Page Six

PE OL Ses

The People’s Advocate
Published Weekly by the

PROLETARIAN PUBLISHING ASSN.

Room 10, 163 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, B.C.

Telephone: Trinity 2019
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Three Months Single Copy .------- 05
Make All Checks Payable to: The People’s Advocate.
Send All Copy and Manuscript to the Chairman of the
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ing to Advertising and Circulation to Business Mgr.

~ ‘Vancouver, B.C., Friday, June 11, 1937

The CCF at Victoria

HE composition of the next House at Vic-

_toria is less favorable to the workers and
common people generally than was the last one.
Tn the last legislature the CCE group was the
official opposition; in the one that will legis-
late for the next four years or more the CCF
will be faced with a strong Liberal majority
and the ultra-reactionary Tory bloc, larger
than the CCF and constituting the official op-
position.

Tn this situation the work of the CCE group
in advancing social legislation will be much
more difficult than in the last legislature. The
most reactionary elements among the Liberal
members and members of the government will
have allies in the Tory reactionaries. The
pressure of the big interests on the Liberal
government will be reinforced by the pressure
exerted in the House itself by the direct repre
sentatives of reaction, the Tory members.

To exert counter pressure on the govern-
ment and strengthen the hands of the small
progressive group, the maximum organization
of the workers into trade unions throughout
the province and the unity of all progressive
people and organizations is necessary. Without
a powertul trade union movement and unity ot
all progressive forces the government, forced
further along the road of reaction by the Tory
opposition, will ride roughshod over the com-
mon people. Already, less than a week after
the return of the Pattullo gvovernment and the
emergence of ihe Tory party as a menacing
force, the government struck at the single un-
employed workers by announcing the early
closing of the project camps and throwing the
unemployed on the streets without relief and
to hunt for non-existant jobs.

Backed by a mighty militant trade union
movement, the CCF group in the House can
contribute much towards preventing reaction-
ary legislation and in the fight for social legis-
lation of benefit to the workers. But they will
be worse than powerless if they regard the
Tory group as tellow oppositionists, as allies
in the fight against the government. That there
is such a danger is indicated by the statement
of Dr. Telford (who likely will be the leader
of the CCE parliamentary group) that the
election to the legislature of the Tories is
“promising.” For the CCE group to accept
the Tory members as allies or to develop a kin-
ship with them would be disastrous. The aim
of the CCF in the House should not be the at-
tainment of a united front with the Tory group
because both are in the cool shades of opposi-
tion, but to seek allies among those progressive-
ly minded Liberal and Independent members
<vho can be won over from blind obedience to the
lead of the government and party caucus de-
cisions and to the support of progressive legis-
lation. It is along this line, and not by any
allied CCE-Tory false opposition, that with a
powertul mass movement throughout the proy-
ince, reactionary legislation can be prevented
and advanced social legislation enacted.

The Campaign Against Trade
Unionism

Ors ERS of mines in B.C., both resident
and absentee, who have been reaping
greatly imereased profits with the revival in
industry, while the standard of living of the
workers is falling because of the rising cost
of living, are becoming alarmed over the growth
of the trade union movement im recent months.
Fearing that the workers will cut in on the
profits, they are smearing the pages of the
capitalist press with propaganda im the yain
attempt to turn the public against the workers
and stem the rising tide of trade union or-
ganization. ;

Undeterred by the failure of Premier Hep-
burn of Ontario to erush the Oshawa strike
and prevent the organization to trade unions
in the Northern Ontario gold fields, they are
unleashing an attack on the United Mine Work-
ers of America which has organized the miners
of Cumberland and Nanaimo almost 100 per
cent, and the Tnternational Union of Mine, Mall
and Smeltermen which has organized the min-
ers in the Cariboo, Bridge River and other
metaliferous areas.

