Page Six

THE PEOPLL’S

ADVOCATE

Japanese

Obtain Hold On
Queen Charlottes

Interests

controls one billion feet of timber
on the islands. And there is evi-
dence a-plenty here that Japan is
“preparing to make further inroads
with the aim of obtaining complete
control of the islands’ natural re-
sources.

At the same time as Premier
Pattullo was asking for increased
coast defenses in his address to the
Liberal provincial convention last
month, the provincial government
was approving a certificate for a
five-mile railway line in the Queen
Gharlottes.

That railway line was built joint-

ly by Queen Charlotte Timber
Holdings, Ltd., and Louise Mining
Gompany, Ltd., both dummy com-
panies for the real Owners in
Japan.

What wonder then, that resi-
dents of these islands are ashing
what value the promised de
fenses will have when subsidiary
companies of a power avowedly
bent on Pacific conquest are per-
mitted to control essential re-
sources; when fascist agente of
Japan are allowed to dominate
and intimidate those Japanese
residents who want nothing of
their intrigue and treachery.

Japan Wanted to Colonize Islands

There are today about 1500 in-
habitants on these islands, half
of them Haida Indians. Of the

rest, most are engaged in the two
principal industries, legging and
fishing.

At different times, attempts have
been made to colonize the Queen
Gharlottes with emigrants from
Britain, Holland and Germany, but
all these schemes have failed, for

ene reason, because there is no
mnarket for farm produce.
Japan’s interest in the islands

goes back many years and at one
time she proposed to develop them
by placing hundreds ef thousands
of Japanese colonists upon them.

The Queen Charlottes held pub-
lic attention for a brief space in
the pre-war Jedway mining boom,
when rich copper and iron deposits
were discovered and the surround-—
ing country staked for mules. To-
day Jedway is a ghost town, its
white population dwindled to two-

There are still important copper
holdings in the district, however,
notably Ikeda mine, developed by
Japanese capital. During the war
it was a big producer and may be-
come so again. In the majority of
cases, though, claims were allowed
to lapse as years passed without

revival of the boom.

Japan Agents Made Survey

In the spring of last year 2
Canadian Airways plane carry-
ing five agents of Japanese inter-
ests flew over the islands, visit-
ing all the scenes of past activi-
ties. Supplied with detailed maps,
carrying claborate cameras, they’
needed to ask no questions—they
mew exactly where to go. :

Since then, quietly and without
any embarrassing attention from
the press, heavy staking has been

carried on around Jedway in the
south and Tasoo Harbor on the
west coast,

Following the past-war slump in
copper, Ikeda mines turned to fish-
ing and erected a salmon dry salt-
ery. Now the mine possesses a
sizable fleet and there is a pros-
perous little settlement. In winter,
the small cannery handles clams
and abalone, the latter harvested
by deep-sea divers.

Many Strangers Every Year

Even the residents in this dis-
trict know little of what is going
en, but they do know that every
spring there are many strange
faces, young men who do not
know a word of English. They do
iknow that some Japanese return
to Japan every year—for what pur-
pose they can only hazard a guess.
But among Japanese elsewhere in
BG who similarly return every
year to Japan are some known to
have taken military courses while
abroad.

Recently provincial police, noti-
fied of these activities by residents
alarmed at the extent of Japanese
economic penetration, have

checked on the papers of the Jap-
anese. With few exceptions, how-
ever, the papers were found to be
in order. A thorough investiga-
tion, not routine examination, is ne-
cessary-

If you talk with certain of the
Japanese on these islands—and
they are very reluctant to talk—
they will tell you that the Queen
Charlottes have everything, a won-
derful country, rich in minerals,
timber, fish and game. The Japan-
ese, they boast, would quickly put
an end to wasteful logging methods,
would utilize all fishery byproducts.

