-NION ORGANIZATIONAL DRIVE MAKES HEADWAY

OOT, SHOE WORKERS IN CITY ORGAI

The Peoples Advocate

bs
= Western Canada’s Leading Progressive Newspaper
= VANCOUVER, B.C., FRIDAY, APRIL 8, 1938

“1d, New
Blend In
Chungking

‘apw Capital Of China,

> Bip

yh HUNGEKING, China, April
u—Three hundred steps lead
..{m the banks of the river to
4: first street of Chungking,

#: new capital of the Chinese
publie.

tegp OT'Merly the capital of Szechwan

7 the centre of the Chinese govy-
ment’s stand against the Japa-
fe in China’s war for liberty.

wituated on the steep mountain
dks of the Yangste river where

walled off and separate,
ingking is one of the most im-
tant commercial centres in the
th-west.

‘ar from the front and ringed as
FS with mountains, China’s new
fital is inaccessible to the air-
nes of the Japanese.

on this city the old and the new
Sc without clashing. :
Banners Gn Ancient Streets
omehow the row upon row of
handicraft workshops with the
“St old-fashioned means of pro-
§:tion seem incongruous with the
en-storied buildings of some of
§ big banks, in the offices of
ich many employees attentively
tech the course of the world’s
ck exchanges.

3ut suddenly one comes across
@ logan inscribed on bunting and
SSsetching across the street; the
uquity of the city is forgotten,

@i the present is alive and cali- |

as hundreds pass and read the
il to arms emblazoned on the
iy iner.

* hough divided physically by the
Ber, no city could be more united
} itself. Since Chungking has be-
yne the national capital, its popu-
ion has increased by more than
500. Already 150,000 volunteers
| ve left the province for the front,
® which a good proportion came
m the old-city. If the war con-
ues, Szechwan alone will be able
supply six million soldiers with-
t any difficulty.

Development Speeded

This is a rich province, and the
ir has given a tremendous im-
tus to the development of in-
stry. It has speeded-up the ful-
tment of the plan for Southwest
ina, worked out three years ago,
which this province had a prom-
gent place.

‘The 800-mile long Chungking-
Miangsha road, opened last June,
i@ being used to its full capacity. At
be present time construction work
in progress on the first railway
1e in Szechwan province; the line
ll be 340 miles long and will con-
‘ect up with Chungking and
1engetu.

1e experimental borings reveal
at there are oil reseryers there

great industrial importance.
nee these are opened up and ex-
oited, China will be able to pro-
ice its own oil for the first time
history.
Great hopes are also being
aced on the exploitation of the
Piinerals of the province, coal, iron,
uit and copper.

Economic Base

With a big increase of the areas
nder cotton and rice, the Chi-
ese government considers that it
ill be able to transform Szech-
‘an into a Satisfactory economic
ase for the long war against
apanese aggression.
Wanking University is now at
thungking. Its removal] to a spot
ust outside this city overlooking
deep ravine, and sprinkled with
awns and terraces, symbolizes
thina’s resistance and its deter-
ination to forge ahead with its
dueational and cultural projects
Ss an important weapon against
he Japanese.

A fleet of junks just newly ar-
ived is lined up at the river
ank. Machine parts, machines and
mgines are being unloaded. Al-
eady thousands of toms of ma-
hines, imported into Chungking
luring the last month, have passed
through the river customs. Several
‘arge plants are being transferred
Inere, Some Shanghai factories are
ilso being transferred to Chung-
“cing.
. The temporary capital of China
js becoming an important indus-
ria] and economic centre, the base
f the national liberation ‘war
against Japanese aggression.

Hearst Hit

; NEW YORK, April 7—(FP)—
[The Hearst financial empire moved
@ step nearer dissolution, when it
*¥a&s announced that the publisher's
uxurious Park avenue hotel—Ritz
‘Tower—will be turned over to the

‘bondholders.

Guarantees Collective Bargaining

Labor Bill Before NB House

FREDERICTON, NB, April 7.—
Most important government meas-
ure to be brought down at the
present session of the New Brun-
swick legislature is the “act re-
spectins labor and industrial rela-
tions,” introduced by Hon. J. B.
MeNair, attorney-zeneral and act-
ing minister of health and labor.

