Page Iwo

THE PEHEOPLE’S

ADVOCATE

September i6, 1938

THE
PEOPLE’S ADVOCATE

Published Weekly by the Proletarian Publishing
Association, Room i0, 163 West Hastings Street,
Vancouver, B.C. Phone Trinity 2019.

Three Months. $ _.50
Single Copy—__—_--5 .05

Make All Cheques Payable to: The People’s Advocate

Vancouver, B. C., Friday, September 16, 1938

A Challenge To
Democratic Rights

P AND DOWN the coast of British Co-
lumbia there are many company towns
where powerful corporations, the majority of
them foreign-controlled, have for years been
a law unto themselves. The price of an em-
ployee’s job is his silence on all matters per-
taining to his own welfare and his complete
subservience to the corporation’s dictates.
But now the unions are entering these com-
pany towns to challenge the corporations in
their own strongholds. New hope, the strength
of collective action, is being inspired in em-
ployees and the big corporations are striking
back with terrorism, discrimination and all the
weapons at their command.

Blubber Bay has stripped the veil from the
face of the company town and exposed its
ugly, revolting features to public view. The
Pacific Lime Company has flaunted the laws
of the province in its refusal to allow its em-
ployees to exercise the right of union organiza-
tion of their own choice and collective bar-
gaining. It has rejected arbitration decisions.
It has received police assistance in transport-
ing scabs. It has ejected employees from their
homes while police looked on. It has barred
the public from government offices. Its of
ficials have acted like Nazi storm-troopers.
The courts have inflicted vicious sentences on
strikers and freed a company official charged
with assault with the comment that “he only
did his duty.”

There are less than one hundred men on
strike at Blubber Bay, but the issue at stake
concerns not only the entire trade union move-
ment, but all progressive people in the prov-
ince. A New York-controlled corporation,
hypocritically prating about “alien unions,’ is
challenging the fundamental rights of the peo-
ple and of organized labor in particular.

Appeals to the government have either been
ignored or met with evasive replies. Every
aid must be given to the strikers and the full
force of public opinion, which more than once
has forced Pattullo to reconsider his ill-ad-
vised policies, mobilized to demand that the
go vernment investigate the shameful situation
and secure justice for the workers.

Trade Union Unity Wins

ie THE convention of the Trades and Labor
Congress of Canada continues until the end
of its sessions along the generally progressive
line that marked its course during its first
three days, the delegates will have contributed
much to the cause of the labor movement and
of progress generally.

All genuine trade unionists and friends of
labor will be heartemed by the refusal of the
Congress convention to follow the lead of
Green, Frey, Woll and some of the higher
officials of the American Federation of Labor
in Canada in their policy of splitting the trade
union movement.

Reactionary elements in Canada had been
working indefatigably to bring about a split
between the AFL and CIO unions within the
Trades and Labor Congress and thereby
weaken the forces of organized labor at a time
when the employers are striving to intensity
exploitation of the workers and wreck the
trade unions.

With the havoc wrought by the Green
splitting policy in the US as a warning, the
delegates overwhelmingly decided to maintain
unity in the ranks of organized labor in
Canada.

None worked so earnestly and diligently to
maintain this unity against the splitters as the
Communists, whose constructive work on this
and on all other vital issues in the trade union
movement constitute a decisive refutation of
the slanderous charges of reactionaries that
the Communists are disrupters.

Other progressive actions of the convention
so far are: Adoption of a resolution calling
for boycott of goods from the aggressor states,

Germany, Italy and Japan, and one demand- -

ing repeal of the notorious Quebec padlock
law.

The convention also went on record as op-
posing immigration until such time as the de-
pression is overcome; condemned Premier
Duplessis’ anti-labor legislation, and support-
ed the amendment to the Criminal Code re-
peatedly introduced in the House of Commons
by CCF federal members. This amendment
would penalize employers who refuse employ-
ees the right to organize.

It is significant that the anti-labor actions
of the Pattullo-Pearson government did not
escape the notice of the convention. In the
discussions the name of Pattullo was associ-
ated with the hated names of Duplessis and
Hepburn. And while Pattullo has not gone
to the extremes of reaction that the Ontario
and Quebec premiers have, he is drawing
closer to them as time passes.

