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Page Two

THE PEOPLE”

S ADVOCATE

June 10, 1938. #4

THE PEOPLE’S
ADVOCATE

Published Weekly by the
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Room 10, i163 W. Hastings Street
Vancouver, B.C., Phone, Trin. 2019

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FRIDAY, JUNE 10, 1933

Work and Wages—
The Only Solution

B. BENNETT, one of

72 Canada’s Cliveden set,

is again raving in the House
of Commons, this time about
the “collapse of government”
in Vancouver, referring, of
course, to the matter of the
sit-downers in the post office.

Old Iron Heel wants heads
eracked and blood—workers’
blood—to flow, and there is
the danger that when the po-
litical considerations of the
Saskatchewan elections no
longer press, the King gov-
ernment may be inclined to
yield to his clamorings and to
the echoing whine of Mayor
Miller, the political Charlie
McCarthy of the BCElectric
and every other reactionary

group.

Bennett declares that “the
Dominion’s own property
(the post office) can not be
safeguarded by the Canadian
people.” But the post office
property is being safeguarded
now by a section of the Ca-
nadian people —that section
which is on a sit-down demon-
stration within its walls.

Meanwhile, agents of the
CIB (Criminal Investigation
Branch) of the RCMP are
moving among the men trying
to provoke them and stir up
trouble in order to provide an
excuse for an attack and the
hoary old lie that the most of
the men are non-residents of
BC is being assiduously cir-
culated.

The argument that some of
these men—and a small min-
ority at that—are not the re-
sponsibility of BC but of other
provinces is an argument
which assists the opponents of
national unity, who seek to
set province against province
and the provinces against the
Dominion. It serves only to
emphasize that the problem of
unemployment is a national
one which must be met by the
federal government, just as
the question of unemploy-
ment insurance is a national
responsibility which Canada’s
finance capitalist interests,
through Premiers Hepburn of
Ontario and Duplessis of Que-
bec, are reluctant to have the
federal government answer
because it would help defeat
their own selfish aims.

This does not mean, how-
ever, that the city council and
the provincial government are
not responsible for the main-
tenance of the unemployed
until such time as they, with
the backing of the unem-
ployed, compel the federal au-
thorities to act.

The men in the post office
and art gallery, backed as
they are by public opinion,
are undoubtedly bringing tre-
mendous pressure to bear on
the federal sovernment to as-

sume its rightful responsi-
bility, and this shouid be ap-
preciated by the city council
and the provincial govern-
ment. The campaign launched
by the Relief Project Work
ers’ Union for money to send
a mass delegation to Victoria
is meeting with enthusiastic
support from the public and
from all labor and progres-
sive organizations in partic-
ular. Already the Trades and
Labor Council has gone on
record as supporting it, thus
setting an example and giving
impetus to the campaign.

It would be well if the au-
thorities would recognize the
fine conduct of the single un-
employed men both inside the
art gallery and post office and

outside. They might also take
note of their organization, and
not attempt any tricks, for if
they try to prevent a mass
delegation from going to Vic-
toria and at the same time
have the post office and art
gallery vacated, they may
find themselves up against an
even more embarrassing
situation — to themselves —
than that occasioned by the
occupation of those buildings.

Not Much Time Left

7HNHE deadline for disallow-

ance of the Quebec pad-
lock law is July 8, just five
weeks from now. The federal
government has shown no in-
clination to disallow it and
the only inference is that it is
in. favor of it. If they are not
in favor of it, then they must
be influenced in their attitude
by big business of HBastern
Canada in whose interests
Premier Duplessis passed the
law.

This law is a fascist one, a
pistol pointed at the heart of
every Canadian trade union.
Its aim is to make illegal all
organizations of the working-
class of Quebec by smashing
the trade unions first. And al-
though it is confined to Que-
bee as yet, a precedent is set
whereby big business else-
where will be encouraged to
put like legislation on the
statute books.

When it was first passed

protests were sent to Premier
Duplessis and Prime Minister
Mackenzie Kins, and the cam-
paign has steadily grown in
-yolume. But even greater
pressure must be brought to
bear on the federal govern-
ment.

Fascism, the terrorist pro-
gram of big capital, must be
uprooted in Quebec before its
poisonous feelers can extend
to other parts of the country.