Owing to public interest in the
Wew Brunswick bill, it was laid
over for a week before being con-
sidered in committee, to give ample
opportunity for discussion and
hearing of representations.

The bill, similar to Nova Scotia’s
trade union act in scope, declares
the right of labor to organize for
collective bargaining to be “posi-
tive law.’ It does not, however,
provide for “check-off” or “closed
shops.”

Introducing the bill,
General McNair said:

Attorney-

“In asking leave to introduce the
bill now before the house, I do
not for a moment profess that it
will prove the final word of this
legislature in such matters.

“In my opinion, however, it rep-
resents a distinct advance. It con-

tains the best features of existing
legislation in other jurisdictions. It
is, I believe, founded upon sound
principles. -

“Tt will, I feel confident, tend
strongly to stabilize industrial con-
ditions in this province and give to
employers and employes alike that
sense of security which is essential
if this province is to become the
strong factor in the development of
our dominion that we would hope.”

Mie xico

Part of the crowd of |
20,000 trade union-
ists who paraded |
past the presidential
palace in a demon-
stration against im-
perialism and in ap-
proval of President
Cardenas’ expropri-
ation of holdings of
foreign oil compa-
nies who refused to

obey the law.

Nazis Plan
Canditates

German -American

Bund In NY Elections

NEW YORK, April 7.—(FP)—
The Nazi German-American Bund
will enter national and city elec-

; §Oil has been found in Szechwan. |

tions this fall as an independent
political party in association with
“other American patriotic organ-
izations including a prominent
American veterans’ group,’ the
| Hollywood anti-fascist newspaper,
Wow, reveals in a published inter-
view with James Wheeler-Hill, na-
tional secretary of the Bund.

Reached here, Hill verified the
story. The “prominent veterans’
organization, he» admitted, was
either the Veterans of Foreign
Wars or the American Legion—the
Jewish War Veterans being auto-
matically eliminated from possible
Wazi alliances.

The Bund, which now publishes
four pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic news-
papers in the US, will soon publish
four more in different sections of
the country, Hill announced.

Sitting in the Bund office be-
neath two pictures-of Hitler and
a big swastika, Hill boasted that
his organization has 180,000 mem-
bers and $135,000 in dues monthly.

Quite ready to talk, he took the
opportunity to issue a blast against
both the CIO and AFL as “rac-
keteering organizations.” ‘The CiO
is just a little worse,’ he said.

WNew York State Commander
Jeremiah Cross of the American
Legion denied that his organiza-
tion or any group within it would
enter into an “unholy alliance”
with the Nazi organization. The
Veterans of Foreign Wars could
not be reached for comment.

Japanese Barred
From Organizing

Japanese tailors employed by Cla-
man’s, city clothing firm, are not
allowed to organize in the Tailors’
Union, The Trades and Labor Coun-
cil was told last Tuesday. The
union delegate stated that the busi-
ness agent for the union could not
get anywhere near the workers to
organize them, and that the man-
ager declared he wanted to pay
what he liked and hire whom he
liked without interference from the
union.

The council turned the matter
over to the grievance committee for
investigation with power to place
Glaman’s on the unfair list if re-
ports were found correct.

Tailor’s Union delegate reported
that Tip Top, Foster and Charlton-
Morgan were now union shops.

Boycott Japanese Goods.

CLU Compiles Records

Police Have Conducted 71
Padlock Raids In Montreal

MONTREAL, Que, April 7—Up to March 15, there were 71
raids and seizures conducted in this city under the Quebec
padlock law, according to records of the Civil Liberties Union

here.

In addition to these, other raids elsewhere in the province are
reported to have been carried out, but of these the Civil Liber-
ties Union here has records of two only—both in Quebec City.
Wo details of them have appeared in the press.

Among men prominent in public
life whose meetings have been can-
celled because building owners fear-
ed application of the padlock law
are J. K. Marler, counsel for the
Civil Liberties Union, and Rev. R.
B. Y. Scott of the United Church
Theological College.