His infamous law against strike action, the
actions of his government in the Blubber Bay
struggle, his callous treatment of the unem-
ployed and his persecution of their leaders are
only a few instances of his steady drift toward
the ultra-reactionary position of Hepburn
and Duplessis, a course that must be changed
by the united forces of progress in British
Columbia.

Chamberlain’s Perfidy

Se: London Times, organ of Neville Chamberlain and the Cliveden set has advised the
government of Czechoslovakia to cede the so-called Sudeten areas of its country to Hitler.
Tt is also Known that the British government gave categorical orders to President Eduard
Benes and the Czech government to grant all of the demands Hitler has made through his
stooge Henlein. The news dispatch telling of this unwarranted interference by the Chamber-
lain circles in the affairs of the Czech republic emphasized that the order to Prague was put
in “the manner customarily adopted by the British only in dealing with semi-civilized colonial

peoples.”

British imperialist imsolence
apparently Knows no bounds.
The latest news plainly tells
that the reactionary clique now
in control at Downing street is
demanding wxothing less than
that Czechoslovakia surrenders
its national rights and state in-
dependence! The Czech people
who have united to defend their
democracy and nation against
fascist barbarism are ordered
to submit like servile slaves tw
Hitler by Neville Chamberlain.

Ghamberlain is trying to break
the treaties that bind France, the
Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia
together for mutual aid. He is
working like a very demon to
isolate the Gzechs from their
powerful friends. He is frantic in
his efforts to tear down the main
obstacle to Hitler aggression—the
mutual aid pact which guarantees
French and Soviet support to the
Czechs in the event of fascist ag-
gression.

Chamberlain knows full well
that Hitler would be in danger
of breaking his back if he came
up against the combined
strength of the powerful Social-
ist Soviet Union, the French re-
public and Gzechoslovakia.

Desirous of doing everything
possible for Hitler—of protecting
him against a possible terrible
defeat—Chamberlain is trying to
split the Soviet Union, France
and Czechoslovakia asunder and
orders the Gzechs to meekly put
their neck on the fascist block.

Viscount Runciman has been
intriguing in Czechoslovakia for
the past few weeks trying to
manoeuvre things so that Hitler
could repeat what happened in
Austria. It was expected no dovbt
that the job would be done before
the Wazi convention opened in
WNurembere. ‘

Hitler badly needed a “suc-
cess” in Czechoslovakia. Grow-
ing economic difficulties in the
Reich, gathering discontent
among the German people,
successes of the forces of de-
mocracy and peace in the Far
East, in Spain and throughout
the world—all of these demand-
ed that a victory over Czecho-
slovakia should bolster Hitler
and fascism at Nuremberg.

The pro-fascists of Downing
street are not pleased that Hitler
has to make ‘apologies’ at
Wuremberg, or that the world
should smile at the transparent
humbug of the Nazi chief-of—
staff ‘‘explaining” that they did
not march on Czechoslovakia be-
cause Germany is not yet ready
for war.

It is plain as a pikestaff that
the British diehard Tories are
desirous of betraying the Czech
republic. They stabbed Spain,
China and Ethiopia in the back.
The knife is out of the sheath
now, ready for the plunge into
the Czech republic.

The Single Jobless’ Trials

HT us make no mistake. The
British people are not in favor
of this treachery. They do not
want to bolster up Hitler and
fascism. In a thousand ways they
made it plain that they are in
favor of Britain warning Hitler
that if his armies invade Czecho-
slovakia the British peoples and
forces will take resolute action to
encompass his defeat.
Chamberlain does not repre-
sent the real Britain. He is the
spokesman and leader of the
most reactionary circles of im-
perialists who have deliberate-
ly chosen to aid Hitler, Mus-
solini, the Mikado and Franco,
who hope to bring Britain un-
der the heel of fascist dictator-
ship, who are even willing to
sacrifice the national interests
of the British peoples in order
to bolster up the Berlin-Rome-
Tokio axis.
They try to mask their per-

