: | L. CALDER, KC, ADDRESSES PACKED VANCOUVER MEETING AYS PADLOCK LAW THREAT 10 DOMINION Hit Padlock #257 Aimed At Labor Because Big Interests — Fear March Of Trade Unions In Quebec for Peace and Democracy, who “7AYHE Quebec padlock law shatters the cornerstone of British democracy—the Magna Charta. It is not aimed at the Com- munists. It is aimed at the entire labor movement. That is why there is no definition of communism in the act, because to define communism would be to render the act inoperative. The powerful interests upholding the padlock law see the com- mon people of Quebee marching behind the banner of labor, and they are afraid. The law is directed almost exclusively at labor. The unions raided were those which conducted strikes. The only paper padlocked was a labor paper.” One thousand Vancouver citizens in the Moose Hall Friday heard R. L. Calder, KC, distinguished barrister of Montreal and vice-president of the Civil Liberties Union of that city, make this statement during the course of an address in which he effectively exposed the padlock law as “a challenge to our democratic rights which, unless killed, will be enforced in your own province in six months.” By standing vote, the audience unanimously approved a resolution asking disallowance of the padlock law by the federal government or its reference to the Supreme Court of Canada to determine its constitutionality. Calder introduced himself as a Catholic, believing fully in the dogma of that church, “but constrained to oppose its policies when they conflict with the people’s liberties.” By polities, Calder said, he was a Conservative, believing in the capitalist sys- tem, “so long as it is a decent capitalism.” “At least,” he added, “I believe in capitalism but don’t practice it because I have no capital.” A communist in Canada today, said Calder, this attitude which had led the Duplessis government to pass the padlock law. this law is good,” was the government’s attitude. The People’s Advocate Western Canada’s Leading Progressive Newspaper VANCOUVER, B.C., FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 1938 BEHIND THE NEWS Crone Says 4suardian Blasts i Padlock Law ; HE Manchester Guardi- ‘— an, leading liberal news- inijin English-speaking coun- th ries, denounced the Quebec adlock law in an editorial aast week. g “Those who cherish free- ijom of speech, writing and by QUblic meeting are much yea toncerned with the Padlock Act in Quebec, a measure }which has no parallel in a )British Dominion,” the edi- ice torial stated. * The Guardian further com- imented: “Traditional liberty jis here as drastically inhibit- ted as under any of the dic- tatorships and it is not sur- ‘means anyone who doesn’t think the same you you do.” And it was precisely “Communist propaganda is bad and therefore e ‘tutional should be raised.” eee - Explaining the padlock law and its implications, Calder said it gave the Duplessis government dicta- torial powers. “The definition of what con- stitutes an infringement of the law lies with the attorney-general, Anything literally, can be defined as ‘communistic.” Anyone can be termed a ‘communist’ and have his house padlocked. The act ean be applied without written charge, without oath before a judge and without a fair trial, even without e : Kenneth Burroughs lecturing to Chinese Aviators students at Chicago Aeronautical Uni- versity during the course that will enable them to become aviators. On completion of their training they will re- turn to China to pilot army planes against the Japanese. Ross Warns Of Fascist MienaceHere Charges Euler Released False Figures On Nickel Exports To Canadian Press. PUBLIC DRILLS Charge that figures respect- ing Canada’s exports of nickel Jreleased to the Canadian press sf by Hon. W. D. Euler were “ab- solutely false’ was made by Malcolm Mackenzie Ross, gen- eral secretary of the Canadian League for Peace and Democ- racy, at the meeting in Moose Hall last Friday addressed by himself and R. L. Calder, KC. These figures; stated Ross, had Seen published by every fascist and pro-fascist paper in Canada in sup- port of pro-fascist arguments. Ross also charged that Euler ad- dressed a meeting of German Nazis in Kitchener last year, to which he brought official greetings of the Canadian government. He quoted Huler as haying said at that meeting that “distribution of anti-Nazi propaganda should be made a criminal offense.” “The alarming thing about the padlock law is the coincident growth of fascism in Quebec and else- where in Canada,” Ross declared. Drill Gn Streets “The Wational Social Christian party, headed by Adrien Arecand, boasts 80,000 members. There are 12,000 fascists in Toronto. There are fascist organizations in other provinces. In Montreal, the fascists drill openly on the streets and have threatened to ‘march on Ottawa.’ Drills are carried on in Montreal public schools, in basements under huge swastika flags.” Tilustrating the close link be- tween the Duplessis government and the fascist movement in Que- bee, Ross pointed to the fact that Adrien Arcand, who was also edi- tor of L’iilustration, semi-official organ of the government, worked in Premier Duplessis’ office. Ross warned against underesti- mation of the fascist danger in Ganada. “Canada occupies a _ strategic place in world affairs because of her huge wnatural resources and German financing of the fascist movement in this country is evi- dence of the great interest taken by the fascist powers in bringing Canada into their orbit,” he stated. FOR pt wT [RRR YESS EEA aa AION a ASK YOUR LOCAL MERCHANT “Pride of the West”’ Overalls Drives Against 8th _ Route Army Fail Japan’s ‘Mopping Up’ Campaigns Defeated By Former Red Army and Partisan Forces army Pen Te Hwai said: will be our in the end. “The experience made struggle have induced the Chinese forces to change their tactics. Our advantages lies in adopting the tactics of mobile warfare, of guer- Trilla warfare and not of trench warfare, for China is a weak coun- try and the war is fought on Chi- nese territory, on a territory which we and the population supporting us know very well. “The experiences of the struggle further showed that the Japanese are by no means such brilliant tac- ticians as was generally supposed. They rely almost entirely on their air force, heavy artillery and tanks. Formerly we used to believe that the Japanese military tactics were on a very high level. In this we were completely mistaken. “Although our 8th Army is the weakest of all Chinese armies so far as technical equipment goes, the enemy did not succeed in tak- ing a single rifle from us, while we took from the Japanese over 3,000: rifles, and destroyed over 20 Japa- nese aeroplanes ard about 1,000 THE NEWS N THE NORTHWEST FRONT IN CHINA. There are now . 50,000 armed partisans directly subordinate to the 8th route fighting on this front. The provinces of Shansi, Hopei, ; Honan, Chahar and Suiyan all border on the mountain range of Tafangsan, which provides shelter for countless guerilla groups. Thus far, the Japanese have launched four “mopping-up™ campaigns against the 8th route army in the provinces of Shansi, Chahar and Hopei, all of which have been announced “success- ful” and all of which actually have failed. Elsewhere, guerilla forces are operating with telling ef- fects on Japanese lines of communication. In the Peiping-Suiyan area partisan troops under Yang Chow Lin, former professor of Peiping university, composed of Peiping workers, students and former 19th route army soldiers, continue their operations, despite a recent drive by 10,000 Japanese regular troops, sup- ported by airplanes, against them. THE STORY By CHANG LIU 4 )N THE NORTHWEST FRONT IN CHINA.— have just paid a visit to the 8th Army operating in Eastern Shansi where I saw Pen Te Hwai, deputy-commander. In reply to my questions, “The experiences made in the struggle in China the forces of the army alone were insufficient to hold up the Japanese advance. The great masses of the people must be drawn into the struggle against the Japanese and they have already been set in motion. We have suffered losses, it is true, but we have not been defeated and, if we fight resolutely on, the victory in thes Showed that armoured cars and lorries; we took many machine guns, a hugh quan- tity of ammunition, over a thou- sand troop horses, very many heavy and anti-aircraft guns and other war materials. “But what is the most important is that we have annihilated the famous 5th division of the Japa- mese army and the brigade com- manded by Li Mo. “The technical worst-equipped Ghinese army has proved a match for the crack formations of the Japanese, although we had no numerical superiority over the enemy in any of the engagements we fought with them. “Ghina has a regular army of two and a half million men. Ten per cent of these haye been killed or wounded during the first four months of the war. Japan has al- ready called up 300,000 men of her City Mulct Continually ‘Provincial Government Must Either Assist Us Or Thrash Whole Mat- ter Out.’ $700,000 GRANT “We are being mulct at every turn. The provincial govern- ment admits the city is getting only 50 per cent of the teachers’ grant, and that we are not getting justice on many other items.” So declared Ald. Fred Crone to city council last Monday in a dis- cussion on financial relationships between the city and province. Im spite of the relief burden and assessment depreciation, the pro- vincial grant this year to a city which pays 60 percent of the prov- ince taxes, was a mere $700,000, whereas the grant in 1932 was $1,416,000, the trafic committee chairman stated, and concluded with: “Hither the provincial govern- ment must assist us or come and thrash out the -whole matter in- stead of putting us off continually.” Ald. John Bennett stated that the city’s income is around $14,000,000 out of which relief appropriations must be paid; civic wages costing $500,000; fire department and hos- pital costing $2,000,000. He declared that 60 out of every 100 patients received at the Gen- eral Hospital were unable to pay for medical attention, ‘and yet un- der such conditions the public voted that church property be exempt from taxation, a matter of $70,000 annually.” The boast that Vancouver had never defaulted in its interest com- mitments in 50 years of existence, was made by Ald. Bennett, but he admitted a refunding plan based on a lower rate of interest had its advantages. 