Adrien Arcand, leader of the fasc-
ist Wational Social Christian party,
was allowed to address McGill Uni-
versity Social Problems Club, but
the club cancelled a scheduled ad-
dress by Tim Buck, Communist
leader, because of the law, at the
same time voting unanimously for
its repeal or disallowance.

Open Fight
For Demands

Cannery Workers In
Seattle File Charges

SEATTLE, Wash., April 7.—A
mass meeting of 3500 and the filing
of charges before the National La-
bor Relations Board, last week
opened the battle of organized
workers for the right to labor in
canneries this year.

‘Applause swept the audience as
a resolution was adopted, unani-
mously, asking that the US Bu-
reau of Fisheries demand that
packers “operate the trap conces-
sions or give them up to those who
will.”

James Engstrom, president of
the Maritime Federation, declared:

“The packers are deliberately at-
tempting to create a shortage of
fish this season so they can import
salmon from foreign countries that
have an abundant supply produced
under cheap labor conditions.

“The same interests that finance
the fishing operations here also fi-
nance fishing operations in the
other countries. Their purpose in
ereating a shortage of fish is to
dispose of their catch at high prices
and import a supply produced un-
der the cheap conditions that exist

in Japan.”

BRIGHOUSE, BC, April 7.
Richmond school board’s request
for a special grant of $1500 for al-
terations and additions to the new
junior high school has been refused
by the municipal council,

Anti-Labor
Measure Hit

Wash. Labor Fights

Union Incorporation

SEATTLE, Wash., April 7—(Spe-
cial.) —Danger to all retail busi-
nesses and farmers in a proposed
State law forcing all labor unions
to incorporate was pointed out this
week by Howard Costigan, execu-
tive secretary of the Washington
Commonwealth Federation, as the
WCF renewed its campaign against
the projected measure.

The WCF spiked an attempt to
put over the Jaw during the last
session of the legislature.

The. Sunday News, official organ
of the CCF, declared in an article
this week that it had learned that
forms are being prepared for an
initiative petition to put the meas-
ure on the ballot for the fall elec-
tion.

“A recent poll of public opinion
shows that if the law were put on

the ballot at this time, 65 per cent |

of the voters of Washington would
approve it,’’ Costigan said. “This
is due purely to public ignorance
of what such a law would mean to
the public at large. A compulsory
incorporation law would leave
unions entirely powerless and give
the state political administration
the power of life and death over
them. The first act of fascist coun-
tries has always been forced incor-
poration of unions.

“With labor unions wiped out,
purchasing power as well as wages
and working conditions would ap-
proach the vanishing point, and all
business and community life would
stagnate. Labor and all sections
of the public must join to fight this
measure.”

Costigan disclosed that the WCPF’,

| the sea.

working with Labor's Non-Partisan
League, AFL and CIO unions and
community groups has launched an
extensive educational campaign
against the incorporation move,
with establishment of a speakers’
bureau and publication in the near

future of a pamphlet explaining
the law by Mark Litchman,
known attorney.

well- |

Loyalists
Offer Stiff

Resistance

Fascist Capture of Coast
Would Render France
Second Class World

Power.

CUT SEA ROUTES

By ROBERT MINOR

BARCELONA, Spain, April
7.—Under a cloud of Italian-
German war planes and led by

a -locust-like swarm of tanks a

large section of the Italian reg- | [

ular army, supported by Moors
and an insignificant number of
Spanish fascist levies, with
10,000 German military tech-
nicians, continues to beat its
way through the mountains to

The Republican Army is offering
a steady, unfrightened resistance
which day by day increases in
Strength and the confidence that
it can do again what it has done in
the past—halt the offensive.

Even though Mussolini's and Hit-
ler’s army succeeded in the pres-
ent objective of reaching the coast,
eutting Barcelona off from Madrid,
Republican Spain can and will
continue to hold out indefinitely.

Come what may, Spain will still
be fighting and going strong a
year from now, even if deserted
and left alone to defend Hurope
from fascist conquest. Spain is
growing not weaker but stronger
and finding new strength in unity,
military experience and its own
War industries.

