Page Four B.C. WOREEBRS’ NEWS April $, 1936 B.C Workers NEws Published Weekly by THE PROLETARIAN PUBLISHING ASSN Room 10, 163 West Hastings Street - Vancouver, B.C. 7 — Subscription Rates — One Year ___ $1.80 Balt-yvear == 1-00 Three Months__$ .50 Single Copy —_ -05 Wake All Checks Payable to the B.C. WORKERS’ NEWS Send All Copy and Manuscript to the Chairman of the Editorial Board —— Send All Montes and Letters Per- faining to Advertising and Circulation to the Business Manager. Vancouver. B.C. April 9, 1936 IRELAND’S GREATEST SON D TRING Easter week twenty years ago there occurred the ereat Irish rising against the hated British rule which had cruelly oppressed and exploited the Irish masses for centuries. It was led by the heroic Jim Connolly, the greatest Marxian revolutionary Ireland has ever pro- duced and a revolutionary internationalist of the * very first ranks as well. Tn his time Connolly had to contend with the same type of doctrinaire Marxian revisionists as those of today, who, under cover of left phrase- mongering, declare that the liberation of eolonial peoples from imperialist oppression is not the business of revolutionaries, who sneer at the fight for self determination for oppressed nations, and who hold that the strugele of the people of Ethi- opia against bemg brought under the faseist- imperialist yoke of Italy should not be assisted by the workers of the world. Is it any wonder that Connolly declared sadly before his death that the socialists (reformists) of Europe could not understand why he supported and led the rising. There are also those who, while not opposing revolutionary struggle (if they can have a guar- antee beforehand that it will succeed) declare the Faster rising should not have been undertaken, just as the Plekhanoffs and Kautskys and other renegades spoke of the Paris Commune and the mnsuccessful Russian revolution of 1905. There are those too, who, whilst admitting ¢hat all defeated attempts at revolution can not be condemned, condemn the rising led by Con- nolly as a “putsch.” It was no such thing, how- ever. When an attempted rising does not reveal anything more than a handful of conspiratorial adventurers or studip mianiacs, and above all, as Lenin has shown, does not evoke any sympathy in the masses — then such an attempt is a “outsch.” The Easter rising had tremendous support among the workers and poor peasantry. Tt was crushed, and could only kave been crushed, by the brutal might of British imperialism in a welter of Irish blood. The misfortune of the Trish was that they made their attempt imoppor- tunely when the European proletariat was still not ripe for similar forms of struggle. Tn his great endeavor Connolly lost his’ life. He was executed on the order of a ruling class that lone had despoiled Ireland and so im- poverished its people that the population was decimated and the flower of its sons were com- pelled to seek exile in other lands. Although sick and with bones broken during the street fighting, Connolly was propped up against a wall and shot by the hired murderers of an alien nation. And the most erying shame of the whole shameful affair was that Arthur Henderson, a leader of the British Labor Party, was a member of the British government that earried out the execution, and did not raise a finger to prevent it. The place of Connolly is secure in the hearts of the Irish people and of the workers of the would. Mis memory will live in the hearts of generations to come as green as the grass of his native land which he sought'to liberate, long after the names of his imperialist executioners are for- gotten except for their crimes against humanity. For he is one of Labor’s immortals. THE SINGLE UNEMPLOYED HE Federal government, compelled by strike action and an overwhelming public opposi- tion to the Relief Camp system, to abolish the relief camps, concocted a scheme to use the single unemployed workers as a lever to cut wages on the railroads. The plan was to take the boys from the slave camps and put them to work as main- tenance of way men at a wage of $15 a month, as recommended by the notorious Rigg Commis- gion. This journal pointed out at that time that such a plan if carried into effect would result in lowering the standard of living of all railroad workers engaged in this work and should be re- sisted by the camp boys and by the regular maintenanceof-way men who, naturally, re- sented the influx of labor at a coolie wage. Yielding to the growing opposition, the gov- ernment then set the wage at 25 cents an hour, still far lower than that normally paid for this class of work. And now they are expressing astonishment at the ex-camp boys’ refusal to go to work on the railroads on such terms. Tt will be remembered