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VANCOUVER, B.C., FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1937

Single Copies: 5 Cents

VOL. IV, No. 7

Famous

Jr. Anna Louise Strong

To Speak Here Saturday
In Return From China
Visit.

WRITES FP SERIES

jtates China More Than
iver United As People
?repare for War of Long
Juration.
Tin Se :
oe Wr. Anna Louise Strong,
sifameus author and lecturer,
thirst of whose series of articles

n China especially written for
; g ederated Press is published

his week, will arrive in Van-
iouver Saturday aboard the
yj mpress of Japan. At 8 o'clock
ange same evening she will speak

dS: the Q@ak Room, Hotel .Vancou-
aitger, under auspices of the Medical
id to China committee of the Ca-
stadian League for Peace and De-
1ocracy.
= Dr. Strong, who is associate edi-
23i>r of the Moscow Daily News, has
~4een in China for the past few
%ionths. ast year she made a lec-
tiare tour of Canada and the United

pain.

ag}

a The mayor of Canton made a re-
aU;

iaark to me which I heard in almost
ne Same words from Marshal Yen
mn fsi-shan in the far northwest and
“yolice Chief Fao of Tsing-tao in
ae far mortheast of China:

“We have to thank our Japanese
i riends for unifying China, for mod-
“Srnizing China, and for making all
hina patriotic.”

‘Tt was said with an urbanity
which I can hardly imagine coming

sj oday. There was an ironic sting
aio the word “friends” as applied
m2 the Japanese, but there was also
philosophic calm which scanned

cH he future.
We were sitting at the moment
+ juncheon in the mayor’s house.
ie had just finished apologizing for
‘fhe delicious menu of sweet pota-
pes, which for some reason the
thinese consider a poorer diet than
ice. ““‘We have three riceless days
, month in Kwangtung now, since
jur rice crop is not quite enough
jor our needs. We are, however,

pring through improved seed and
n other ways.”
if the local improvements due to
var needs.
Canton Bombed

Midway through our lunch a siren
lew. “Fourth air raid today,” re-
marked the mayor’s secretary. *Yes-
jerday, however, was much worse,
iimost the worst we have had. They
yegan raiding at 1:30 am, and kept
t up till after dark.”
® “Yesterday they bombed scores
of small villages all around us,”
2dded the mayor. “All the little
p2ncestral homes of our Canton peo-
ole. DPhey killed a great many inno-
sent people, women, old men, chil-
dren. The Japanese are not only
Wvery uncivilized, but very stupid.
Don’t they realize what they are
doing with their indiscriminate
j20mbing? They are waking up
every village in Kwangtung.

“Our villagers were backward.
They had feuds with each other.
They took no interest in any cen-
tral government except to resist its
taxes. But now ... all I have to do
ts to send out word that the high-
way we are building is ‘an anti-
Japanese’ highway to help us win
she war. And I have peasant labor
turning out by the hundred thou-
sand, to work for nothing except
Ewo meals a day.

Long Struggle

“Our new highway from Canton
to Hongkong was built in 24 days
in this manner, by the labor of
100,000 men. All over western China
Wwe are building roads many times
= fast as before the war.”

i China is settling down to a long,
Jong struggle. Chiang Kai-shek said
fim a meeting with his generals:
“America fought nine years to get
ther independence; China can fight
nine years too.”

| Japan, however, in all probability
would crash economically long be-
yiore the end of that period. But
‘China plans for a war in which she
yWill take time to build highways
and railways across Asia, to Indo-
China -on the south, to Burma in
(the southwest, to Russia far away
‘in the west across Turkestan. She
.bas begun building all these lines
of communication. She is using the
'g0ad of war to modernize the cen-

<< Published Weekly

E HEADS MEDICAL UNIT IN CH

anadian Doctor
Now At War Front With
: First American Mission

Dr.

Norman Bethune

Nanaimo Aids

Medical Fund

Second Tas Day Held In
Island City For China
Brings Grand Total Of
$670

NANAIMO, BC, Feb. 24.— The
Second tag day for medical aid to
China was held here last Saturday
under ahspices of the Chinese WNa-
tional Salvation Bureau, total re-
ceipts being $410. To this was
added $50, proceeds of a local dance
organized by the unemployed; do-

| Nations by the local Chinese com-

tom the people of any other nation, |
if * they were suffering as China is}

| munity, $183; Local of United Mine
| Workers, $25; Nanaimo CCF, $2;
making a grand total of $670.
Wanaimo’s first tag day this year,
which was also for the Medical Aid

' of China Fund, was held January

{ 18,

j

aking measures to increase it this |

This was only one |

under auspices of Canadian
| League for Peace and Democracy,
the amount collected being $603.
Progressives here claim a Domin-
ion precedent for co-operation be-
tween city authorities and the pro-
gressive movement.