“Some day ...” they have been
known to say-

Canada’s Outermost Defenses

The Queen Charlotte Islands,
with their long, lonely western
coastline, quiet bays and excel-
lent harbors, constitute Canada’s
outermost defenses on the Paci-
fic. But defenses will not guar-
antee their inviolability if Jap-
anese interests are allowed to
obtain their fhatural resources,
used now to devastate China, to-
morrow, for what purpose?
Wherever Japanese capital goes

in this province it brings in its
train fascist agents or employees
imbued with false doctrines of
racial superiority and conquest.

And where the Japanese popula-
tion, long removed from present-
day Japan, and
ond generation

Canadian-born Sec |
Japanese will have’

nothing to do with its long-range
plans for penetration, then they
are intimidated, cowed by every
conceivable economic stranglehold
and subjected to the poison of pro-
paganda.

Japanese imperialist penetration
of British Columbia is, to serve its
own ends, consciously and deliber-
ately attempting to drive a wedge
between Japanese and white work-
ers to prevent them from realizing
their common interests. And these
efforts, unless stopped, must even—
tually recoil upon the heads of the

peace-loving sections of British
Columbia’s Japanese population
who are the pawns in Japan’s

dream of conquest.

Get Wage Increase

Hospital Employees Win
In Arbitration Dispute

Announcement was made last week by Hon. G. S. Pearson,

minister of labor, that demands

couver General Hospital would be granted
consisting of Judge J. C. McIntosh,
Vancouver Trades and Labor Coun-

appointed arbitration board,
Percy Bengough, secretary,
cil, representing the employees,
ing hospital directors.

The award, signed by all three
members of the board, ruled that
“the requests of the employees
are, in the main, fair and just, and
the scale of wages now in effect
is subject to revision upward, and
they are entitled to adjustment of
working conditions, as hereinaiter
set out.

“There shall be paid by the Van-
couver General Hospital to all their
male employees in the lower
brackets, a salary based on a mini-
mum rate of not less than 40 cents
an hour.

“AJ] shifts be of eight hours
per day, and where the shifts are
broken as to time, the spread is
not to exceed twelve hours in point

of time.
“No employee to work more than
Bix days per week on 4 straight

qime basis.

of male lay employees of Van-
by the government-

and Walter Carson, represent-

“All overtime to be paid at the
rate of time and one-half.

“All male employees to be paid
according to a schedule” which in
the case of hospital orderlies,
mean 2 $5.20 a month increase Over
gross wages paid in June. Kitchen
employees will in some Cases re-
ceive increase up to $10 a month.

The board found that grants re-
ceived by the hospital from city,
government and surrounding mun-

icipalities were “sadly jnadequate
in meeting the enormous losses
sustained by the hospital in the

care of indigent patients.”

Previous requests of the male
employees for wage adjustments
were not met with to their satis-
faction, “largely owing to the un-
happy and unsatisfactory financial
award stated.

“sea that Gerry Delaney, former
member of Wancouver Theatre.
of Action, disappeared, either

at

Continued

‘Volunteers

“Duringthe Aragon offensive, the
artillery was without shells for
two weeks,’ he stated, adding bit-—
terly, “caused by this “‘non-inter-
vention. ~

Charley=Beasor broke in, “That
happens in all our offensives. The
government can only get to a cer-
tain point, then it has to wait for
further supplies.”’

BREAD MOST PRECIOUS

Main diet in the army is- beans
and rice, with fish and fresh vege—-
tables when in season until the
scant supplies are exhausted.

“Everybody gets at least seme-
thing to eat,” said Beasor, “but
it is not nearly enough. Trade
unions and whole factories often
forego their meat and bread ration
so that it can be given to the sol-
diers.”’

“Next to ammunition, bread is
the most precious thing in
Spain,” he went on. “When I was
in hospital I saw children piclk—
ing up any little pieces of bread
they found im the street, never
mind hoy dirty, and sharing
what they found with their
hungry comrades.”