that about two years before Bennett was ousted as prime quinister, he handed over $60,000,000 of public money to the C.P.R. without so much as consulting the other members of the government. His high- handed action was brought into serious question as to its legality and eaused such great indigna- tion throughout the country that Bennett, with all his effrontery, found himself unable to defend it, and ate humble pie. Prime Minister King is not so direct as his predecessor. He is too astute to aid the C.P.R. in such a crude manner. Instead of giving the G.P.R. $60,000,000 he hands over to the rail- roads, or is trying to hand over to them, some 90,000 workers at a starvation wage. : The present government is bent on carrying out the same policy as that of Bennett with re- gard to the workers, only by different means: That policy is to further exploit workers, ent re- lief allowance and by every available device io save or evel 1ncrease coos of the rich while ‘ne to the burdens of the poor- : aahe unemployed are still bemg treated as if their destitution was their own fault, or a visi- tation of providence—anything but the fruit of capitalism in decay. The struggles of the single unemployed are not ended, and must be earried on with the same militancy, organization and determination which proved so effective in smashing the militarized slave camp system. FIGHT THE INJUNCTION N INJUNCTION has been granted by an obliging capitalist judge of Vancouver to an agent of the bloody-handed Hitler who is op- erating a cafe as a blind to his Nazi activities. The waiters of the Deutschland Cafe have been on strike for seven weeks not only to make the proprietor pay minimum wages but also to make him pay back wages, and haye been peace- fully picketting his hashery. The proprietor went before a judge complain- ing that his profits have diminished as a result of the strike and picketting. While the ignorant exploiter and stomach robber could not find more euphemiustie terms for what the workers were doing, this was remedied by the robed tool of the capitalist state. He, in the ever ready legal jargon, called it “besetting,” and pliantly eranted an injunction restraiming the strikers from exercising the established right to acquaint the public with a given situation by peaceful means. The injunction, which is now being used against the workers in industrial disputes and which is a flagrant denial of all democratic rights, came into general use by its evocation by Injunction Taft, ex-President of the United States. The use of this weapon of the bosses was adopted by the bosses of Canada and their courts just as they used the Flynn law and the Criminal Syndicalism laws of Michigan and California as a basis and pattern for the infamous Section 98 of the Criminal Code of Canada. It is up to the whole of organized labor in Vancouver and throughout the province to re- sist this encroachment on the privileges of the workers; and the only way to resist it is by an utter defiance of this man-made edict by mass pickettine: THE WORKERS’ JUBILEE [feet years ago the First of May was set by the Federation of Organized Trade and Labor Unions, the initial body of the American Federation of Labor, as a day of nation-wide strikes in a great united front mass struggle for the eight-hour day. The police of that time were the instruments of the ruling class as they are today, and employed clubs, guns, the frame-up, imprisonment and the hangman’s rope. The frame-up and hanging of Parsons, Spies, Fischer and Engel was one of the answers of the bosses to the demands of the workers. Out of the united front struggle for the eight- hour day grew the idea of perpetuating May First as a day of celebration of Labor’s victories and aims and of mobilization of the workers for greater defensive and offensive strugeles. The idea which did not encompass more than North America at that time, three years later, in 1889, took on an international character when the initial Congress of the Second ( Socialist) In- ternational set May First, 1890, as a day ot international demonstrations for the eight-hour day and other demands of the workers. From that day to this May First has been ree- ognized as international labor day throughout the world, and is so recognized today despite the efforts of the ruling class to destroy it by means of terroristic suppression and setting another day as labor day, with “legal” sanction and built up custom. The people of Vancouver and B.C. witnessed the maenificent May Day Demonstration last year, which was a powerful factor m support of the Slave Camp Workers’ strike. This year all who stand for labor’s cause, all who are awainst reaction and war, all who wish to preserve what liberties we