These unions are afiiliates of the CIO (Com-
mittee for Industrial Organization), but are
not some new importation, both haying had
local unions in B.C. for nearly half a century,
and always were industrial unions. Neverthe-
less, the mine owners and other reactionary
exploiters are raising the ‘foreign menace’
howl against the unions into which the miners
chose to organize, because these unions are ai-
filiated with the CLO with headquarters in the
United States.

Pursuantly, they quote a foreign capitalist,
a Wall Street shark, as saying that foreign
capital is apprehensive of investing in British
Columbia because of the growth of tade
unionism. That is to say, they want a continua-
tion of the super-profittaking they have been
enjoying at the expense of the miners. The
Wall Street capitalist, one Howard Perry, says
that British Columbians (meaning the big in-
terests and the government) must keep the
unions “under control’’ or the capitalists will
be afraid to isvest capital in the mining in-
dustry.

This sort of propaganda has a twe-fold pur-
pose: to intensity the fieht against the genuine
trade unions, and to divert attention from the
real reason for the growing reluctance toward
investing in the mining industry in B.C.,
namely. the saltins of worthless holes in the

ASD ViOlG Aas

June ii, 1937

ground by stock brokers and. wild-eat promoters
for the purpose of swindling the investing pub-
lic as was done with the Hedley properties.

The miners and other workers who produce
the wealth of the provinee are not going to be
immed aside from the task of strengthening and
exteuding trade unionism in B.C. by the lying,
chauvinistic propaganda of the exploiting mine
owners and their reactionary associates, agerts
and bought press. Nor are they going to be
content with maintaining the status quo as re
eards wages and conditions, but will use their
anions for the purpose of gaining an increase
a wages and improvement in conditions of
abor.

Another Disgrace to Vancouver

HE death of Wilfred A. Tucker, former
eivie audit clerk, recalls his work as in-
yestigator of departments of ciyie administra-
tion as well as the shabby and inhuman treat-
ment he received at the hands of the mayor and
city council only because he did his work too
faithfully amd too well.

A trained and competent auditor and in-
yestigator, Tucker first came to the notice of
the Vancouver public by his uncovering of a
rotten state of affairs in the city scavangine de-
partment. Soon atter renderine this service
to the citizens he was responsible for revealing
conditions in the relief department and the
shake-up which followed. Later he began an
audit of the books of the Exhibition Associa-
tion but was taken off the job by, Mayor Mc-
Geer. (ater it came out that thousands of
dollars had been stolen from: the Association by
thieving officials). Then followed his well-re-
membered investigation of the Police Depart
ment and his sensational report im which
charges were made that this branch of civic
administration Was eorroded and rotten with
eraft and corruption.
~ The citizenry aroused, resort was had to an
old trick in Vancouver and the proyinee and
a fake probe avas instituted, headed by, above
all people, Gerry MecGeer and his man Eri-
day, Alderman Tisdale. The chief witnesses
were dicks and constables who trooped up to
the stand to swear as to the impeceability of
themselves and their colleagues. The Police
Department and the Police Commission were
duly whitewashed and Tucker, who was retused
counsel to assist him in proving his charges,
was maligned and fired by the Police Commis-
sion, although employed by the city.

Wis claim for salary due him was denied
and, broken in health and penniless, he was
compelled to sue for it. The suit was pending
when death xeleased him from physical suffer-
ing and from the torment of the persecution he
had undergone. The callousness and inhu-
manity of the treatment received by Lucker
js a disgrace to and an indelible stain on the
name of Vancouver as well as another afiirma-
tion of the theory, imsotar as the persecutors of
Tueker are concerned, that Honesty Does Not
Pay.

Pattullo. Pronounces Death
Sentences

[THIN three days after the election and

assured of another term in. the saddle,
the Pattullo government announced the closing
of the project camps which were set up to pro
vide food and shelter tor the single unem-
ployed.

Accordingly, nearly all the camps are
closed and the men who were in them are Te-
fused relief and turned out to hunt for work
that cannot be found. The ex-project camp
workers who have come to Vancouver are per
mitted to ride freight cars out of Vancouver
but are clubbed off them when they reach
Hope, Ruby Greek or other remote points.
Similar treatment 1s meted out to men coming
into Waneouver. Lhe unemployed are there-
fore prevented from seeking work, hopeless
though the search may be.