A further tag day next August
has been promised to the Friends
of the Mackenzie-Papineau Batta-
lion here, in aid of returned volun-
teers from Republican Spain. W.
| Ravenor of Vancouver addressed a
|\large meeting at Union Hall last
| Sunday on the question of Spain,
|five new members joining the
friends’ committee at the conclu-
Sion of his speech.

Banned Film Shown

WINNIPEG, Man., Feb. 24. —
“China Strikes Back,’ banned by
the British Columbia Appeal Board
of Gensors two weeks ago, has been
passed by the censor here and is
attracting large audiences.

Dr. Charles Parsons,
Formerly Head Of Notre
Dame Hospital, Is Also
With Unit.

CANADIAN NURSE

Mission Left Vancouver

In January But News
Was Only Released This
Week.

NEW YORK, Feb. 24.—Dr.
Norman Bethune, Montreal
surgeon and former head of the
Spanish-Canadian Blood Trans-
fusion Institute in Spain, has
been placed in charge of the
first medical aid unit sent to
China by the China Aid Coun-
cil of the American League for
Peace and Democracy.

Dr. Bethune, accompanied by the
two other members of the unit, Dr.
Charles Parsons, who formerly
headed the famous Notre Dame
Memorial Hospital in Newfound-
land, and Miss Jean M. Ewen,
Canadian nurse who has already
done four years’ medical work in
China, arrived in Hankow, new seat
of the Chinese government, Feb-
ruary 7. They sailed from Vancou-
ver in January aboard the Empress
of Canada. Announcement of their
arrival, however, was withheld un-
til this week when it was made by
Dr. Harry F. Ward, chairman of
the American league, at a lunch-
eon here. —

Dr. Elizabeth Parsons of Kings-
ton, Ont., wife of Dr. Charles Par-
sons, was guest of honor at the
luncheon.

The Chinese government has al-
ready assigned tasks to the unit.
Dr. Bethune and Miss Ewen have
been dispatched to the front, while
Dr. Parsons is making a survey of
refugees’ medical needs in the Han-
kow area.

Full surgical and X-ray equip-
ment carried by the unit was pur-
chased through funds raised by the
China Aid Council, which is now
launching an intensive campaign to
equip and send more units.

As head of the Canadian medical
unit in Spain, which later became
the Spanish-Canadian Blood Trans-
fusion Institute, Dr. Bethune made
War medical history. Revolution-
ary methods of storing and trans-
porting blood were instrumental in
saving thousands of lives. At first
confined to Madrid, blood transfu-
sion unts were later established on
all fronts.

When Dr. Bethune spoke in the
Qrpheum Theatre in Vancouver
during a trans-Canada_ tour last
summer an audience of 3000 gave
him an ovation. :

Dr. Charles Parsons is best
known for his work among New-
foundland fishermen at Notre
Dame Memorial Hospital. Before
establishment of the institution
fishermen and their families had
been cut off from any medical aid.

Has Two Brothers In Spain

Canadian Nurse In China

Daughter Of Tom Ewen

country.

of Franciscan Fathers. In _ the
Tsinanfu district of Shangtung
province she covered an area of 60
square miles on a pony patrol. Ac-
companied by her two police dogs,
her pony laden with medicines and
supplies, she was everywhere wel-

| comed in the villages by the peas-

tral heart of Asia.

2

ants to whose wants she ministered.

When thousands were rendered
homeless by the Yangtze River
floods in 1934 and cholera was rife
among the destitute refugees Miss
Ewen was among those who worked
day and night to stem the mount-
ing death toll.

In 1935, she returned to Canada
to work in hospitals here and in the
United States.

She is the eldest daughter of Tom
wen, central committee member
of the Communist Party of Canada.
Her two brothers have been in
loyalist Spain for a year past—
Bruce at the front with the Macken-
zie-Papineau Battalion and Jim
with the transport. Another sister,
Isabel, is in Toronto.

