Page Two

THE Ps OP es aS

ADVOCATE

August 19, 1938

THE
PEOPLE’S ADVOCATE

Published Weekly by the Proletarian Publishing
Association, Room 10, 163 West Hastings Street,
Vancouver, B.C. Phone Trinity 2019.

Single Copy--..— = -05
Make All Cheques Payable to: The People’s Advocate

Vancouver, B.C., Friday, August 19, 1938

Does Vancouver Want a Dictator?

Hie agents of the bankers and bond-

holders are speeding up their campaign
for a city manager for Vancouver. The pro-
mioters of the plan are taking full advantage
of the incompetence, wastefulness, extrava-
gance and all-round flaunting of the will and
desires of the great mass of the people by
Mayor Miller and the majority of the present
city council in order to fool the people and
“put it over”.

“Eetficiency,” “Good government,” and other
demagogic catehwords are flung about to
pull the wool over the eyes of the voters and
stampede them into voting for something
which at first slance may look good on the
representations of those who are conducting
the campaisn, but which would be contemp-
tuously rejected upon examination.

Vancouver is pictured as being on the
verge of bankruptcy, with a city manager
as the form of fuehrer who can save it from
that fate. The threat of imcreased taxes is
used to the same end. The members of the
city council are being bludgeoned by threats
of organised opposition to them if they should
run for reelection.

False comparisons are made with Cincin-
nati, where there is a city manager and
where there is a lower mill rate. But the
propagandists for a city manager for Vancou-
ver, like all reactionary propagandists, do
not tell the citizens that assessments in Cin-
Cinnati are more than twice as high as in
Vancouver. Nor do they tell us that the
US city receives revenue from the gasoline
tax, the inheritance tax, the cigarette and
sales taxes as well as other sources of revenue
whieh Vancouver does not receive.

One of the reasons why the mill rate is
so high in Vancouver is the number of ex-
emptions of big property holders from taxa-
tion, while there are other big concerns
which pay nothing at all in taxes. It is quite
natural that the average home owner fears
an increase in taxes, and there is a danger
that he may be frightened into grasping at
the city manager straw.

The banks and bondholders want their
pound of flesh, They want their full interest
payments no matter how high taxes have to
go on the small home owner or if they have
to destroy democratic municipal government
to secure those payments. But the citizens
should remember the fate of North Van-
couver and Burnaby which are in the hands
of dictators imposed on them by the Pattulle
machine, and where the citizens are prepar-
ing to struggle for the return of representa-
tive, democratic municipal government.

The adoption of the city manager plan
would place infinitely greater power in the
hands of the financial interests, for it would
be those oppressors and bleeders of the people
who would determine who the manager-
dictator would be. The holding out of the
prospect of a larger city council is just bait,
for with a city manager such a body would
be reduced to a debating club with no more
real power than Hitler gives to his Reichstag.

By means of a high-pressure campaign and
+he use of demagogy and a huge slush fund
contributed by the same interests that now
want a dictator, the so-called Non-Partisan
League last year secured tighter control over
the city council than it had before.

The way to get better municipal govern-
ment is not to take the fatal road which the
German and Italian people have been forced
to tread, but in a wider democracy in muni-
cipal government. And this means a stern
fight against the promoters of the city man-
ager plan by the forces of progress which
should, without delay, get together on putting
a single slate of progressive candidates in the
field against the candidates of the bond-
holders.

33

A Wise Position

HE CCF is to be congratulated upon its

position, as expressed editorially in the
current issue of the Federationist, that “it is
not too early for the CCF and the labor move-
ment to be planning how best ... . to place the
strongest, ablest group of progressive Civic
candidates in the field and to ensure their
victory over any combination of ‘big business’
representatives by securing electoral sup-
port.”

These are inspiring words, presaging the
forward sweep of the entire progressive
movement in Vancouver. If electoral unity
is achieved—and there is mo reason why it
should not be—new confidence will be born
in thousands of progressive citizens, while
thousands more will be brought into the orbit
of the progressive movement by the strength
of united effort on civic matters.