The Pattullo government refuses them re-
lief on the lying allegation that there are jobs
__if they will but look for them. The fact that
the employment offices are unable to provide
jobs to 90 percent of the applicants 1s proot,
if proof were needed, that the jobs do not exist.

The workers have a few dollars coming to
them on the deferred payment plan. This re-
serve will be exhausted in a week or so. What
then? They demand work and wages. Failing
the provison of jobs through a puble works
program, they demand the reopening of the
project camps with work at prevailing rates
of wages, without deferred payment of part
of the wages earned. And it the government
cannot provide work at decent wages the men
demand relief.

These demands are not only reasonable,
but are made in the effort to live without being
compelled to resort to erime. These workers,
given the alternative of death by starvation
or a life of crime, must have the support of
organized labor and all humane people of the
province.

None So Blind—

@)N the lofty theological heights where they

sit and inhale the exhilarating air of pure
Socialism, certain individuals who cannot sec
the slightest difference between reform Lib-
eralism and reactionary Conservatism, but
who pretend to see a great difference between
the immediate aims of the Communist party
and those of the CCE, are lost in wonder at
their own prowess. They have defeated the
united front idea in BC “for a Jong time to
come.” And they are quite happy-

You cannot argue with such people as these.
History possibly, will convince them, possibly
not, for they are oblivious to € rerything except
what passes for thought processes in their own
closed minds.

More likely it is that dawn will find them
still on their lofty heights, while the people
march on without them. Or that some ominous

twilight will outline them against the sky
erucified on the Nazi swastika. But mean-

while they are quite happy—tor have they not
defeated some ideals for which thousands haye
shed their blood in Spain ?

_ We have before us an

itvinoff

Warns The

eague Of Nations

NLY a few hours before German warships poured tons

meria, killing women and children and laying the port in
commissar for foreign affairs, was warning the League of Nations assembly that its policy of

ignoring the Spanish conflict and of failing to take any steps 1

intervention constituted a threat to world peace. Hacerpts from

Editors.

cope speech of the honorable
representative of Spain, and
the documents which he distrib-
uted, present an exhaustive lght
on the factual side of the matter,
upon which it is hardly necessary
to dwell.

“The case before us is abso-
lutely clear and does not require
further proof or investigation.
indisput-
able case of violent incursion of
foreign armed forces on the ter-
ritory of one of the League of
Nations members, a case of ag-
gression in the grossest form.

“On the other hand, there are
a handful of generals and other
military officers who violated
their military duty, who rebelled
against the legitimate g2overn-
ment and the country’s constitu-
tion, who started military opera-
tions, chiefly with the aid of
Morocean forces.

Assails Interventionists.

“1 take the liberty of recalling
these simple and indisputable
facts. because some people begin
to forget them. They begin to
forget that in the present case
there can be no talk of equal
sides. Foreign governments have
the right to enter relations with
the Spanish government, to con-
clude any Commercial transac-
tions with it. even on the sale of
war materials, without violating
any international lay or obliga-
tions.

“ut relations with the insur-
gent generals, and even more so,
supplying them with war mater-
jals, is a classic example of inter-
vention in the affairs of another
state.

“Certain international
taken during

here.

actions
the past year on
practical proposals —the agree-
ment on non-intervention in
Spanish affairs, establishment of
control, the truce proposal—un-
doubtedly distort and eclipse the
formal side of the matter and
create the impression that it is
a matter of equal warring parties.

“Actually, however, we have on
one hand a government lawfully
recognized by all states without
exception and by the League of
Nations, established on the basis
of the Spanish constitution and
democratic electoral rights, and
which a short time before the
outbreak of events under discus-
sion received a vote of confidence
from the Spanish people.