Bravo, Kingston!

UBLIC feeling is turning

against Canadian fascists.
Following Arcand’s boast last
January that Canada would
be “all fascist by the end of
1938,” meetings were held be-
tween Quebec and Ontario
fascists to unite their organiz-
ations. A convention was
planned to be held in Kings-
ton, Ontario, the end of this
mont,h, to unite all fascist
groups on a national scale.

However, the people of
Kingston a city that once
housed the headquarters of
the Canadian government —
have protested most vigorous-
ly against their city being dis-
graced by a fascist convention
being held there. The city
council has declared that no
public buildings will be avail-
able for this purpose.

But this does not imply
that Canadian fascism is in
retreat. In Toronto five men
in the uniform of the Royal
Canadian Artillery entered a
fascist meeting, and saluted
Adrien Arcand, while the au-
dience applauded.- Even in
the Vancouver militia they
are said to be quite active.

And we should not be de-
ceived by R. B. Bennett's
statements in the House of
Commons, disclosing activi-
ties of Nazi spies, into believ-
ing that Bennett and his kind
are opposed to fascism in Can-
ada.

There are Nazi spies in this
country who must be rooted
out and deported, but Cana-
dian fascism must also be

dealt with and uprooted. Fas-
cists of the Canadian type are
agents of big business, of
which R. B. Bennett is a
representative. Ii Bennett
were opposed to fascism here
he would have worked in
pariament for the disallow-
ance of the Padlock Law.

Aroused to the fascist
threat by the warnings of the
teaching staff of Queen’s Uni-
versity, Kingston has set an
example to other cities. The
action of its city council proves
again that all that is needed
to erush it out is unified op-
position of the people.

Preamble of Brief To Rowell Commission

Communists On National Unity

E WILL undertake to show the depths of poverty to which the Canadian people have

been reduced today after 70 years of Confederation.
social measures demanded of the government to bring
to the people. It will then be shown that these measures req
national unification, and that in the alternative we

a big-business, fascist domain.

Tt is well to preface this course
of argument by a brief statement
of our position an a number of
contentious questions, which may
otherwise obscure the view.
1.—Unsound Interpretations

of Constitutional History.
T THE outset, we wish to dis-
sociate ourselves from the

prevailing unsound theories of
Canada’s constitutional history.
Much of the confusion in regard
to the tasks of your commission
arises from the effort to interpret
the history and present-day prob-
lems of Canada’s “Constitution”
as the working out of two hostile
“constitutional principles’”’ in the
abstract, the principle of the
priority of provincial rights in
Confederation and the principle
of centralized national govern-
ment. All attempts to interpret
history on this basis end in a
maze of confusion, which the his-
torian puts down to the “incon--
Sistencies’”’ of the men who made
history. The same may be said or
the attempts being made to re<-
solve on this basis the present-
day problems of the constitution
ana structure of government iz
Canada, which is the problem be-
fore your commission.

The constitutional history of
Canada is really the history of
the struggle between the demo-
eratie masses of ‘workers and
farmers and the vested interests
and monopoly.

“Constitutional principles’ in
the astract have no significance
in that struggle. In one instance,
the democratic forces will be
found using provincial rights
against the reactionary control of
the central government povyers.
In recent times, this has fre-
quently been the case in the con-
flict of the western provinces
with the central government. In
another instance, reactionary
vested interests will be found en-
trenched in sectional positions op-
posing democratic reform
through the central government.
This has been the general ten-
deney since Confederation. But
it is necessary to establish the
fact that the concrete relations
of the social forces determine the
constitutional issue at any given
historical time.

Under one set of circumstances,
centralized’ national government
may serve the interests of the
democratic masses in their strug-
gle for economic improvements
and democratic rights; under an-
other set of circumstances, cen-
tralized national government,
dominated by reactionary vested
interests, may stand as a barrier
to democratic progress. To under-—
stand each historical phase of the
conflict on “constitutional prin-
ciples” in Canada, the underlying
social and economic forces must
be understood. To understand the
present constitutional problems
of Canada, we must examine the
social and economic interests of
the Canadian people which are in
conflict with the dominant finan-
cial cireles.