1,000 Delegates At CIO Meeting COLUMBUS, Ohio, (UNS)—A quarter of a million CIO members were represented at the first convention of Ohio CIO unions held.at Columbus. More than 1,000 delegates attended the convention at which. an Ohio CIO Industrial second- and third-class reserves in addition to the regular army. The Japanese losses in this war already amount to about 150,000 killed or wounded.” wed | CANT RIP* WON'T RIP So DISTRIBUTORS SOINTULA Cooperative Union Council was set up for this | key industrial state. This makes the fourteenth state | which has now formed a new state | labor body to unite all CIO unions. AT intula tore search warrants. And the attorney- general can and does refuse to give reason for its application,” he stated. : There was no need for the pad- lock law, Calder said. The crimes— libel, murder and advocacy of vio- lent overthrow of the government —it might purport to prevent were all covered by laws already on the statute books. Actually, in enabling search to be made without a war- rant, it went beyond the law be- cause it did not state, as the ex— cise act did, “breaking and enter- ing.” ‘Drying Up Knowledge” ‘Tnder the act the Duplessis gov— ernment is proceeding to dry up the sources of knowledge,” Calder declared. “Even the bible and the new testament have been banned.” The police, whose duty it had be- come to determine would con- stituted “dissemination of commu- nist propaganda,” had even seized copies of Charles Dickens” works, he said. Speaking of the efforts which had been made to prevent his hold- ing meetings in Montreal and other Quebec cities, Calder declared: “The Hrench-Canadians are being kept in ignorance because entrance to the public patform, the radio and the newspapers is denied. ‘The French-Canadian believes in democracy and he fought for it March 17.— Ring Believed Widespread Charge Welles revealing the existence of a far-¢ flung espionage system, everybody knows that it is Hitler Germany that is the guilty nation. Yet because of the niceties of diplomatic etiquette (which means so much in Washington and so little in Berlin), no one connected with the investigation og the Fasc- ist plan can officially breathe a syllable indicating that he even knows of the existence of such a country as Germany. Wor the rec- ord, it all concerns a mysterious “foreign power.” Chief official responsible for cramping the style of the G-men and government attorneys who are moving against the spy ring is be- lieved to be Sumner Welles, career- ist assistant secretary of state, whose ties of sympathy with fasc- ist and reactionary groups in Latin America and Burope are shame- ... the Flower of WM. SPENCER COCKINGS Auto Worker, of Victoria, B.C., Killed in Action at Teruel, Spain. OVER 200 FROM B.C. Canadian Youth Cramping G-Men In Espionage Case NEW YORK, March 17.—Reluctance of certain state depart- ment officials to call a spade a spade and a Nazi a Nazi threatens to cripple the defense of national interests of the United States against a widespread German spy ring. Since federal men nabbed two U-S. soldiers, a beautiful 26- year-old German hairdresser and several bushels of evidence, better than anyone one hundred years ago.” 3 Jamieson Hits Fascism Present on the platform with R. L. Calder were: A. M. Stephen, provincial president, Cana dian League for Peace and Democracy,. under whose auspices the meeting was held; Hric Martin and John Stanton, Vancouver and New West- minster Youth Council; Rev. R. IN. Matheson; Nathan Nemetz, vice- consul in western Canada for the Spanish Republican government; Tom Ewen, Communist party; and &. A. Jamieson, Vancouver and fully notorious. The trio whose arrests broke the story are Guenther Gustave Rum- rich, 27-year army sergeant and de- serter: Hirich Glaser, his 28-year-old confederate, of Mitchel Field, Long Island, and Johanna Hofman, 26- year-old red-haired hair-dresser on the Nazi liner Europa. The spy ring is believed to be of nation-wide proportions, involving, among others, a physician of pro- nounced anti-Semetie tendencies. Nazis Hit Church BERLIN, Germany, March 17.— A secret order circulated privately leaders of the Hitler Youth states that within two years the ceremony of Christian confirmation to must be abolished. SEND IN YOUR EASTER PARCELS TO REACH US BY MARCH 28 Friends Of The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion Room 43, 615 W. Hastings St. Vancouver, B.C. Telephone - Trinity 4955 New Westminster Trades and La- bor Council. The CCF was unable to have a representative present, but ex- pressed its full accord with the pur- pose of the meeting. Bm. A. Jamieson remarked that Vancouver Trades and Labor Coun- cil had already asked the federal government to disallow the pad- lock act and said: “Unless the people of Canada awaken to the menace of fascism and strike it down wherever it ap- pears ,the tragic events of Europe may be repeated here. We are not so far removed that we can ignore these dangers, of which the pad- Jock law constitutes the gravest.” Jamieson pledged the trades and labor council to active support o£ any movement for disallowance of the padlock law. STE Se are DEFENDING : DEMOCRACY IN SPAIN! f. ANKER M. PETERSON Vancouver, B.C. Killed in Action at Teruel, Spain.