli 7
sious movements in Britain, throug ~
the workers leaying it behind, the

agnostics and atheists spoke of the)
pulpit always with scorn. They>
called the rostrum of the priest “the™
coward’s castle.’ While in the pulpy
the preacher had the full protection >
of all the forces of law and order |
No matter what sort of poisonous |
attacks might be made on those whet
differed from the gentlemen of th
cloth, no one dared interrupt them
whilst they enjoyed the sanctuary oj ik
the pulpit. Workers had no redress 7}
when hireling priests used their holy ‘
office and its privileges against then

during strikes; Socialists might not
reply when they were slandered and: |
maligned and their political beliet
distorted by a priesthood whose busi
ness was to teach workers to “obey
your masters.” |

Times have changed; workers di
not flock in multitudes to churches
the priests have lost their influenc
or are losing it rapidly, but the
“coward’s castle” we still have witl —
us. It is no longer in the church |
but has moved to the broadcasting
station. The spellbinder who gets or
the air now speaks under condition: |
somewhat similar to those of the
privileged priest. He need not fea;
interruption. No matter how atro:
|

ciously he may lie or broadcast the
most arrant falsehoods about the
workingclass and the revolutionary
movement, he is unassailable while
his spell of lying is on th eair. ; i
The present Federal elections haya ;
demonstrated thetruth of this beyond
any shadow of doubt. Every kind of
lying has fouled the air from | ;
little jerkwater station P-U-N-K #
the Conservative government cons
trolled C.R.C. network. |

Radio programs are mostly spon-=
sored, apparently, by manufacturers
of laxative and cathartic products;
although fifteen minutes spent lis-
teninge to the average radio program
makes these Scientific devices un-
necessary for the listener. The air
assault on the people of Canad
however, that has been made dur
ing the present election campaiga
has exceeded everything hitherto im
aginable in the way of downright
lies, venomous innuendo and unzres-
strained scurrility. Communism, af
course, has been the target of this
noxious abuse. ;
Every scoundrelly political shyster
has used the ‘“coward’s castle” fo
broadcasting his filthy Slanders, fron}
the reactionary reformer Bennett
the spurious socialist, Dr. Telfordi
Bennett met with the same recep
tion in his public meeting in Victoriz.
Regina, Winnipes. Hamilton and
Halifax that he got in Vancouyen
yet he has the shameless effronten
to broadeast a national hook-up
about the enthusiasm he is meeting
with all over Canada. His party.
using the same network, which is
supposed to belong to the people of
Canada, but the use of which is ré
fused to the Communist candidates,
attacks Communism by peddling ali
the discredited monsense of fii
Hearst and other sutter press aboul
the Soviet Union. Liberal buzzards;
like McGeer, who-need police protec:
tion to get a hearings in public, r
speak without let or hindrance trom
the shelter of the radio dug-out.
And, lastly. imitation, tinhorn So
cialists like Dr. Telford, who recons
mends his followers to vote Conser
vative if they cannot vote ©.C F., cat
Jay down a barrage of lies and villi
fication about the source of Com
munist funds from his bomb-pros
shelter in the broadcasting station
The old English and Scots radical
invented some good names for thing:
and ‘‘coward’s castle’ is one of therm

>= * = =

At Halifax the other day, iro
Heel Bennett said, “Lenin is a dea
one.’ Lenin is dead certainly, bt
Leninism, the fruit of his genius, |
more alive today than when Leni
was guiding the world revolutionar
movement in person. This is wh
Bennett and the representatives (
capitalism in every country in @
world are spending hundreds of mi
lions of dollars to offset the work ¢
Lenin’s followers; why thousant
upon thousands of militant worke!
following the line of Lenin are mu
dered or thrown into the jails at
torture chambers of fascist, nea
fascist and democratic countries; wi
Bennett and Telford and their ku
froth at the mouth like men 80!
mad at the mention of the names

Tim Buck, Malcolm Bruce and Si
Eyans.

Lenin is a dead one, Marx is 0
of date! This is how the capital
hacks console themselves. The edit
of the Ottawa “Citizen,” who tr:
elled with Mackenzie King, Ss
Marx is 70 years out of date. Ta
ing his cue from this, the journal
tic meat-grinder who writes ft
“Sun” editorials, a journalist in 1
bad sense of the word, has repeat
it three times since.

Marx is dead fifty years now, I
Marxism is not dead. the surest pri
of which is that capitalist hireli
and apologists have to set up st©
dummies called Marxism so they ¢
earn their hire by knocking |
stuffing out of them.

Fifty years after Marx's death,
world-wide name and nis works
become a symbol of terror to
Capitalist class, but where are
the supposed great economists ¥
were paid to answer him. Few ki
even their names today. Histor
proving by the logic of events,
fessor WGeesly’s estimate of M:
“\Warx was a walking encyclopae
in knowledge of history, e€conon
and philosophy, having had hat
any equal.”

This is why Marx, who is 70 yé
out of date, stands above the cr
ism of the Bennetts, the McG
and the prostitute penmen of
Vancouver “Sun” and why the n:
of his greatest disciple, Tuenin. *
is ‘‘a dead one,’ inspires fear in
minds of the capitalist class. 4
is why 160 millions in the So
Union, 100 miljlions in Soviet €!
and countless millions in the cap
st world who follow the guidanc
Marx and Genin will establish Soi

ism throughout the world. :