An Editorial
from the

Toronto
Daily
Clarion

fidies under various pleas. They
enjoy the support of newspapers
such as the Montreal Gazette,
Toronto Telegram and Globe and
Mail in the deceitful campaign
to try and fool the people into be—
lieving that Chamberlain’s treach-
eries constitute a struggle for
peace! Dr. Manion and Colonel
Drew are working overtime to
allay the dissatisfaction of the
Canadian people, to try ana inake
them believe that Chamberlain’s
policy helps peace.
@
ie IS likewise transparently clear
that the Chamberlain-Cliveden:
set have managed to securely en-
tangle the King government in
their unholy intrigues and war
schemes. Instead of standing by
his pledge to ‘follow a course in
international relationships that
will make for peace” Prime Min-
ister King is working hand in
glove with Chamberlain sabotag-
ing collective security and the
League of Nations, supplying
Japan with war materials, con-
tinuing the embargo against dem-
ocratic Spain, refusing to co-
operate with the United States
and other democracies for peace
and gearing Canada’s economy to
the war plans of Downing street.
It is imdeed a scandalous
state of affairs in which the
Canadian people find them-
selves. The world hovers on the
brink of war—yet our govern-

By Malcolm Bruce

ESS than a half-century ago, Engels, writing on the savagery of the French
bourgeois against the vanquished Paris Communards, declared that the
Wall of the Federals, where so many workers were wanto
mains today a dumb but eloquent witness 0
erning classes are capable as soon as the pro

its rights.”

The single unemployed in Van-
eouver discomfited and infuri-
ated the authorities and the big
interests whose instruments they
are, by engaging in a sit-down
demonstration in the post office
and art gallery and bringing into
public view their plight and the
eynical indifference of the au-
thorities to it. On Bloody Sun-
day, June 19, they were ejected
by police using clubs and tear
gas against the unarmed and
helpless men, and after ejecting
them they pursued them through
the streets with a ferocity
equalled only by the sadism of
the police at Ballantyne Pier in
1935. j

Still smarting frem the success-—
ful sit-down demonstration, and
chagrined over failure of the usu-
ally successful use of stoolpigeons
and provocateurs to break the
ranks of the men and turn public
opinion against them, the author—
ities resorted to the use of the
courts to wreak their vengeance
upon them in a vain attempt to
terrorize others into abject sub-
mission to starvation.

Wowhere in all Canada have the
elass courts been so cynically and
brazenly used against workers
who venture to stand up for their
rights, including the right to live,
as in Vancouver. Ever since the
depression set in (1929), to say
nothing of preceding years, the
courts have been used shame
lessly against the workers—the
unemployed leaders (Campbell,
Cunningham and others) in 1930-
3i- the longshore strikers and
Camp Boys in 1935; Grange ond
WMolland in 1937; the Blubber Bay
strikers of a few days ago; and

the most recent victims, single
unemployed men who had been
in the sit-down demonstration in
the post office.

e

LREADY two of these home-
A less, jobless men have been
convicted after a frame-up trial
on a charge which carries a max-
imum penitentiary sentence of
two years, and now in jail await-
ing sentence.

They were tried before the
same judge who tried and sen-
tenced Allan Campbell in 1931

after a farcial trial in which there
were two prosecution witnesses,
one a member of the RCMP so
intelligent that when questioned
by Campbell, who defended him-
self, swore that there were thirty—
Six letters in thealphabet; the
other a rat-faced ex-Black and
Tan named Hitchens.

The prosecutor of Campbell
was a lawyer named Reid who, in
1931, prosecuted members of the
Union of Russian Workers for
being Russians—and for being
workers—and then donated the
library that had been seized
from them to the University of
British Columbia “with the com-
pliments of R. L. Reid.”

Pretty raw? Yes, but what
about the trial of Jack Page and
Sam Melnick, the sit-downers
who were convicted a few days
ago? The same judge presided,
and the assistant prosecutor was
his son. There may be precedent
for a son contesting a case in
a trial over which his father is
presiding, the outcome ef which
he can greatly influence.

It may be that once 4 liberal
Jawyer is placed on the bench he

nly shot down, “re-
f what frenzy of crime the goyv-
letariat ventures to stand up for
And what was true of Thiers and his associates then is true today
of capitalist class rulers everywhere, and of British Columbia in particular.

ment, which boasts of its demo-
cratic character cannot, will not
utter a single word on its for-
eign policies to the people. It is
known that Prime Minister
King and his cabinet have held
several extraordinary meetings
during the past two weeks dis-
cussing the international situa-—
tien, considering lengthy cable
grams received from Downing
street. But not a word to the
Canadian people!