All the boys commented on the
food ships sunk in harbors before
the hungry people’s eyes. Beasor
told of the British ship, Lake La-
guna, loaded with food and medi-
cal supplies. sunk in the harbor
right in front of the hospital win-
dows. =

“Tt made us very bitter,” he said,
“because hospitals are terribly
short of medical supplies. Band-
ages have to be used over and over

again until they fall to pieces and
there is very little alcohol or ether
for surgery.”’

PRISONERS WELL TREATED
Spanish prisoners captured by

the Loyalists soldiers are usually
very indignant when they find how
Franco has misled them. They are
given the option of fighting in the
lines or working on roads and for-
tifications in the rear. Wothing is
forced upon them and often they
are treated better than the sol-
diers themselves.

* Beasor also told of a Portu-
guese commander who deserted
Franco and brought his 30 men
over to fight for the government.
“We turned out to be one of the
bravest men in the Teruel fight,”
he said, “and carried his wound-
ed company commander to safety
under terrible machine gun fire.”

The bombing of Reus, a beauti-
ful little Spanish town, was de
scribed by Gunrud. The town had
no anti-aircraft guns, no airplanes,
but every building was razed to
the ground and thousands of
people killed. Women and children
escaping down the highways were
machine-sunned systematically
afterwards, by the rebel planes.

Bombers always precede the fas-
eist motorised units, Gunrud
stated, completely destroying each
village in their path and killing
everybody in sight. Bombers ily
across the trenches bombing and
machine gunning each way-

CROSSED PYRENEES

To Jim Bell fell the lot of
having te cross the Pyrenees at
the crack of dawn with 75 com-
rades of all nationalities, accom-
panied by two guides. “Two
guards chased us all the way to
the top in about 3 feet of snow,
but we slid our way safely into
Catalonia, where we were
bombed the first night on duty.”

Bell also told of his harrowing
experience with several other com-
rades in the Battalion when they
were completely surrounded by
Moors, near the Ebro River. Their
Tieutenant, “Curley” Wilson, was
captured, but the rest managed to
run the gauntlet of machine guns
and break through, with the excep-
tion of Scotty Legg, “Wwe shouted to
him to run, but we never saw or
heard of him again,” he saic.

It was in Franco’s drive to the

killed or captured, Beasor stated.
The sixth volunteer who re-
turned was Red Clarkson.

SOLDIERS AID FARMERS :
Behind the lines agriculture goes
on and a bumper crop of rye is ex
pected. Spanish girls now work
in the factories and fields, receiv—
ing proper wages for their work.

Collective farms have been or-
eanised voluntarily by the farm-
ers. The government supplies seeds
and implements to the best of its
resources and the farmers sell
their produce to the government at
reasonable prices. Some of the
boys have been guests on collective
farms and state that all the sol-
diers when not on duty help in
the farming by harvesting, picking
potatoes, olives, ete. Farming is
usually carried on right up to the
front lines.

Volunteers in the Mackenzie-
Papineau battalion receive 300 pe-
setas a month, which in Spain
these days is quite a sum. Most of
this is donated back to the people,
particularly farmers, to enable
them to buy tractors to improve
their farms and increase food pro-
duction.

“Time is with the Spanish g0v-
ernment,’ stated Ted Gunrud.
“The longer it has to fight, the
better chance it has of winning,
as the Spanish people are more
and more united behind the sgov-

Attend
Congress

STEWART

BILL STEWART

SAM SHEARER

The above three leaders of
Vancouver trades unions who left
Monday to attend the Trades and
Labor Congress convention at
Niagara.

ernment as time goes on.”

Continued

Jobless

Mothers’ Council, Dr. A. F. Barten
of the Federated Ratepayers, and
John Matts of the RP WU. W. Ma-
honey was in the chair.

Protests against
by relief officers in the city have
been forwarded to Justice Minister
Lapointe and Minister
Worman Rogers by Grant MacNeil,

MP, and Angus McInnis, MP, on

behalf-of single unemployed men.