If some of Spain’s weaker friends
abroad are impelled toward panic,
let their panic be not for Spain
but for France and England and
all the Americas. If the German-
italian forces now in Spain succeed
in consolidating their position on the
coast, on that day the great France
which for a quarter of a century
was the strongest and ~proudest
military power on earth, will be-
come overnight a second class
power, while England will be an
island in the Atlantic whose states-
men will face again the problem
of Columbus, of reaching India by
Sailing West.

Aimed at France

One can understand why un-
precedented quantities of German
and Italian war materials were
poured into this drive toward the
sea, and why Italian submarines
With new Spanish names are ap-
pearing in Spanish waters, only
by understanding that this is the
other half of the policy expressed
in the occupation of Austria. It is
a move to realize Hitler’s well-
known objective to cut France’s
communication with its great
French-African reserves.

Italian occupation of Majorca, if
consolidated, will practically de-
stroy the all-sea route from Africa
to France for troop transports.
There remains one slender connec-
tion by railway from the French
border to Alicante and Almeria,
with a short sea jump to French
Morrocco. The German-Italian
drive toward the Spanish Mediter-
ranean coast is intended to cut this
last line for France.

Hitler's Next Objective
After sueceeding in this Hitler
hopes to talk to France as Poland
talks to Lithuania, and Switzer-
Jland, Czechoslovakia and Belgium
would be expected to shuffle off
the Schuschnige way.

Perhaps some well-meaning per-
sons are telegraphing false reports
to the effect that Spain is now re-
ceiving substantial shipments of
war materials. It is time to quit
lying about this; to quit flattering
the cowardice that in violation of
treaties and international] law
leaves this heroic people to resist
almost barehanded an invasion by
two powerful nations, that is only
preliminary to war against all dem-
ocratic nations of the world.

Spain is receiving no substantial
war materials from abroad. But the
Italian-German fascist invaders
are murdering thousands of wom-
en and children with materials
now being bought freely in Eng-
land, probably in France and cer-
tainly in America, where fascist
shrewdness plays upon the timidity
and confusion of the so-called lib-
erals, to make that country the
accomplice in a brutal totalitarian
war of aggression.

Backs Peace Bill

SEATTLE, Wash., April 7—(¥P)
—Rep. John M. Coffee (Dem.,
Wash.) has written to Howard
Costigan, executive secretary of the
Washington Commonwealth Fed-
eration, pledging aggressive sup-
port to the O’Connell peace bill to
embargo aggressor nations and al-
low shipment of supplies to victim

Ivan Papinin

one of the Soviet scientists who
drifted on an ice floe from the
North Pole to the shores of
Greenland, where rescue was ef-
fected by WRussian icebreakers,
rides in triumph through the
streets of MLeningrad, accom-

panied by his wife.

fee

Guildsmen

Get Awards

Harvard Fellowships
Go To News Guildsmen

NEW YORK, April 7.— (FP) —
Five out of the nine American
newspapermen who were awarded
Wieman fellowships for a year’s
study at Harvard are members of
the American Newspaper Guild, the
Guild Reporter announces.

The guildsmen are Irving Dil-
liard, St. Louis Post-Despatch;
Louis M. Lyons, Boston Globe;
Wesley Fuller, Boston Herald; Ed-
win A. Lahey, Chicago Daily News,
and Frank S. Hopkins, Baltimore
Sun. 8

Competing for the fellowships
were 312 newspapermen represent-
ing 195 papers in forty-four states.
The fellowships were established
under the terms of the Lucius W.
Nieman and Agnes Wahl Nieman
fund of approximately $1,000,000,
given to Harvard “to promote and
elevate the standards of journalism
in the US and educate persons
deemed specially qualified for jour-
nalism.”

IZING
Will Fight
or Higher
Wage Scale

Three W holes alers

Have Stranglehold
Over All But Six
Firms.

CONDITIONS BAD

Workers in the boot and shoe
industry in Vancouver, an in-
dustry where miserably poor
wages and working conditions
obtain and where three large
wholesale firms maintain a
stranglehold over small em-
ployers, are now being or-
ganized, the Advocate learned
this week.

Of some 400 shoe repair shops in

”)

of the big firms and therefore in
a position to deal with employees
without interference. Skilled work
ers are paid’ from as low as $10 a
week tp to $18, boys learning the
trade $5. 5

The method used by wholesalers
to control small shops is that of
Giving large credits and stock for
a time until business falls off. A
dictatorial policy is then laid down
with monopoly prices charged for
leather, rubber and other material
used in shoe repairing.