Peace is being sold down the ,
river by the Chamberlain-Clive-
den set, and it looks as though
our government is pulling a will
ing oar. It is not only Czecho-
Slovakia that is beimg betrayed.
We are being sold out. If the
Chamberlain policies are not
broken the British peoples will
pay with their blood and tears.

Prime Minister King’s silence is
in itself a proof of the truth of
eur claims, a telling evidence
that he is afraid of the wrath of
the Ganadian people who favor
mutual aid against fascist ag-
gression.

@

HE; Canadian people, in the in-

terests of their own defense,

in the interests of world peace
must compel King to place his
cards on the table. They are duty
bound to join their hands with
the peoples of the British Empire,
with the peoples of the world to
build up an invincible world
peace front.

The road to peace lies along
the path of concerted action
and mutual aid against fascist
ageression—not in the Cham-
berlain policy of aiding the fas-
cist barbarians.

Canada must play her part in
the fight to make the countries
of the British Commonwealth a
powerful bulwark of peace. We
must cooperate with the people
of the British Isles to bring down
the pro-fascist Chamberlain gov-
ernment, to replace it with a gov-
ernment which, together with the
democracies of France, the United
States, the Soviet Union and all
the nations menaced by fascist
aggression would end the present
situation wherein a premium is
put on the aggressions of the
Berlin-Rome-Tokio axis.

The labor movement of our
country in this hour of grave
erisis is confronted with the ur—
gent task of rallying itself and
fhe broad masses of Canadians
from coast to coast to exert such
a powerful influence upon the gov-
ernment at Ottawa that it will
yield to the peace sentiments of
the nation, break with the per-
fidious policies of Downing street
and begin to follow a course in
international affairs that will
prove to the world that Canada
is not only in favor of peace but
is willing to take action, along
with the democracies and the
peoples of the world to maintain
peace.

Malcolm Bruce

stands above classes, even when
Pattullo and his clique are anta-
gonistic to the defendents; that
he can be wholly indifferent as
to whether or not his son “gets
the decision;” that once on the

bench he is the incarnation of
objectivity.
All this, we know, is asserted

by men of the legal profession
who prate to the people about
¢he “impartiality” of capitalist
justice; but enlightened workers
can be expected to doubt it. At
least, regardless of what the
elastic “ethics of the profession”
may be, to the honest lay mind
it is highly improper, even inde-
cent.

And what about* Branea, the
chief prosecutor, the Reid of
1938? We is a well-known fascist,

one whohas spoken admiringly of
Mussolini and fascism publicly
in Wancouver, an exponent of
anti-orientalism and thus a fom-
enter of race antagonism.

A prominent member of the
Liberal machine of Pattullo, one
of the Liberal political clique, he
is as savagely zealous in prose-
ecuting hungry, jobless workers
and sending them to prison as he
is enthusiastically indefatigable
in defending -white-slavers and
keeping them out of it.

The whole labor and progres-
sive movement and all decent
people should raise a mighty pro-
test against the flagrant use of
the courts against men whose
only crime is that they draw pub-
lic attention to their hunger, and
for the exercise of that elemental
right, are persecuted and jailed
by the minions of the law.

SHORT JABS
eek
Weekly

Commentary

By Ol Bill

= At 42 years of age, Kim Yak
Chinese = San is a veteran in the Korean
International revolutionary movement. He
Brigade has been in the forefront of

the struggle against Japanese
fascism in China. Today he is making one of Hit-
lers dreams come true. A year ago that megilomani—
ac advised Japan to call off the war against China
and be satisfied with what they had won or they
might be faced with international brigades and
hammer-and-sickle flags. Hitler, of course, missed
the fact that the Chinese people also had to be con-
sidered in such a proposal.

Tiatest news from Ghina informs us that Kim Yak
San is organizing an international brigade on the
same plan as that now fighting so valiantly in Spain.
The Chinese government has endorsed the move—
ment and enlistments are proceeding. So far, re-
eruits are entirely Japanese, Koreans and Formos—
ans, but the organizers hope to have Americans and
Europeans later. Indians, Filipinos and Hawaiians
are expected also, but the main strength will un-
doubtedly be drawn from the anti-Japanese move-
ment in Korea. It is hoped that the brigade will
soon go into action against the Japanese imperialist
invaders as a mechanized unit

We are still a few dollars short of $60 for our
school fund for training guerilla leaders. Maybe
some of that fund will go to the cost of providing
leaders for this new international brigade. Wouldn't
you like to help? This week’s contributions: R. FH.
Lloyd, $1; George Gee, $1; J. Hart Livingstone, 25e;
W. Ravenor, 50c. Total, $52.75.