“This government is respons-
iple for the observance of the
Jaws of the country, for order,
for discipline in the army and
navy, and is duty bound to sup-
press, by force if necessary, any
attempt at changing the existing
order, any attempts against the
interests of the broad masses of
the people, and attempts at up-
risings or disturbances.

The centre of gravity of the
Canadian and American Jabor
movement has shifted in recent
months from the American Fed-
eration of Labor to the Commit
tee for Industrial Organization.

The vigor and the modern or-
ganizational forms and policies
of the CIO have attracted to it
the unorganized. The letters ClO
have become a Symbol of hope
to millions who know little and
care less about the AF ofL.

The CIO has concentrated on
organizing the unorganized. It
has not concerned itself with
winning over existing unions.
Yet its very concentration on the
constructive work of unionization
is having effects which were not
its first design.

Many unions of the AF of L
now find whole groups of newly-
organized workers refusing to
link with them until they become
part of the CIO.

As to the federal unions of the
AFofL in mass-production in-
dustries, the attraction of the
CIO is becoming irresistible. The
aluminum federal unions have

“Tf the Spanish events were
confined to internal disorder, to a
struggle of the government
against the insurgents, the
League of Nations would not
only haye nothing to do with this
question, but these events would
have ended long ago.

“Any unbiased person familiar
with the correlation of forces,
must admit that the legitimate
Spanish government would have
long ago ended the rebellion.
Madrid and other Spanish towns
would not have been subjected to
desolation and destruction, and
the Spanish people would not
have to lament the death of tens
of thousands of men, women and
children and the annihilation of
the best representatives of Span-
ish art and science.

Proof ot Foreign Aid.

“The matter would not have ac-
quired an international character
and not only would order have
lone ago been established in
Spain, but imternational order
would not have been disturbed.

‘Tinfortunately, the published
documents prove beyond doubt
that the insurrection of the gen-
eralS was prepared and organ-
ized at foreign instigation with
foreign aid. Moreover, the insur-
gents were supplied arms, air
planes, military instructors and
aviators from abroad on the very
first day. The extent of this sup-
ply increased more and more as
the events developed and aid of
the insurgents was given not only
in the form of military but also
human material.

Cites Guernica.

“Bis battles against the Span-
ish Republican army were in
some instances fought exclusive-
ly by these foreign military, units

under command of foreign gen-
erals. Spanish towns were ex-
posed to bombardment by for-

eign airplanes piloted by foreign
aviators.

QOne-fourth of Madrid, the en-
tire city of Guernica and many
other towns and villages were
destroyed by foreign aviation.

“Tt may be said that the Span-
ish Republican army now has to
carry on an armed struggle not
so much against insurgents as
against interventionists who in-
vaded the country. Thus, one

League member has been subject- ~-

ed to foreign invasion and the
threat of violation of its terr-
torial integrity and political in-
dependence.

“But it is not a matter of Spain
alone. The Spanish events ereat-
ed one of the greatest perils to
European and universal peace-
This menace arises owing to at-
tempts at armed interference in
the internal affairs of a Euro-
pean state, attempts to force up-

Cardinal Mundelein. ..
didn’t like his pointed references
to him.

. Hitler

of high explosives on Loyalist Al-
ruins, Maxim Intvinoff, Soviet

vhatsoever m regard to Fascist
M. Litvinoff’'s address are guven

on the people of that state a re-
gime alien to it, and primarily a
foreign political orentation-

“And under cover of this inter-
ference, attempts are made to de-
prive that country of its indepen-
dence and subjugate it to other
states. Should this attempt suc-
ceed and pass with impunity,
there will be no guarantee that
it will not be repeated in other
countries.

Danger of Other KRevolts.

“There is no suarantee that no
new attempts will be made at
causing an insurrection in some
other country in the near future
by recognizing an insurgent
leader as head of the govern-
ment, shipping foreign troops
and foreign arms there in aid of
the insurgents, and thus carry-
ing out aggression and the na-
tional policy of intervening in
another state.