Information received by
Project Workers officials indicates
that men residing in the province

since June 1, 1937, or prior to that
date are eligible for relief.

A delegation from the RPWU
appearing before the city coun-
cil on Tuesday to request a tag
day for men unable to obtain re-
lief was ignored, Aid. Corey,
chairman of the finance commiut-
tee, declaring that no application
in writing had been received, de
spite statement by REWOU offi-
cials that an acknowledgement of
their application had been re
ceived from City Clerk Fred
Howlett.

Twenty five “tincanners” stand-
ing shoulder to shoulder outside
the Wudson Bay company on

Thursday were arrested, despite a
tongue-lashing given to the police
by a crowd of sympathetic women,
who clustered around police cars,
into the
cans and cheering them as

Total
tincan-

eagerly
boys’
they were driven away.
number now in jail for
ning is now 109.

Hundreds
receiving relief
through the city Wednesday
ing signs that read,
demoralizing.’ “We want work.”

pushing money

discrimination

of Labor

Relief

of the men already
paraded quietly
carry- 4
“Relief is four doctors atending to me,”

S

~

September 9, 198 |

Food Ship Will Leave This Month

ship project.

Boulevard
Statement
Rouses Ire

Homeouners in the suburbs
of Vancouver, whose colorful
gardens and neatly-trimmed!
lawns are their pride, are indiz-
nant at the statement made this
week by City Engineer Charles
Brackenridge that the parks
board is abandoning its boule
vard improvement projects be-

Expect BC Will
Send Contribution
Of Canned Fruit}

Touring North America on behalf of the campaign to send
a ship loaded with food and medical supplies to the Spanish
people, Manuel Azcarate, son of the Spanish ambassador to
Britain, and Dr. M. Pastoriza, twice secretary of state for the
Spanish government, both of whom have fought at Teruel and
Madrid, will speak in the Empress Theatre Thursday, Septem-
ber 22. They have been attending the recent World Youth Con-
gress at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie. i

In a cabled message from. Barcelona, centre of relief work ;
for the destitute child victims of the Spanish war, the Dean of
Canterbury recently appealed to Canadians to assist the Relief

“T am visiting the various centres and homes which are striv- :
ing to cope with the million and a half destitute children im
democratic Spain,” he said. “I have been deeply moved by the |
heroic struggle of the Spanish people who are undaunted by
incessant bombings. The need for food, clothing and medical
stores is dseperately urgent. I appeal earnestly to the generous
Canadian and American public to support the magnificens
initiative and Christian project of the relief ship.”

I

cause private owners neglect to
keep them in shape.

Gity Engineer Brackenridge
told the board of works that last
year the parks board improved
a number of boulevards, but
abandoned the work when “it
found it was wasted.”

Ald. T. HB. Kirk said
unlikely that the city . would
undertake any more improve
ments to boulevards, except
under a special tax.

Interviewed by an Advocate
reporter Thursday, several Hitsi-
lane and Dunbar residents in-
digenantly refuted Brackenridge’s
claim.

“Why,”

it was

ene resident ex-
“most of the people
around here spend whole even-
ings in their gardens. Naturally,
if a man cuts his lawn he is not
goins to let his boulevard run
wild when it means only a few
minutes’ more work.”

Another resident pointed out
that where one or two persons
in a bleck neglected to trim their
boulevards, neighbors would
often do the work for them
rather than allow the appear
ance of the whole block to be
spoiled.

Seek Hard=Surface

NANAIMO, BC, Sept. &-
ber last year a petition was signed
by all residents of Cedar district to
have three miles of Halden and
Gross road hard-surfaced. This year
a similar petition was signed by
residents, auto and truck owners
and presented to the public works
department by Dr. Brebber, without
satisfaction.

Members of the Cedar
branch of the Communist party are
taking a census of traffic and intend

to launch a campaign.