This is the case because of the
very nature of the democratic
eonstitution of Canada, in which
capitalism prevails. The constitu-
tion, insofar as we have a consti-
tution, .records some of the
formal rights of citizens; but no
regard is taken of the conditions
for exercising these rights, the
possibility or means of exercis-
ing them.

The political equality of all
citizens is spoken of. But real
political equality between the
capitalist and the workman, be-
tween the railway magnate and
the farmer is impossible if the
former exercise great political in-
fluence in society because of the
ownership of vast means of pro-
duction, while the latter are
ground down in poverty- The
material basis of real political
equality and democracy is lack-
ing because exploiting classes

We will set out the economic and
economic improvement and security
uire the completion of Canadian
face the disaster of our country becoming

dominate the economic life of
the nation. The masses have at-
tained democratic rights in their
struggle for economic improve-
ment and security against the
vested interests.

Constitutional principles must
therefore be understood in rei-
erence to this struggle of the peo-
ple.

2.—The Incomplete National

Unification Achieved by

Confederation and Its

Consequences.

HEY Confederation of Canadian

provinces achieved in 1867
was the direct but delayed out-
growth of the revolutionary dem-
oecratic movements of the Cana-
dian people of one hundred years
ago, striving to free themselves
from the oppressing yoke of the
“Family Compact” and establish
“responsible government.” The
true “Fathers of Confederation”’
are William Lyon Mackenzie and
Louis Papineau. The achieve-
ments represented by Confedera-
tion were the partial realization
of the democratic aspirations of
the revolutionary movement of
the people.

In its actual form, Confedera-
tion represented a compromise of
the rising industrial capitalist
class, desiring internal free trade
and central jurisdiction over ex-
ternal trade, with pre-capitalist
and semi-feudal influences, seek-
ing to preserve the powers of
landlordism and feudalism in the
provinces. The rising industrial
capitalist class, which owed its
wiectory over feudal and colonial
restrictions to the democratic
masses, was more fearful of the
democratic sentiments among the
people than of the anti-capitalist
forces. F

Hence, Confederation sought to
confine democracy within the
narrowest limits, establishing the
senate, restricting the franchise,
leaving full power to reaction in
the provincial sphere and pre-
serving Many undemocratic fea-
tures of colonial rule: The semi-
feudal system of Quebec was in-

corporated into Confederation
practically unchanged, because
the rising industrial capitalist

class saw advantages for itself
in the maintenance of the de-
graded position of the Hrench-
Canadian people.

While internal free trade and
central control of external trade
were essentially attained, the
economic disunity of the new
nation remained. National unifi-
cation was incomplete.

The consequences of this in-
complete national unification
have been felt in Canada’s eco-
nomic and social development
since Confederation.

Quebee has been maintained as
an “economic zone’’ of especially
low living standards, deprived of
the social and cultural attain-
ments of the rest of the people
of Canada. The effect of this on
the formation and development
of the capitalist “home market,”
which has an important bearing
on the whole economic develop-
ment of the country, is obvious.
The free national development of
capitalism rests among other
things upon the establishment of
“equal conditions” for the invest-
ment of capital. “Unequal condi-
tions”’ for the investment of capi-
tal in CGanada have been pre-
served since Confederation hbe-
cause of the incomplete national
unification.

This situation has in late
years become the means in the
hands of monopoly of retarding
and blocking the movements of
the workers and farmers for de-
cent Canadian standards of liv-
ing.

The absence of complete na-
tional unification has placed
agriculture in a position of spe-
cial subordinaton to industry,

the agrarian provinces of Canada
standing in relation to the cen-
tral provinces as “exploited ag-
rarian colonies.”

3.—The Economic Crisis and
and the Developing Con-
stitutional Crisis in
Canada.
HE economic crisis through
which our country has passed
unleashed upon the common peo-
Ple the full fury of monopoly
capital faced with declining prof-
its.

All of the terrible social and
economic consequences of the
concentration of control and
ownership of Canadian economy
in the hands of a narrowing
circle of financial magnates came?
to a head. The national income,
already distributed to the over-
whelming advantage of the vest-
ed monopoly interests, under-
went a violent redistribution as
a result of the frantic efforts of
monopoly capital to
their profits at the expense of the
nation.

Etundreds of thousands of
.workers were reduced to utter
destitution, while the income of
the masses of Canadian workers
and farmers and middle-class
people was drastically reduced.