still retain, all who desire not only to hold to what unity we have, but who wish to achieve ever greater unity of all progressive forces should wholeheartedly join in the great demonstration staged this year on Labor’s May Day. CONNELL SPEECH VIOLATES (Continued from page 1 ) these facts, the sooner they realize that the situ- ation calls for new policies, new tactics, as the enemy adopt new methods, the easier will be the ficht, the surer the road to victory. Mr. Connell threatens to split the C.C.F-. wide open. No split must be allowed. Only Mr. Pat- tullo, Mr. Bruhn and their ilk can possibly gain by such splits. The question of constitution reform or the violent overthrow of capitalism as the road to socialism is not the issue. Not a single leader of the left-wing in the C.C.F. placed the ques- tion of revolution, or constitutional reform, no matter what Mr. Connell says. The left-wing 1n the C.C.F. comprising a decisive section, if not the majority of the C.C.F. members and follow- ers. must clearly define the real issues involved and carry the fight to the approaching Conven- tion. Lhe issues of how can the people of Britis Columbia better their life and unite their forces to achieve final victory—unity- not of a narrow part of the population but of all of its progress- ives, labor sections and groups. Tn the meantime the threatening menace ot a split must be combatted. Advance unity ot all progressive people, properly organize this unity on all issues as they come up: this is the road to follow to avert the catastrophe of a split and to eiye a reasonable guarantee ot victory. B.C. Workers’ News Radio Broadcast FRIDAY—8:45 to 9:00 P.M. CcCKMO $0OS9O9 OS SS OSS SSEO OOOO ESO SOOO SO OOO OS 000999099990 The World This Week By F. B.. Wezgotiations for peace are report- ed to be under way between. Italy and Abyssinia. There can be but one sutcome—Mussolini in control of the Jast independent state in Africa. At the outset of this war Mussolini said he was going to war to put an end to slavery in Abys- Sinia, but it is questionable if the Slaves in that country will resard the “freedom” that goes with being a wige-slave in a Fascist colony as anything greatly to be desired; it will be out of frying-pan and into the fire for them. However, the husky ones may be given an opportunity to join Musso- lini’s lesions 2nd see the world, for development in Italy indicate that such peace will come with the end of the Abyssinia war will be of short duration. Mussolini cannot dis- charge the million or more men who are under arms at home and abroad and throw them on the labor mar- ket, and certainly few of them can be expected to colonize Abyssinia, whose climate is so unfavorable for white settlement. Mussolini must embark upon more foreign ventures, he is damned if he doesn’t and risks damnation: if he does, and he prefers the risk to the sure thing: Two weeks ago Italian Fascism celebrated its seventeenth birthday, and on that oceasion Mussolini an- nounced a plan which, he said, is dominated by one premise—the in- evitability that the nation will be called to the trial of war The plan forecasted the nationalization of a number of key war industries, sov- ernment control of all marketing of wheat. and the abolition of the Italian Chamber of Deputies. to be replaced by rule of the Fascist Grand Gouncil, thus bringing’ in more centralization of power with a more intense exploitation of the workers and farmers. Mussolini has not said against what nation he expects to fight, but between him and his old plan of re- storing the glories of ancient Rome the greatest barrier is Great Britain with her control of the Mediterran- ean Sea. The unexpected occupation of Lake Tana, the headwaters of the Nile River, by Italian forces, places them in a strategic position towards domination of Egypt, which without the Nile waters would be- come barren: It is a direct threat to British occupation of Bgypt and control of the Suez Canal. In Egypt there is a strong Nationalist Party, called the Wafdists, who, during the past six months, have instigated several large scale demonstrations against British rule. Egypt used to be part of the old Turkish Empire. but in December, 1914, Britain established a protec- torate over it. The protectorate was supposed to end in 1923 when Bri- tain allowed the Egyptians to have a constitution. The constitution has heen twice suspended during inter- nal political strife. Last January there were large demonstrations, jead by students, demanding that the 1923 constitution be restored. and the demands were agreed to. There has been great dissatisfaction since as it is claimed King Fuad is preventing the constitution from be- ing carried into effect. Between the Nationalist