In this, and this way alone, can victory of
the progressive forces at the polls be assured
and an answer to the advocates of dictator-
ship in civic affairs given by a progressive
council elected by the people to carry out the
people’s demands.

Three Months... $_.50-

By Charlies Stewart

10mentous Meeting

‘HEN , One year ago, the Trades and Labor Congress of Canada took its stand for unity
in the Canadian trade union movement the decision was applauded by organized work-

ers everywhere.

In the ensuing twelve months those of us who bear the great responsibility of building
and guiding the trade unions have seen the practical value of this policy.

By the correct carrying out of
the decisions of the last two con-
ventions we have seen what is al-
most a complete
transformation
of the trade
union movement
in British Co-
2 lumbia.

Thousands of
new members
Shave been re
eruited to our
= ranks and, as a
¥ result, thous
3 ands of workings
people in this
province have
been enabled to
win better
wages and improved working con-
ditions. What this has meant in
terms of human happiness is in-
calculable.

Now another convention, the
o4th, of the Trades and Labor
Congress of Canada approaches.
What will it bring forth? What
decisions will it make? On the
answer to these questions depends
the welfare of hundreds of thous-
ands of Canadian working people.

cS)

RGANTZED labor in BC is al-
most solidly behind the main-
tenance and extension of the unity
policy determined by the past two
conventions. Labor realizes that a
split can only benefit its enemies,
those same enemies who are
working desperately to destroy its

organization.

Reaction is gambling much on
the 54th convention when if
opens on September 12 at Niagara
to assist it in disruption of the
trade union movement so that the
plans of finance capital can be
earried out, so that the living
standards of the Canadian people
ean be cut down to bare subsist-
ence levels, so that more and still
more profits can be wrung from
industry.

Reaction by itself cannot destroy
our trade unions. That is why big
business in this province, hoping

GC. Stewart

for a split at the forthcoming con-
vention, has endeavored and to
some extent succeeded in obtain-
ing for its policy in the ranks of
organized labor in the persons of
certain trade union officials.

e@

HAT many of these officials

know full well the conse
quences of a split cannot be denied
and they must be exposed and
discredited in the trade union
movement. Some of them, how-
€ver, are honestly confused, be-
lieving that they are serving the
interests of the craft union move-
ment. Wothing, of course, could be
farther from the truth and there
is no doubt that once they see
their mistakes they can be won
for trade union unity.

At the 1936 convention, there
were many opposed to unity who,
when they saw one year later
that 40,000 new members had been
gained for organized labor
through correct pursuit of this
policy and realized what could be
accomplished, were among the
most ardent supporters of unity.

There are a few trade union
leaders who fear a strong trade
union movement because it may
force them into the position of
being the voices of a militant
membtrship. These leaders have
been well paid. They are in com-
fortable positions. They don’t
want to do anything to disturb the
peaceful existence they have en-
joyed so lons—even though the
threat of reaction, of fascism,
Srows with the days.

Se

VERY trade union local in

Canada should do its utmost

to find ways and means of send-

ing delegates to the forthcoming

eonvention, demanding the main-

tenance and extension of the
status quo.

All locals should send resolu-
tions to the convention on this all-
important question. Organized
labor must make its demands
known,

A strong stand for unity at the
54th Congress will be an inspira—
tion~ and an incentive to thous-
ands of unorganized workers to
join our ranks. It will be an add-
ed incentive for closer co-optra-
tion with the Catholic Syndicates
and other trade union centres. It
will bring within our reach the
possibility of one trade union
centre in Canada.

_ Hope and encouragement will
be given to our fellow trade union-
istS in the United States where,
despite the overwhelming desire
for unity, bitter internal strife
has raged for two years.

ie THE last issue of the Motor-
man and Conductor, official
organ of the Street Railwaymen’s
Union, an editorial appeared de-
manding that labor’s civil war in
the United States be halted and
that the energies trade unionists
expended fighting each other be
joined to fight the employer.