The economic

of governmental relationships.

Qut of the crisis arose great
movements of the people to pre-
serve their living standards. The
municipal and provincial govern-
ments had to assume the mount-
ing costs of unemployment relief
and hospitalization.

Thus, the major costs of the
erisis have been raised through
the channels of municipal and
provineial taxation. While the
national income was being dras-
tically redistributed to the ad-
vantage of the dominant finan-
cial interests, the costs of the
erisis were being loaded upon
the shoulders of those least able
to pay.

This ted almost universally to
a2 crisis of municipal financing
and to a deepening of the eco-
nomic crisis. it breught the
prairie provinces to bankruptcy.
bhnder the conditions of national
disunity, the meeting of the
costs of the erisis out of re-
Bional taxation powers only
served to accentuate the tendency
to maintain the profits of the
dominant financial interests at
the expense of the living stand-
ards of the people.

This general tendency was still
further accentuated by the fact
that the federal government, in-
stead of an increasing taxation
upon large incomes and profits,
increased the taxation on articles
of consumption, thus further cur-
tailing the share of the masses
in the total product, and further
Sharpening the crisis.

This general situation has been
a contributing factor in deter:
mining the exceptional character
of the past two years of economic
revival.

While production has not at-
tained the level of 1929, profits
and dividends have far exceeded
the pre-crisis level, but living
Standards have improved little,
and for large sections of the
population there has been a fur-
ther decline in living standards.
The inequitable distribution of
crisis costs though taxation has
served to accentuate the further
redistribution of the national in-
eOme to the advantage of the
rich during the period of revival.

In short, the crisis has brought
to a head the necessity of central
government responsibility for the
costs of the crisis and the na-
tional distribution of those costs
through taxation according to
ability to pay.

(To be continued)

Letters

No Work
At Quesnel

Editor, People’s Advocate.

Dear Sir: There is a number
of men coming to Quesnel daily,
looking for jobs, and I wish to
state that it would be just as easy
to climb +o the moon as to geta
job here. Their lodging is aleng
the bank of the river, which is
extremely cold at night.

To help solve the problem of
the unemployed, the present gulf
between the jobless and those
who have jobs must be bridged
until the solidarity becomes so
strong that sympathy strikes can
be organized.

The vast majority of the people
hate capitalism, which is exposed
in all its nakedness to all, and
now is the proper time to begin
a wide movement for unity. f
invite readers to express their
opinions on this through this
column.

PETE LAZAROFF.

Quesnel, BC.

From Our Readers

Public Works
Program Needed

Editor, People’s Advocate:

Dear Sir,—I was pleased to
note that you took to task a
little the Rev. Andrew Roddan,
who is, in my opinion, a political
parson leaning strongly to sen-
sationalism. He was one who
handed his pulpit to that out-
standing hypocrite Gerry McGeer
on one occasion.

At that period Gerry didn’t
eare for hell or high water, as
he was out to save the world via
the money reform system and
other routes.

I have three boys myself,
grown into manhood, who are in
the category of “jobless.” Last
fall one of them was laid off the
P.G.E. on reduction of staff and
13 other men with him. Some of
the other men had i3 and i4
years’ service I am told. Another
of my boys (a young man), was
laid off about a month ago at

another place and whether he is
re-employed again I am unable to
say. You see the provincial gov-
ernment railroad (P.GE.) con-
tributes to unemployment the
same as anyone else.

The Hudson’s Bay laid off over
200 men not long ago I am told.
McLennan and McFfeeley laid off
60 or 70 also. A conductor on the
B.C. Electric told me yesterday
he had got a boy, 21 years of
age, who had been through high
school and taken a business
course and was unable to get
work. I guess you know bhun-
dreds of such cases. Some of
these saw mills are only just
keeping their plants going.

Quite recently I contacted one
of the single unemployed Men on
Hastings street. He said he was
Scotch and his mother and
father both dead, and he be-
longed to Hastings Bast. He said
it was piffle to say a great num-
ber of these men were from the
prairie. G. J.

Vancouver, BC.