: Mussolini's pie-crust promises and
The Past political pronouncements are printed
Rises Up in black and white as a standing
menace to his claim to infallibility. Recognizing this
himself, his latest edict has gone forth to all libraries
in Italy that all files of “Popolo d‘Italia” for 191922
are to be placed under lock and key and no one is
to be allowed to read them. Mussolini was editor of
“Popolo d'Italia” during those years and he fears
now that the ranting he indulged in then may be
used against him today.

He may be compelled also to lock up or burn, Nazi
fashion, all copies of the Italian “‘Eneyclopaedia”’
produced under his personal superyision, for in that
piece of fascist glorification and propaganda there
is the following paragraph in an article on “Race”:
“There is no Italian race, only an Italian people and
nation. There is no Jewish race or nation, only a
Jewish people. There is no Aryan race—that is the
most serious of errors’ This latter crack will not

please his mad side-kicker, Hitler. ;

Mussolini, however, is not the first political tricl-
ster to place a ban on his own writings. It is com-
mon to those ranters, false leaders of the workers
who sell their fellows more securely into slavery
after having gained their confidence.

To name only one—James Ramsey MacDonald.
In the days when the capitalist press called him a
“red” (mistakenly), he paid a visit to India, that
Jand that has been subjected to a rule of robbery,
jobbery and snobbery by British imperialism for
almost two centuries.

When he sot back to Britain he wrote his impres—
sions. I forget the name of the book just at the
moment, but he condemned the policies and adminis—
tration of British in India. He denounced the indus—
trial exploitation and political suppression of the
Indian people. Advanced political opinion in India
welcomed the book, although they criticised it for
not going far enough.

When Ramsey MacDonald became Prime Minister
of the first Labor government of Britain in 1924,
he was also at the head of the India Office and one
of the first things he did was to ban his own book
from circulation in India. Was he any better than
Whussolini?

The drug-addict, Goering, must have
The Dope had an extra heavy shot in the arm
last Saturday when he addressed his
fellow Nazi gangsters at Nuremberg. When he
raved that it was “intolerable that this midget
people without culture, should be able to conduct
itself thus towards a great civilized people,’ the
Czechs were the “midget people without culture”
and the Nazis were the “great civilized people.”

Speaks

The dope-inspired maniac cannot know anything
of European history prior to the Munich beer-hall
putsch and very little of the history of civilization
since 1933.

From the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries there
was yet no German nation but only a German people.
There were dozens of kingdoms, duchies, principali-
ties, palatinates, electorates and free towms (as late
as 1871 when the German Empire was founded there
were 37 German governments outside of Austria).
Not one of these was big enough or wealthy enough
or literate enough to maintain a good-sized “‘little
red schoolhouse.”’

Bohemia was the richest and most cultured coun-
try in Europe. Universities flourished. Praha was
the centre of European culture and the people who
lived under the rule of the robber barons of the
German countries had to send their son to Bohemia
to be educated by the Czechs.

Givil and religious liberties grew and flourished
among the Czechs until they were extinguished in
the i7th century by German militarism; but they
did not die, and they were revived again in the set-
ting up of the Czechoslovak state after the Great
War.

And the “great civilized people,” the Germans,
what of their culture, entirely developed in the 18th
and 19th centuries? Wiped out in the bonfires of
Unter den Linden; in the murder of the flower of
the German people; in the hundreds of concentra-—
tion camps; in the slave labor battalions; in the
exiled intellectuals and the despoiled and hounded
Jewish people who have contributed so much to
German civilization.

In its place the arrogant boastings and insults
of dopefiends and sex-perverts doing the bidding
of the finance-industrial lords of Germany-

Rumor on the Clyde says that
They Know! the rushing of the launching of
the Mauritania and the Queen Elizabeth is due to
Chamberlain’s fear that Britain will run out of ships
for Franco and Mussolini to bomb. Clydeside work-
ers know their ships—and they also know their
Chamberlain! :

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