A shipment of at least one
thousand tons of food and other
supplies is expected as the Cana-
dian contribution to the relief
ship which will sail from New
York this month or early Ocic-
ber. The Committee to aid Span-
ish Democracy anticipates that
British Columbia will contribute
@ substantial amount of canned
mili and other canned goods.

Victoria CCF
Holds Picnic

Four Hundred Hear
Caird, Morgan Speak

VICTORIA, BC, Sept. 8 —The
children’s picnic sponsored by Vic-
toria CGE clubs attracted about.
400 people to Elk Lake picni¢e
grounds last Sunday.

Winners of races included: Girls |

and boys under 7, Evelyn Coe and
Margaret McBay, Ronnie Smith

and Victoria Keating; girls and
boys under 9, Frances Campbell
and Charlotte Lynn, John Williams
and Worman Wilson; girls under
12, Doreen Pensford and Joyce
Lowe; boys under 12, Ronald Pur-
cell and D. Lowry; girls under 15,
Joan Stewart and May Williams;
boys under 15, Joe Smith and D-
Stewart; girls under 18, WHuileen
Keating and May Williams; boys
under 18, Raymond Wardell and
Joe Smith; girls’ boot trace, Mar
garet Tippett and Joan Stewart;
boys’ boot race, Dan Gow and R.
Mitchell; girls’ blind-fold race,
Eileen Keating and May Williams;
three-legged race, Dan Gow and
Trom Druce, R. Mitchell and A-

etn

Bean; sack race, R. Stewart and
Joe Smith; married ladies’ race;
Mrs. Carlow and Mrs. S. Bick

ford; rolling-pin throwing contest,
Miss Evelyn Hatcher and Miss. U-

In Octo- | Walker: men’s walking race, over

50, Wilson Money and J. Stewart;
ladies’ walkingrace, Miss Mitchell
and -Mrs. Fuller; men’s 100 yards,
J. McBay and H. Tubman; girls’
swimmins race, Wilma Bye and
Marjorie Wilson; boys’ swimming
race, Wictor Sage and fan Gow;
girls’ three-legged race, Wileen
Keating and Pearl Keating, May
William and Emily William.

W. B. Caird and Nigel Morgan
spoke briefly on behalf of the Vic-
toria CCE District Council.

Stewart Returns To City

Stewart, slim, dark-haired
Communist League, said he
a place so much.”

Representing the Canadian YCL.
Stewart, who resembles his father,
Charlie Stewart, executive member
of Vancouver Trades & MLabor
Council, in appearance, was sent
to Moscow for sixteen months. His
first impression was, he said, the
absence of any unemployment.

Huge improvements in building
were under way while he was
there. “I used to mark buildings
as landmarks in my travels,” he
said laughingly, “but when —~ came
back, they had been torn down
and replaced, so I was almost al
ways lost !”’

“T saw Pat Forkin,’ Stewart con—
tinued. “Efe is looking very well
and is very popular.”

Stewart remarked on the
cellent medical care in Russia.

“T had only to complain of feel-
ing a little unwell to have three oe

e

ex—

said.

Youth Leader Impressed
By Progress Of Soviets

Looking very glad to be back in Vancouver, Charles ‘‘Chuck
national chairman of the Young
“never thought it possible to mis=|

During his tour, Stewart passed |
through England, Scotland, France
and Germany. He commented pat

Ae erp

ticularly on the general opposition
of the English people to Chamber
lain’s “‘peace”’ policy, and the ter.
rible tenseness felt even in trains
passing through Germany. *

“People there all converse in
whispers,” he stated, “and mails
tary uniforms are everywhere.”

Aithough Stewart did not at}

tend the World Youth Gongress|
he was very enthusiastic abow
the results.

“Wifty-three countries were Tel
presented, showing that the youth
ef today is aware of the critica
international situation and intends
to fight collectively for peace,” ha
said.

Stewart will speak at a meeting
this Friday, International You

Day, on Powell Street grounds. 24
8 pan. :

WH ee

}