The editorial stated that those
trade union leaders who could not
hear and heed the voice of the
membership would have to be re—
placed by better and more able
men who would work in the in-
terest of the membership.

Such a statement is significant
when it is remembered that W. D.
Mahon, international president of
the union, is also a member of the
general executive board of the
American Hederation of Labor.

The leadership of the Trades
and Labor Congress of Canada
must be commended for its stand
in allowing no obstacle to come
in the way of its determination to
maintain the status quo. All over
this country workers are looking
to it to maintain and extend this
stand. T believe that they will not
be disappointed, for a strong trade
union movement in Canada is at
once a guarantee of the defeat of
reaction and the security of our
democratie institutions.

News-Herald Backs Franco

By Malcolm Bruce

ESPITE the spate of skilful imperialistic, pro-fascist propaganda, in the dissemination of

which the daily newspapers of Vancouver play an ignoble part, the national government
of Chamberlain is being revealed as the abettor of Hitler and Mussolini in spreading war
throughout the world and in the invasion of Spain in particular.

Exceptionally glaring is the role
of the News-Herald in trying to
cover up Chamberlain, with his
hypocritical talk
of “appease-
ment,” and in
its support of
italian and Ger-
Man invasion of
Spain and the
Slaughter of its
heroic people.

In an editorial
appearing re
cently it comes
out shamelessly
for assistance to
Franco. After

sorrowfully ad-
mitting that the last and most de-
termined onslaught by tht lezions
of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco
against the loyalists has failed
dismally, the editorial goes on to
praise Chamberlain for having
“kept that nation (Britain) out of
the struggle.”

But Chamberlain has not kept
out of the struggle. Although he
did not send British troops to
Spain to fight on the sidt of
Franco, he encouraged Hitler and
Mussolini to send troops, guns,
airplanes and everything else
needed to assist the Spanish fas-
cist traitors in the fight against
the Spanish people and its govern-
ment, while at the same time im-
posing non-intervention on the
nations that would and could as-
Sist in the defence of Spanish
freedom and independence. Cham-
berlain has been, and still is, in
the struggle in Spain—on the side

WL Bruce

of the rebels and the Italian and
German invaders.

“Fiopes raised from time to time
of the early conclusion of hostili-
ties have all come to naught,”
lamnts the News-Herald. Its tears
mingle with those of Chamberlain
and the sound of their falling ac-
companies the cacophony of
teeth-enashing in Berlin, Rome
and Burgos. But it lifts up its
eyes in hope that the Chamberlain
plan for the evacuation of “volun-
teers” will bring an end to hostili-
ties.

The Chamberlain plan for the
evacuation of volunteers is of the

same treacherous, pro - fascist
stripe as his “non-intervention”’
trick.

He never has desired or worked
for the evacuation of Italian and
German armies from Spain, which
armies are not composed of volun-
teers but of conscripts.

He News-Herald, not being so
wily as Chamberlain, brazen-

ly tells what it means by “evacua-
tion’’; it wants Canada to take
the lead and take steps “‘to recall
those men from the Dominion
who are fighting, and in this way
prolonging the struggle,’’ that is,
preventing the yictory of fascism.
The evacuation it wishes is the
evacuation of the men of the Mac-
kenzie-Papineau Battalion and of
every other battalion fighting on
the side of the Spanish people,
while supporting Chamberlain in
not only keeping foreign fascist
troops in Spain but in conniving

with Mussolini in having more
sent there—all in the name of
“ending hostilities.’’

Such a peace would be the peace
of death for the freedom and in-
dependence of the Spanish people
and the short lull before the
storm of a devastating world war
to which the fascist states are
driving and in which the very
existence of democracy through-
out the world would hang in the
balance.

The only way to bring peace to

, war-torn Spain, one which will

contribute mightily to preventing
a further spreading of war
throughout the world, is the peace
that will come when the armies of
Hitler and Mussolini are. driven
out of Spain, when the rebellion
led by Spanish fascism is smash-
ed, and the territory now occupied
by the rebels and foreign fascist
invaders is restored to the lawful
government of the Spanish people.

