Page Two

THE

PEOPLE’S ADVOCATE

Wovember 25, 1938

THE |
PEOPLE’S ADVOCATE

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

One Year Three Months ._..$ -60
Half Year Single Copy

Make All Cheques Payable to: The People’s Advocate
Wancouver, B.C., Friday, November 25, 1938

Nanaimo Gives the Lead

ROGRESSIVE organizations throughout
the province have been quick to applaud
the resolute action taken by Nanaimo citi-
zens in refusing to permit loading of scrap
iron destined for Japan. Messages of support
sent by trade unions in Vancouver, Victoria,
Cumberland and elsewhere emphasize the
determination of British Columbians to halt
the grisly trade with Japan.

Wanaimo has given a lead to the entire
province. Canada’s guilt in supplying the
Japanese war machine with the metals essen-
tial to its continued devastation of China is
written in the blood of the Chinese people.
But organized action by the workers, Ssup-
ported by the entire progressive movement,
can prevent these shipments of war materials.
Organized protest can force the government
to end the traitorous alliance between Cana-
dian mining magnates and Japanese fascist
interests whereby British Columbia’s natural
resources are being handed over to Japan.

The fine hand of Japan can be seen in the
presence in Nanaimo of Suburo Shinobu, ob-
viously representing Japanese interests. The
statement made by Myer Franks, Vancouver

representative of the C. T. Takahashi Com-.

pany, Seattle, that “if the Japanese govern-
ment is advised of the attitude of certain
elements in Nanaimo .. . it will result in an
immediate withdrawal of Japanese capital,”
is a bluff that fools nobody. Japanese eco-
nomic penetration in British Columbia fol-
lows a plan for Japanese imperialist expan-
sion and, far from Japanese capital with-
drawing, only vigilant action by progressives
will prevent it from making new inroads.

Japan’s ‘Fifth Column’

Ve LATEST aspirant to the mayoralty is

none other than Lieut. Col. Nelson Spen-
cer, erstwhile Conservative member of the
provincial legislature and more recently a
delegate to the national convention of the
Conservative Party.

Col. Spencer is running on what he terms
a “sane and progressive’ platform, but, as
might be expected from one linked with rep-
resentatives of Japanese fascism, the principle
plank of this “sane and progressive” platform
is that advocating appointment of a dictator
for Vancouver. Mayor Miller, the other may-
oralty candidate supporting the city manager
plan, suggests a plebiscite on the question.
Col. Spencer does not make even this quali-
fication.

Col. Spencer has not yet enlightened voters
as to just whom he represents, although we
might hazard a guess. Perhaps his friends
have persuaded him to run. That some of his
friends are no friends of the Canadian people
may be deduced from the fact that Col. Spen-
cer is a director of Sidney Inlet Mining Com-
pany and N. S. McNeil Trading Company,
Inec., both Japanese-controlled and part of the
Japanese economic network in this province.

Knowing this, it is not necessary to look far
for the reasons for his candidacy. It will be
a distinct blow to the ignoble trade of Col.
Spencer and his fellow mining magnates if,
through election of a progressive mayor and
council, Vancouver longshoremen should or-
ganize into a legitimate trade union and re-
fuse to load the lead, copper and zine concen—
trates now supplying Japan’s war industries.
Tt will be a distinct gain for the “fifth column”
of Japanese fascism in British Columbia if
Nelson Spencer is returned. We do not be-
lieve, however, that decent citizens will want
anything of a man who is eontributing to the
destruction of peace and freedom in China.
Could he be expected to support progress and
security in Vancouver? The answer is—WNo.

Perverting The Issue
T A TIME when German and Austrian
Catholics, as well as Jews, are the vic-
tims of Nazi persecution, every true Catholic
and every progressive welcomes Archbishop
Duke’s participation in last Sunday's protest
rally against the Nazi campaign of terrorism.
But it is indeed regrettable that the arch-

bishop, entrusted with the spiritual guidance .

of Catholics here, should allow himself to be
blinded by fascist propaganda to the point
where he took advantage of the occasion to
attack the Spanish Republican government,
virtually dismissing Nazi persecution of Cath-
olics in a few opening remarks.