Miss Jean M. Ewen, bonnie 26-year-old Canadian nurse
with the first American medical unit in China, is no stranger
to the tragedy, the poverty and heroism of that war-devastated

A graduate of St. Joseph’s Hospital in Winnipeg, she first
went to China.in 1931 to do field hospital work under the Order

|Rescued

ws

(Above) The Soviet dirigible, V-6, which crashed in Murmansk proy-
ince, above the Arctic circle, while on a test preparatory to flying to
the rescue of the four Russian scientists (below) who spent eight
months drifting on an ice floe from the North Pole to the Greenland coast. Left to right: E. T.
Krinkel, Ivan Papanin, —. K. Federov, P. P. Shirshov.

road City Conference —
Jobless Insurance

Urges

Organized Labor Joins
Forces with Communists

And CCF for Clear Pas-
sage of Bill.

DUPLESSIS RAPPED

Organized labor, the Com-
munist party and the CCF
formed the backbone of the
city-wide conference called last
Monday at Victory Hall by the
Vancouver Citizens’ Commit-
tee on Unemployment Insur-
ance, giving a united lead to
the entire province to continue pres-
sure for passage of national pnem-
ployment insurance during the
present session as a much-needed
reform measure.

Present at the conference were
107 delegates representing 60 organi-
zations with a total membership of
40,000. Analysis of the report show
24 trade unions; nine women's or-
ganizations; eight unemployed
branches; four youth organizations;
eight cultural and fraternal groups;
Six social welfare groups; two po-
litical parties.

Miss M. Dougan, conference or-
ganizer for the committee, opened
the conference with a welcoming
speech on behalf of the committee,

Speakers were: P. Bengough, sec-
retary of the Trades and Labor
Council; Miss Lois Sanderson, who
took the place of Jack Stanton,
president of the Vancouver and
New Westminster Youth Council,
which has a membership of 19,730;
Harold BH. Winch, MLA; Fergus Mc-
Kean, provincial secretary, Com-
munist party.

All speakers stressed the need for
the adoption of the broad principle
of national unemployment insur-
ance, and for avoidance of hair-
splitting on the various forms it
should take. Harold Winch, reso-
lutions committee chairman, showed
in his report that his committee,
composed of those with divergent
views on the subject, was able to
reach unanimity.

Resolutions were passed without
a dissenting voice, urging the fed-
eral government to make a clear
passage for the insurance bill;
calling on the Duplessis government
of Quebec to cease obstructing this
necessary measure, and asking all
progressive organizations to press
the government and parliamentary
representatives to support the bill.

A committee of 12 was elected to
hold a watching brief, with power
to act when unemployment insur-
ance comes before parliament.

‘Bengough, McKean, Winch Speak

Powerful Interests Trying

To Block Social Measure

€

Duplessis Used As Tool
In Attempts To Prevent
BNA Amendment, States
McKean.

Speaking for the Communist
party at the conference held last
Monday for the passage of federal
unemployment insurance, Fergus
McKean, the party's provincial sec-
retary, recalled the year 1929 when
Tom Ewen, central committee mem-
ber of the Communist party, pre-
sented 100,000 signatures to a peti-
tion for national unemployment in-
surance to Prime Minister R. B.
Bennett.

Since that time, McKean stated,
all political parties had endorsed
the principle of such insurance.

Unemployment is the biggest
single problem confronting the Ca-
nadian people, when one-third of
the cost of relief is borne by muni-
cipalities, causing 65 percent of
them either to go bankrupt or near-
ly so, he declared.

“The Communist party believes
that out of the huge profits of Ca-
nadian industry which were the
highest on record last year, with
the exception of 1930, a fair share
of the burden of unemployment re-
lief should be borne,’’ said McKean

Big industry is the main stumb-
ling block to social] legislation, Mc-
Kean maintained, and he could not
agree with Harold Winch that the
passing of the Bill was a certainty.
Public demand would be the only
guarantee of its passing, he de-
elared.

While the speaker agreed with
Trades and Labor Congress brief
on unemployment insurance, he be-
lieved that there should be national
unity behind the bill rather than a
Separation of one or two provinces
over this question.

The Communist secretary charged
that present obstructionist methods
of Duplessis were based on the poli-
cies of big business which opposed
al] social legislation.

“Changes in the BNA Act are
needed to keep pace with the
changes since Confederation, and
these changes are not to restrict
or take away powers from the prov-
inces but to meet national necessi-
ties,’ McKean declared.

> —FERGUS McKEAN

Bengough Recounts
Trade Unions’ Many Ef-
forts To Secure Federal
Jobless Insurance.

‘When the Trades and Labor Con-
gress went to the federal govern-
ment in 1918 requesting passage
of a national unemployment insur-
ance bill, its reception was not of
the best,”” P. Bengough, Trades and
Labor Council secretary, told dele-
gates to the conference on federal
unemployment insurance.