move- ment in Heypt and Italian plans for Mediterranean expansion, the future for British Imperialism does not look very bright in this area. $5 See SF There is no change in the Euro- pean situation over the German military occupation of the Rhine- land. Hitler’s trops are there to stay, and MHitler has said that whether France likes it or not he will fortify the territory. Both Ger- many and Wrance are submitting “proposals” that the other will not accept, and as far as Hitler is con- cerned it appears that he is stall- ing for time while his war plans are going ahead full speed, and when they are complete he will strike. But where will he strike first, that js the question that is agitating European capitalist cabinets. The British cabinet is divided between those who believe that Hitler will strike at the Soviet Union and who believe in supporting him in that attempt, and those who have a dead- ly fear that the proposed attack on the Soviet Union is just a smoke- screen behind which Hitler is pre- paring to attack both France and England. The struggle between these two viewpoints has grown to such proportions that a general cab- inet shakeup is to take place in June, with Premier Baldwin resign- ing and Anthony Eden replaced as Secretary for Foreign Affairs. * * = * Mussolini has got the upperhand jn the rivalry between himself and Hitler for control of Austria. An agreement between Italy, Austria and Hungary has been signed by whieh Italy guarantees the inde- pendence of Austria against all ag- eressors. In Austria itself compul- sory military service has been in- troduced by the Fascist Govern- ment. AUDREY MOSSON IN MOSCOW Pretty Audrey Mosson, fo, daughter of a Blackpool, England, train conductor, got a rousing reception iway Workers’? Club when she went to the Soviet Union as an envoy of “peace and friendship” from British transport workers. Workers gave her a new Imk for couplings from: members of the Moscow Rail- Soviet her necklaee of miniature railway ranco-Sovi Pact et Peace Is Justified In view of the interest manifest by numerous workers at the mo- ment in the Franco-Soviet pact, due to the attack Jaunched by Hitler upon it, we are reprinting excerpts from the speech of Andre Marty, a leading French Com- “munist at the sessions of the seventh Congress of the Commun- ist International held last year. - ... Thus, the major centre of war in Hurope is among the Hitler fascists—and the major centre for peace is in the Soviet Union, the land of Socialism. The French ruling class is not interested in war at the present time. The victory it won in 1918 has enabled it to accumulate immense riches, and has ensured it hesemony in capitalist Europe. It is well known that it defeated its German rival only after 52 months of war and with the considerable aid of the most powerful imperialisms of the world. It realizes that it would be difficult to resist successfully a fascist Germany powerfully equip- ped, whose population is half as large again as its own. Qn the other hand, the ruling classes of France realize that there exists a formidable power. the So- viet Union, which has become one of the most highly industrial powers in the whole world, and hence possesses a corresponding military might. This power wants the maintenance of peace and has proved it. Moreover, the proletariat and the masses of the population of France sympathize profoundly with the Land of the Soviets, and see im its peace policy a rampart of gen- eral security. Thus France turns towards the Soyiet Union. Is it not therefore logical, that the Soviet Union, which puts the de- fence of peace before everythings, should at onee sign a pact of mu- tual rssistance with eapitalist France. Should Imperialist Contradictions Be Utilized True enough. the imierests that lead French imperialism to peace have altogether different aims than those of the Soviet Union. But why could not the latter support states that are interested in peace for other reasons than iiself? We Erench Communists know very well that the aims of French imperial- ism do not have in mind the in- terests of the toiling masses, but merely the maintenance of its power. But we also know very well that the toiling masses of France and the whole world consider peace one of their dearest possessions, and that is why our Political Bureau @took a public stand, from the very Start, for the FWranco-Soviet Pact of Mutual Assistance. Certain renegades criticized this Pact of mutual assistance, this un- derstanding between the proletarian government and an imperialist soy- ernment, which has a definite aim. As if the interests of the laboring masses required that the U.S.S.R. place itself in “‘splendid isolation.’’ Over and over again, Lenin and Stalin explained to us, however. how the Land of the Soviets won out during the years 1918, 1919, and 1920; 1. Because of the absolute de- votion of the vworlers and peas- ants to their Soviet regime, pe eause of the absolute devotion of the workers’ and peasants’ Red Army. s 2. Because of the aid of the in- ternational proletariat. 3. Because the imperialists were divided among themselves. Not a worker would ever under- Stand the Soviet Union’s pursuing a policy that welds all its enemies into a single block against it. The proletarians understand yery well, as Lenin emphasized, the duty of the proletarian state to make use of the contradictions between the bourseoisies of different countries. And that is why the Soviet Union was quite right in signing the pact of mutual assistance with French imperialism. But here these same renegades declare, “Only the action of the pro- letariat is a true guarantee of peace.’ That is cGorrect and is quite obvious. Communists Are Realists Unfortunately, we are not yet strong enough in the capitalist countries to guarantee peace. Des- pite the magnificent and heroic strugsle of the German Commun- ist Party, who is there who can enarantee that the German pro- letariat could restrain Hitler's arm? No one, obviously. Thus, the toilers can only approve the Soviet Union’s easting its tremendous weight on the seales to guarantee peace through its pacts with France. and Czecho-Slovakia, pacts open to all, which therefore threaten no one. Wo matter how limited the dura- tion of such pacts may be, no mat- ter how doubtful their application by bourgeois states may be in the case of an anti-Soviet war, they are nevertheless important ways of hin- derins. to a certain extent, a new imperialist world war. And thus they serve the interests of the in- ternational proletariat and of all the toilers of all countries. RHINELAND OCCUPATION IS STEP TO NAZI ATTACK By R. BISHOP (London) From Impreccor The semi-official “Sunday Times,”’ while adopting a hostile tone to the Nazi coup, strives to make the best of it by using it as 2 further argu- ment in support of the terrifie re- armaments program which the Na- tional Government is carrying through. Says this newspaper in its lead- ing article: “The German dictator successfully defied a Europe too much divided and distracted to enforce its rights He will succeed this time apain: = = = But what is the true eost of tri- umphs like this? -.- - If treaties are only scraps of paper, what but arms are left? Who now is with any. dren examined in, Toronto during defects, Miss Margaret Gould, public school last night tween parents and state. to be preventable. SWANSEA. Ont., April 3 (AdsP)—_OFf the 1935, 9,000 were found to have physical general secretary of the Child Welfare Couneil of Toronto, told a meeting of the Swansea school board in the 4,000 BABIES DIED, BUT THE DIONNE QUINTS HADN’T AS MUCH AS A COLD 24,000 public school chil- The famous Dionne quintuplets, Miss Gould pointed out, were evi- dence that children could be well and adjusted by a partnership be- “Good housing, important factors in the exceptional health of the famous babies. These babies never had a severe cold or disease of During the year the quintuplets were born, 4000 infants died in Ontario before they were 2 year food, rest and sleep were the infancy,’’ stated Miss Gould Miss Gould went on, nearly old of disease known ON SOVIET RUSSIA of plausibility going to of Commons Harsh @shadow argue in the House against the White Paper? realities forbid.” The paper goes on to deal with Bitlers speech and the condition he lays down for German good be- haviour. It says: “They pivot on an offer by Ger- many to conclude non-aggression pacts both Hast and West. But the Eastern Pact would not include Russia. It would be confined to States that border Germany. Thus it would be only necessary for her te purehase the complicity of one of them in order to be in a position to invade Russia or the Ukraine. And the re-occupation of the demili- tarized zone would prevent France penetrating her rear if such an east— ward move were made.” That this new Nazi move is di- rected primarily against the U-S- SR. is clearly recognized, but the National Government is prepared to accept the fait accompli. It would pe difficult for it to do! otherwise as every previous stage of German re- armament has been made possible and directly encouraged by this same National Government, up to and including the infamous Anglo- By OL’ BILL, Twenty years aso, Easter week — saw the Irish workers and peasants making another effort in the 200 vear long struggle for national free- dom from English oppression. The 1916 insurrection in Dublin was the: first revolt against the imperialist war and a