Prices of leather and rubber heels
have doubled in the last six months
in British Columbia under this
monopoly, only the few independ-
ents being in a position to buy from
eastern Canada. Sole dominion”
rights for certain repair material
may be obtained by a national firm,
which, in turn, gives sole rights
to a firm in BG; then the whole-
salers get a profit, until the retailer
is left barely enough to pay the
rent of his shop. The individual ©
operator who works in his own
little shop is in an even worse posi-
tion.

Three weeks ago workers at the
bench formed a union affiliated to
the AFIL. They are demanding a
minimum of $24 a week against
$22.50 offered by some department
stores. Shops paying the union de-
mands will display the union card,
and a general appeal will be issued
by the union for patronage of those
shops cooperating with labor:

Nazis Snubbed

DUBLIN, IFS, April 7. — The
Irish pilgrimage to the Interna-
tional Eucharistic Congress in
Hungary this year has decided to
refuse to travel via Germany as a
protest against the persecution by
the Nazi government of the Catho-
lic Church. This is the first protest
that has been gaade by the Catholic
clergy in TIreland against treat-
ment of the church by fascist

Germany.

Trades Council Storm

Trades and Labor Council last

a motion that a speaker be sent,
when it is in order to move that
a speaker be not sent?” a delegate
at the back of the hall asked.

“Because the Trades and Labor
Congress does not recognize May
1 as labor day,’’ President Jamieson
lamely replied.

On behalf of the council’s execu-
tive Secretary Bengough recom-
mended filing of a request from the
May Day committee that a speaker
be appointed by the council.

“What about the appointment of
a speaker at last year’s celebra-
tions?” Delegate W. Stewart ex-
elaimed.

“Can't help that, I was not in the
ehair at that time,’ Jamieson
stated.

“May Day originated in 1886, and
the 8-hour day is celebrated,” Sam
Shearer shouted, declaring that to
refuse support would be to play in-
to the hands of reaction. *‘This will
be the only trades council in the
dominion to refuse participation,”’
he said.

“Question,” someone shouted,
and a count of votes showed 54-58
against the executive’s recom-
mendation.

Said Bill Stewart of Local 28,
Hotel and Restaurant Workers:

“T move that this council appoint
a speaker for the May Day meet-
ing.”

Jamieson countered by ruling the

motion out of order. Cries of
“Mussolini” greeted this, and
Shearer challenged the chair but

was ruled out.

countries.

Boycott Japanese Goods.

“Why is it out of order to make i

May Day Motion Vetoed
Despite Majority Vote

A belated but pertinent question put to the chair at the

Tuesday exposed the executive

committee’s boycott of the proposed May Day celebration in
spite of a 54-58 vote in favor of sending’ an official speaker ta
the planned meeting at Stanley

Park on that day.

Red-Baiting
Bill Vetoed

NY Governor Hits
Anti-Labor Group

ALBANY, NY, April 7—(FP)—
Governor H. Lehman of New York
dealt a staggering blow to red-bait-
ing when he vetoed the McNaboe
bill to bar radicals from civil serv-
ice and teaching positions, declar-
ing that the safeguarding of de-
mocracy makes it necessary to
avoid repressive legislation which
would encourage measures directed
“seainst religious, racial, labor and
other minority groups.’

Calling the bill “vicious,” the
governor said that any curb on free
public discussion “undermines the
very foundation of constitutional
government.” He said he is Op-
posed to Communism, but that the
greatest danger to democracy
“comes through gradual invasion
of constitutional rights with the
acquiescence of an inert people
through failure to discern that con-
stitutional government cannot sur=
vive where the rights guaranteed
by the constitution are not safe-
suarded even to those citizens with
whose political and social views
the majority may not agree-

The measure was railroaded
through the legislature followed 2
campaign of Tory and Fascis
groups against Simon W. Gerson,
former reporter on the Communist
Daily Worker, who was appointed
confidential examiner by the Man-
hattan borough president.

the city only six are independent *

§