«A tendency manifests itself in
intervention similar to that of re-
ligious wars of the past—to be-
gin a series of new wars and
under cover of a struggle be-
tween ideas and political sys-
tems to carry out a policy of as-
gression and expansion.

“We must not forget that when
the insurrection broke out im
Spain, a government existed there
whose program Was similar to
the programs of governments
existing in many other countries.

“The government of the coun-
try I represent has its own
ideology, and would naturallly be
very pleased if that ideolosy
penetrated other countries.

‘“Wevertheless, it meyer tried
and will not try by any means,
and least of all by violent means,
to foree its ideology on other
states.

“We as a state were little con-
cerned with the system which
existed in Spain, and with whom
at the outbreak of the rebellion
we did not eyen haye diplomatic
or consular relations. There was
not a Single Soviet citizen in
Spain at that time.

Supports Withdrawals.

“phere is only one thing we
want—that the Spanish people
may, after the cessation of the
present events, be able, as before
the insurrection, to have a gov-
ernment such as they desire as
they voluntarily elected on the
basis of the constitution they
themselves instituted.

“The government which I rep-
resented declared, therefore, at
the very outset that it will sup-
port any act directed towards
elimination of all non-Spanish
elements from the ranks of the
fighters in Spain in order that
the strugele now raging may be
settled by the Spanish forces
themselves.

ope Of Future

already formed their own indus-
trial union and afilliated with the
CIO, and similar developments
are under way among distillery
workers and half a dozen other
eroups of federal unions.

In AFofl unions where the
officials have been friendly to the
CIO, they find themselves under
increasing pressure to line up
definitely in the CIO camp. Union
leaders who are hostile to the
CIO find themselves threatened
with mass revolt.

Vigorous growth is everywhere
a source of attraction, while or-
ganizational decay feeds upon it-
self. So there is ferment today
in all unions outside the CIO.

Unity in the AF of L was once
the slogan of CLO unionists and
other progressives. = F of L lead-
ers destroyed that unity when
they drove out the CIO unions.
Now the organizing Success of
the CIO and its increasing power
of attraction have made ‘sanity
jin and through the CIO” the
logical slogan of all who hope to
see a unified movement of tens
of millions of working people.

Chile Moves Onward

The Popular Front in Chile,
which embraces all the left-wing
parties, has been strengthened
by the decision reached by all
the radical groups to join forces
for the presidential elections
next year.

The national elections last
March resulted in placing ten
senators and 66 members of the
chamber of deputies as People’s
Pront representatives in the pres-
ent Chilean parliament. The new
chamber of deputies includes
seven Communists, headed by
Carlos Contreras Labarea, sgen-
eral secretary of the Communist
Party of Chile.

Elias Lafertte, former head of
the Chilean Federation of Labor,
and in exile durins the elections,

*

Intl. Brigade
Has Own Paper

One of the most interesting by-
products of the famous fighters
of the International Brigade in
Spain is the 12-page weekly jour-

nal “Our Fight,” published in
Spanish, English and French.
Nearly every page has articles

in each of the three languages.
The numerous photofraphs are
vivid as the quality of the art
paper used in the publication is
excellent. The printing is by
Artes Graficas in Madrid.

was elected senator, the only
Communist to be chosen for the
upper house.

Many petty-bourgeois organiza-
tions voted with the Popular
Front, including semi-relizious
groups, liberals, small shopkeep-
ers and others, united on a basic
minimum program of anti-fasc-
ism, anti-war and anti-imperial-
ism.

Reachionary sroups raised a
huge election fund and in some
backward areas bought votes
openly in their campaign to
maintain in power the gang sup-
porting President Arturo Ales-
sandri, known to be the tool of
American capitalists. Their hat-
red of the Popular Front is the
pest argument in its favor.

SHORT

JABS

SSS

By
OL’ BILL

Whatever else

CIO Getting the CIO has

done, it has
compelled the
most truculent opponents of the
trade union movement among big
industry to reconsider their atti-
tude to unionism among their em-
ployees. They are now making
small concessions lest greater be
wrung from them.