prologue to the proletari- an breach in the imperialist armor of October, 1917. Jim Connolly, the working class leader of the Citizen Army, with two lezs broken in the fighting, taken out a few days later, tied to & post and shot, took his place as the ereatest and most revolutionary of all the leaders of Irish struggles- The concessions made by British imperialism in 1921 were forced by the hard and stubborn struggles of the Irish workers and peasants though they were betrayed by traitors like Griffiths, Collins and DevValera, the representatives of Irish capitalism. Ireland is still in thrall to British imperialism but the masses of the Trish people are gathering for the final victorious blow under the ban- ner of Jim Connolly—a Socialist Ireland. * i * = I have been asked for more par— ticulars about the paragraph in Jast week’s column relating to the ‘informer character of the local fascist ranter Tom MaciInnes. I am therefore giving you the story in his own words. The movement re- ferred to was the “Hindustan Ghadr,” the beadquarters of which were in ‘Frisco. The reference to bombs most likely originated in the fertile imagination of MacInnes and the sneer about the admiration of ‘at least one sex’ is a palpable con- coction as MacInnes admits he did not hear anything of LT. N. Das. until he was arrested. The Hindus, the best known of whom was Bhagwan Singh, were: not arrested on espionage charges. after the Americans had entered the: war but before the United States came into the war and at the re— quest of the Gritish Ambussador, merely for being Indians who were. willing to put up a struggle for their native country. The fascist Skin-the-Goat minds me of nothing Engel’s description of the police- agent Fleury “‘one of those low creatures who do the basest actions from an innate inclination to in- famy.” We now turn the mike over te ‘ropes round their necks and bullets in their heads’ MacInnes, who will now speak to you: “One day. at the Morrison Li- brary, I was surprised to find 2 handsome and clever young Ben- gali deeply engrossed in a volume. I had been quietly interested in this person eight years previously at Vancouver. A night school of in- struction in the arts of bomb- making and bomb-throwing was be- ing conducted at the same time among certain Hindus back of the saw-mills in the neighboring town of New Westminster. Not long after that some graduates of the school went back to India to practice what they had been taught: Lord Minto being the first object of attention. “I had some yague idea that this young Bengali was connected with the night school back of the saw- mills; and ut least I knew that he was editor of a weekly journal of misinformation and anti-bGritish propaganda culled ‘rree India,’ and published in 1908 at Vancouver. Publication ceased abruptly that year, and nobody knew what be- came of the editor for some time. “But when I went up to him in Morrison’s Library and said, “How do you do, Mr. Tarack Nath Das: I am) pleased to see that you are as studious as ever?’ he looked at me and into me with blank, unknoyw- ing eyes: those beautiful dark eyes which made him so admired of one sex at least in Californian colleges during the first years of the war. I mentioned the names of a few friends of his in the United States Immigration Service, and he ap- peared convinced after that of our having friends in common. “We were Stopping at the same hotel, and naturally he asked me what I was doing in Pekin, saying that he himself was studying the question of extra-territoriality. I told him I was studying certain re- so much as phases of an ancient Chinese Tre- ligion. I think we both believed each other in the same degree; which was quite as it should have been. Morrison seemed upset when I told him a few things; and was dubious about allowing the lad any further privileges of the Library. There were not many whom he would admit to study there; but Tarack Nath Das had presented jJetters from certain Americans of high standing in the collegiate “The next day, however, I met Dr. Morrison returning from the British Legation and he told me that they seemed to haye very complete data there as to the activities of Tarack Nath Das. The following day I missed him at the hotel; I used to enjoy my chats with him at the tea hour. Nobody seemed to know what had become of him; and J did not hear of him again myself until he was arrested in California on Some espionage charge, or other such excuse, after the Americans had entered the war.’ From “Mor- rison of Pekin’? by Tom MacInnes. ANNOUNCEMENT Wrs. Dorothy Steeves will speak at Norquay Halil, corner of Kangs- way and Siocan, on Sunday, April German Naval Pact. 12, at 2:30 p.m. sharp- - | 4 | | hy, sei h a, ‘es cas