This is not the peace that the
Wews-Herald, or GChamberlain, or
the Canadian fascists want; but
it is the peace that the great mass
of the people of Canada and the
whole world want. And if the
democratic people will unite their
seattered forces into a powerful
democratic front for 4 real, a dur-
able, peace they can succeed.

Im order to bring such a peace
it is necessary that the frontiers
be opened, the blockade and em-
bargoes against Spain removed, so
that the Spanish people can pro-
eure the materials they need to
defend their lives, their freedom
and their country.

An Alarming Editorial

6’ HYHE attempt of the Chamberlain government to bind Canada to British foreign policy

i through enormous purchases of war materials in this country seems likely to succeed,”

says the Federationist of Vancouver, CCF organ.

This is a confession of defeatism which should not be allowed to pass unchallenged.
The same what’s-the-use note is sounded even more sharply in the next sentence:

‘What Canadians will have to do when: the next great war that the world is preparing

for actually breaks loose is being decided for them by the boards of directors of munitions

corporations.” :

What's the use of fighting to
prevent a great war, says the
writer. It’s inevitable. What's the
use of Canadians hoping to do
anything about it when it comes,
their hands are being tied right
now.

Both assumptions are as false
as they are fatal. They cannot
even be excused on the ground
that the writer is trying to
frighten Canadians into fighting
Chamberlain’s invasion of Can-
ada. No policy for fighting war
now or later is laid down. If we
swallow the line of the writer we

might just as well go looking for
some Gotham hotel and imitate
John Ward's i7-storey leap.

Despair and defeatism — these
cannot be excused but they can be
understood if coming from some
tired intellectual unaware of the
rising world forces of democracy
and peace. But there is worse to
come. The concluding sentence of
the editorial being quoted reads:

“Tf we cannot resist the pres-
ent tendencies involving us in an-
other crusade a la 1914 then our
chances of resisting the pressure
when the first English plane
takes off for Rome or Berlin with
a load of real bombs are just
about nil.”

Who wrote that?

Certainly no genuine CCFer,
though it appears in a CCF jour-

nal. That sentence was written
from aé fascist—or ‘Trotskyist—
point-of-view. Think of the vici-
ousness of the thesis: Chamber—
lain torpedoed the League and
collective security and plunged
Great Britain into the armaments
race in order to wage war on the
Rome-Berlin axis!

We invite our contemporary,
the Federationist, to re-read the
editorial referred to and ask itself
how it could possibly appear in a
mildly democratic journal, let
alone a socialist paper. And we
ean tell in advance the answer:
the fact that the CCH has not yet
freed itself from the presence of
Trotskyists and the poison of
Trotskyi=n.

SHORT JABS

A.
Weekly
Commentary

By Ol’ Biil

Regina had a plague of locusts
Plague In last week; Vancouver had a
Vancouver piazue of editors i is hard to
Say which was the most pestiferous. The Regina
people tackled their plague but the Vancouverites
just took it on the chin.

A representative of one of America’s oldest and
best protected monopolies, the MerZenthaler Linc-

-type Company, endorsed a sentiment that has been

harped upon in this column ever since it started.
“Newspapers—and weekly newspapers—"" said the
monopolist spokesman, “are the front line defense
against radical social changes in the world to-day.”
Wot often are reactionaries so frank in admitting
their role as barriers to human progress.

This spokesman for Big Business was loud in
his praise of the Edmonton Journal for its resist
ance to the “forces working against the better
interests of newspapers”.

Such is the reaction of the lying
capitalist press and those who live
off it, like printing machinery manu-
facturers, to measures like the Alberta sovernment’s
bill “to ensure correct news.’ They don’t want cor-
rect news!

Cripples

Since opticians blame the type and make-up of
newspapers for much of the prevalent eye-trouble,
the Mergenthaler man used this to boost new type
faces being turned out by his company. ‘If optical
eripples were as obvious on the street as are the
victims of motor accidents, we should be surprised
at the terrific toll,” he said.