Results.

In carrying out the decisions of
the 1934 APFofL convention,
@atherine the unorganized mass
production workers into indus-
trial unions, the CI@ has at the
Same time Shortened the hours,
boosted the wages and generally
made life less miserable for hun-
dreds of thousands of workers on
this continent. Their latest vic-
tory is the agreement signed
With the Interborough Rapid
Transit in New York. The trans-
port workers there have never
had any union other than a com-
pany union and the agreement
that followed their entry into the
CIO means a closed shop, 48-hour
week, annual holidays with pay
and an increase of 244 million
dollars a year wages for the
14,000 workers on the subway.

Increased wages and shorter
hours are not the only fruit of
the CIO campaign. The organ of
the Canadian Manufacturers’ As-
sociation, Industrial Canada, for
April, says that “many manufac-
turers now find it possible to re-
store such wage-cuts as were
made during the depression years
and in some cases are raising
Wwaeces voluntarily and without
strikes or lock-outs. They are
recognizing also that industrial
employees should have opportun-
ities to discuss their problems
with employers.”

* * =
They are even

More WayS now making it
Than One. easy for their

workers to join
the AFofl unions. Retail deal-

ers in Vancouver are being in-
structed by the firms that con-
trol them to demand that the
teamsters who deliver goods to
their stores shall belong to the
union. The recent plebiscite at
Powell River Pulp and Paper
Company, an anti-union outfit
for the past generation, T=
sponsible for precipitating the
1935 waterfront strike, is a piece
of indisputable evidence that the
bosses have “the wind-up.”
“But,’ says Industrial Canada,
“objection is taken, and rightly
so, to any foreign-organized
stirrine-up of distrust and dissat-
isfaction? This does not refer to
the gang of New York parasites
who own the Island Mountain
gold mine and it undoubtedly
Jeavyes a loophole for Bill Green
pbut——the hitherto unorganizec
workers are being brought into
the trade union movement which
is what counts. For once in the
stream of the labor moyement
they will decide for themselves
which policies to follow.
* x =
Ol Bill must
The Deathless be slipping;
BC Collectric, 200 °22 ee
sent in a copy
of the “Buzzard” a couple of
weeks old, the front page splurgs
of which is built around a claim
that not one passenger's lite has
been lost on the BC Collectric
bogeys in 15 years. Of courses,
we all know that everyone who is
compelled to ride on 2 street-car
expects to meet a violent end be-
fore the trip is over. We only
put up the seven-cent ante when
we travel in one of these peres-
rinating torture chambers in the
full expectation of bemsg killed
and if we are disappointed it is
not due to the efforts of the man-
agement of the plundering com-
pany, but to the care and solici-
tude of the motormen and con-
ductors in spite of the high-speed
running schedules that extracts

$5.00 fines for “crashing the
red.”

Without being 4 Sherlock
Holmes one can easily see the

origin of this claim for canoniza-
tion of the BC Collectric. It came
the week after The People’s Ad-
vocate (the only paper to do so)
printed the story of a passenger
trapped in the door of a one-man
juggernaut, dragged for two
plocks and severely injured, an
accident for which the motorman
was not in the least to blame.
* = *

Bie corporations
No Bus For are all prehen-
South Van. sile, but the

ereed of this util-
ity octupus has already become @
proverb. The effort of the South
Vancouver people to secure @
cross-town service has proved
that the BC Collectrie wants its
pound of flesh; they are willing
to put on a bus if it will pay.

In the amusement business the
people who run fairs and carni-
vals undertake to supply the
public need in that line. Some of
their diversions don’t pay, but
the amusement caterers have @
business axiom that says, “What
we lose on the swings we make
up on the merry-go-rounds, but
we have to provide amusement
for everybody.”’ The BC Collect-
ric wants it to be all merry-£0-
rounds and all the service that
interests them is the welfare of
the bondholders.

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