SHORT

maintain ,

erisis has)
brought about the present crisis

JABS

Co®

By
OL? BIEL

see + le i tsbaes, 5

Charlie The vindictiveness

_ of Mayor “Charlie
McCarthy x7eGarthy” Miller in
Miller. hounding his police
onto the unemployed boys who
tried to get something to eat by
selling tickets for a ball game;
is equalled only by the relentless
brutalities of Hitlers and Musso- —
lini's morons.

The clubbing and jailing of
workers and intellectuals, the in-
dignities and tortures heaped
upon the Jewish people, by these
two neurotic and syphilitic mad-~
men and their equally degenerate ~
worshippers and toadies are no ~
worse than Millers sentencing ©
to death by starvation 1500 Ca-
nadians, mostly youngsters, any
one of whom is a better man, as ~
manhood should be judged, than
Miller.

Miller is a stooge for the
Shipping Federation, the Lumber
men’s Association, the mine-salt
ers and the transportation mon-
opoly, the would-be Hitlers and
Mussolinis and it is up to the peo-
ple of Vancouver to see that the ©
boys eat—and organize to push ~
“Charlie McCarthy’ Miller into

the discard at the next election.
= = *

Sic 'Pransit The British patri-
SS otism of the school
Patriotism. :

books that told
how a British private soldier cap-
tured by the Chinese in an early
war allowed himself to be be-
headed rather than kow-tow to
the Chinese empress, is taking it
on the chin these days.

A photo in the English papers
shows the eleven players of the
English international footbail
team that played against Ger-
many in Berlin a few weeks ago
giving the Nazi salute before the
kick-off. That, however, is a2
minor incident in comparison with
the lickspittling of Herr Cham-
berlain’s stooge, Lord Halifax, in
his dealings with the fascist bul-
lies.

On the day of the signing of the
British-Italian gangster pact to
smash democracy in Spain and
establish a jumping-off place for
the attack on France and the
Soviet Union, the Thunderer pub-
lished the following official state-
ment from the foreign office:
“The German government have
been kept fully informed of the
negotiations throughout so that
there can be no question cf any-
thing but harmony and collabora-
tion between the Powers.” (Times,
April i6.)

= = * =

7 : Again when the An-
No Quid 15-French talks with
Pro Quo. Daladier and Bonnet
took place, Halifax extended
courteous confidence to Rome on
the same day and made a detailed
report to Count Grandi.

But when Hitler and Mussolini
met in Rome they proved to be
like the daisies—daisies won’t tell.
At the League of Nations confer-
ence at Geneva at the beginning
of May the press secretary of
the Eineglish delegation approached
the journalists assembled at a
press conference and asked them,
“Have any of you any news about
what Hitler told Mussolini? Lord
Halifax would be glad to have it
if you have.” (London Referee,
May 5.)

It is not surprising that in the
League discussions on Spain, Hali-
fax cut the most contemptible
figure ever made by a British
statesman, and that the real atti-
tude of the British people was
voiced by the labor delegate of
the New Zealand government.

= = *
Blood Now that the Brit-
Will Tell. ish aristocrats are

prohibited “from ac-
cepting money from newly-rich
American sausage kings, pill-
mixers, soap-boilers and kraut-
picklers for introducing them to
the King, some of them are turn-
ing their attention to espionage
and provocation.

In the recent Moscow trials,
one of these birds, “L'ady” Muriel
Paget, was exposed as a spy in the
Service of the British Intelligence
Service. A few days ago, “Hon.”
Unity Freeman-Mitford, a daugh-
ter of Lord Redesdale, sister-in-
law of the “Hon.’’ Guinness of the
British peerage who sits in the
House of Commons and interjects
insulting comments when Willie
Gallacher or one of the Labor
members is speaking, a personal
friend of Hitler, Goering, Goeb-
bels and the obscene Streicher,
was discovered by Czech soldiers
in a military defence zone in
Czechoslovakia.

What was this blue-blood Mos-
leyite doing in Czechoslovakia?
Undoubtedly she was sent in by
her “idol” Hitler, as a “provoca-
tor’ to make the basis of an “in-
cident” necessary to the murder
designs of the German Nazis.

It is thought-provoking, how
these fascist birds can move
around while people like Willie
Gallacher are refused passports
and visas, both to leave Britain
and to enter other countries, as
happened recently when Gallacher
was invited to the Communist
party convention in the Wnited
States.