é I was in a store a few days ago.

Gotta No ; aA eS
> The storekeeper was an Italian. A

Ten Cent postman came in, laid a letter on

the counter and said, “I'll have to collect ten cents
from you as there is no stamp on this letter from
Italy.” The old storekeeper responded pleasantly,
Slad to get a letter from home, paid the ten cents
and informed everybody in the store, “Poor people
in italy, gotta no ten cent for stamp.”

Ten years after “the march on Rome” I saw
hordes of idle Genovese workers diving onto the
back platforms of the street cars when they stopped
at the terminalis to salvage cigarette butts, their
only means of setting tobacco. And sixteen years
after that same event the poor Italian peasantry
are unable to spend five cents for a stamp to
write their friends. They have coined 42 new phrase
which is heard everywhere in the fascist land,
“Fascism brings us black bread’? and Mussolini is
proposing to introduce bread cards as in war time.

Selling The :

3 bought stamps with, the flour
Family Plate that shoulda make their bread
and the bread itself, have all been converted into
cannons and war planes to erush out the liberty
of the heroic Spanish people.

The money they should have

Even the treasures of the rich Italians are going
into the maw of the war-god. The race horse,
Iearco, has been sold to the British for $300,000
and the Greek statues brought to italy by the
Roman legions twenty centuries ago are being put
on the auction block, the latest being the master-
piece “Discobole”. :

Lenin wrote truly in “Imperialism and Socialism
in italy”: “italian imperialism was named ‘Imperial-
ism of the pauper’ owing to the poverty of Italy”
and fascism is driving Italy deeper into poverty!

All-Day Im another store on another day, £
heard another comment—on poverty
Sucker in Vancouver. The store-keeper was

an ex-wage slave who had learned he was too old
at 45.

He put all his life’s savings into a small store and
was telling the people listening that after a year
of it he was only working for somebody else, he
had bought himself a job that paid no wages.

He had been chiselled that Morning by license
inspectors and wholesaler bill-collectors and was in
a Ttighting mood. Just as he finished a little boy
came in and asked for an all-day sucker. He seemed
sorry to turn the kid down but he did it nicely by
Saying. “There not an all-day sucker in the place,
laddie, but myself!”

Last week’s report from a

Our $50 Fund friendly American corres-

= pondent in China tells of

“the execution of another batch of Chinese mili-

tary officers, including 4 Major-general”. Mostly

for inefficiency ! And some of them from Chiang-
kKai-shek’s Central Military Academy.

Observers are agreed that the weal: spot of the
- Chinese forces is the leadership. Wo inefficients
are turned out from the Communist Academy at
Yenan and by helping that unique school we are
improving the leadership and ensuring the defeat
of Japanese fascist imperialism.

Send your donations towards that $50. This
week’s contributions: A. Miller, $1; W. B., $5; Alas-
tair McLeod, $2; Alex McLeod, $1; Mother 50 cents;
Mr. and Mrs. O. G. Stewart, $2; J. A. Gunn, $1; Mr.

and Mrs. F. BE. Clarke, $5; Total, $17.50. Total re
ceived to date $29.25.

Underground Story No. 1 (From Spain)

About to review his troops before battle, Gen-
eral Franco seized a megaphone and shouted, “‘Any-
body here speak Spanish?”

= = =

Underground Story No. 2 (From Germany)

Hitler was to inspect a lunatic asylum, the very
-one in which General Goering was once confined
for six months as a drug addict. The inmates were
all carefully coached in what they should do when
the Fuehrer arrived. As he walked down the line
each lunatic gave the Nazi salute and shouted,
“Heil Hitler!” But the last man in the line stood
stolidly at attention. “Why don’t you salute me?’
shouted Hitler, flying into one of his uncontrollable
rages. “Your Excellency is makin= a mistake,”
came the polite reply. “I am the keeper.’

scberitienate ANAS at TET