‘We were told that such a bill
would make Canadians a set of
bums,” Bengough stated, “just as
we were told that Canadian work-
ers would start to injure themselves
deliberately when the question of
workmen’s compensation was agi-
tated for,” he added amid laughter.

With obvious pride, Bengough,
who had been introduced to the
conference by the chairman as a
man who had dedicated his life to
the labor movement, told of the
consistent stand taken by organ-
ized labor in BC for jobless insur-
ance. In 1928, he said, Vancouver
and New Westminster Trades and
Labor Council circularized all Ca-
nadian cities and 340 municipalities
on the question. :

“And there were many endorsa-
tions, many of them from the prov-
ince of Quebec,” he added.

Continuing his outline Bengough
stated that it was not until 1928 that
the Trades Congress decided that
the contributory form was the one
to support, being convinced that
this was the only possible measure;
one that would not impose a means
test or require destitution as a basis
for benefit.

Organized labor worked on the
theory that if it was correct to in-
sure a horse or an automobile, then
it was necessary to insure workers.

Bengough crew attention to the
fact that whereas fascist countries
had abolished such measures as uns
employment insurance, democratic
countries were extending its bene-
fits. In Great Britain, in 1935, with
introduction of secondary schemes,
almost all workers came under the

(Continued on page 5)

See BENGOUGH

Alberni

Theatre
Unfair
Scab’ Operator Hired
In Capitol Moyie As

Owner Breaks Union
Agreement.

FIRE DANGER

PORT ALBERNI, BC, Feb.
24.—Organized labor is refus-
ing to patronize the Capitol
theatre here since it was dex
clared unfair by Local 348,
Motion Picture Projectionists’
union this week, and will cam-
paign among local residents to
press the management to stand by
a previous union agreement for
maintenance of working conditions
and full precautions against fire
hazards.

In a statement to the PA, union
officials declared that the theatre
owner ignored his union agreement
by hiring a non-union apprentice,
to which the union operator ob-
jected later quitting his job. The
management then hired an ex-union
operator who worked at the Oak
Theatre, Burnaby, during the pro-
jectionists’ strike last fall.

A plan to undermine the union
-and provincial safety regulations,
is Seen in this repudiation of the
union agreement. The theatre is
now the only full time house in BG
to ignore Local 348. The manager
states openly that he is in favor
of one-man projection rooms.

Increased Fire Hazards

The Port theatre here employs
union operators and retains its
agreement with Local 348, union
officials stated.

As proof of the correct stand of
the union, especially regarding an
adequate number of trained projec-
tionists to eliminate fire hazards,
F. W. Smith, Local 348 secretary,

proferred the following ‘Toronto
news item published recently:
“The old adage, ‘The show must
§o on, was never more clearly
shown than last Saturday night at
the Prince of Wales theatre, when
Danie] Odette, the theatre’s pro-
jectionist, dropped dead suddenly.
while operating the projector. The
second operator toolk over immedi-
ately, and the theatre patrons were
completely ignorant of the tragedy.
According to officials of the op-
erators’ union, a fire would have
definitely broken out if there had
not been two operators in the booth.
A provincial statute in Ontario and
British Columbia requires that there
shall always be two operators in
the projection booths of theatres.”

Asks $76 For
Stolen ’Phone

Hotel Proprietor Raps
Demand of BC Company
Over Phone Theft From

Premises

Seventy-six dollars is demanded
by BE Telephone Company of Paul
Bedner, proprietor of the Commer-
cial Hotel, for loss of a pay tele-
phone, which was torn from the
wall and stolen by persons un-
known last week-end.

Indignant at the sum demanded
by the company, Bedner informed
the collector that he would not pay
such an exorbitant bill, maintain-
ing that the flimsy screws used b¥
the company to hold the telephone
permitted it to be torn down with-
out difficulty.

Adamant as usual about such
matters, the company threatened to
attach the $76 to the bill for other
phones in use throughout the hotel
and finally to remove all telephones
from the premises.

Bedner maintains that, although
he had to guarantee $7 a month to
the company for the privilege of
having it on his premises, this par-
ticular phone, the property of the
company, brought a revenue of
over $40 a month to the company-
He declares that $76 is an out-
rageous sum to pay for equipment
of this nature.

With firm anchorage to the wall,
which would make it difficult to
burgle, there might be some claim
from the company on the grounds
that the premises are not adequate-
ly protected, but certainly not
under such circumstances, Bedner
told a PA reporter.

Friends and patrons of the hotel
urge that the matter be taken up
with the city council to check is
on the franchise given this utility
company, stating that such de-
mands and threatened penalties are

intolerable.

eo
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