Archbishop Duke repeated the allegations
made in the early days of the Spanish war
when lurid front-page stories told of “Red”
atrocities in Spain. These stories have long
since been exposed as having no foundation
in fact and leading Catholics have denounced
them as false propaganda disseminated by
Franco’s agents.

That Archbishop Duke, in face of docu-
mented proof that hundreds of thousands of
Spanish Catholics are fighting for home and
liberty in the Spanish People’s Army; aware,
surely, that there is no persecution of the
Catholic Church in Spain, should pass over
the real persecution of Catholics in Austria
and Germany to dwell on discredited state-
ments made by fascist propagandists, must
have astonished Catholics throughout the
province.

Legalizing Monopoly

An Analysis
of the
Commodities

Retail Sales Act

WN THE closings hours of the

Jast session of the provin-
cial legislature the Commodi-
ties Retail Sales Act, familiar-
ly known as Bill 89, was
passed without attracting any
opposition in the House. For
a few months little attention
was paid to it until enactment
of its provisions gave house-
wives some inkling of the dis-
astrous effect it was likely to
have on slender household
budgets.

The Housewives League of Bri-
tish Columbia, formed only after
the Act had become law, saw in
jt certain clauses which must in-
evitably enable monopoly control
of the necessities of life and im-
mediately launched a campaign
for its repeal. Tater a brief was
prepared and presented to the
provincial cabinet.

Militating against the campaign
for repeal of Bill 89 has been the
fact that many have confused it
with Bill 88 the Food Products
Minimum Doss Act, passed at the
same time. For this reason the
two Acts are published in full
so that the full implications of
Bill 89 may be shown.

@

HE Commodities Retal Sales
Act decrees “that a producer
or wholesaler may fix a retail set
price of a commodity.” There is
no word here of the government
setting a limit on profiteering and
thereby protecting eonsumers.
There is only a provision “that
commodities shall not be sold by
retail in this province for less
than the cost of manufacture or

sale.”

‘What is more natural than that
manufaeturers and wholesalers
get together to peg retail prices
as far above present levels as the
market will stand. There is no
maximum, only a minimum price
fixed under the Act, which is, in
effect, an Act to legalize mono-
poly control. Not the government,
acting in the interests of con-
sumers, but wholesales and manu-
facturers, in other words, big
business, is empowered to fx
prices, secure in the support of
the Act. ;

The revélations of the Royal
Commission on Price Spreads are
still fresh in the minds of the
Ganadian people. Here it was
shown that retail prices through-

out the Dominion were deftly
manipulated by certain influen-
tial gentlemen operating from

swivel chairs in the head offices
of national corporations, located
principally in Toronto and Mont-—
real.

Ganadian Packers, it was re-
vealed, was doing 60 percent of
the country’s business. Imperial
Tobacco Company exerted virtual
monopoly control to maintain a
fixed price or, to be more polite,

a ‘protected price’’ on its pro-
ducts.
Only this summer Okanagan

fruit growers exposed the rami-
fiications of a combine in the
fruit and vegetable marketing in-
dustry, now under investigation
by the federal government. And.
last week sale of the big Vancou-
ver wholesale firm of W. H. Mal-
kin to Western Grocers of Win-

nipeg, named in this combine
probe, was announced.
@
ITH these examples before

them BC consumers need
little telling that what is required
is not legalization of monopoly
price-fixing, but legislation de-
signed to protect them from ex-
cess profiteering. The opposition
is not to a fair price, but to prices
fixed by monopoly interests.

Wone will deny that little busi-
mess iS under a severe handicap
in competing with chain and de-
partment stores which, with their
tremendous turnovers, act as
main outlets for big wholesale in-
terests, but minimum pricefix-
ing, in the long run, offers no
solution. Bill 89 contains no pro-
vision guaranteeing a fair pro-
fit to the retailer, for the whole-
saler is enabled to fix both the
price to the retailer and the price
to the consumer.

Little busimess requires protec—
tion from chain and department
store shady merchandizing. This,
to some extent, is afforded by Bill
88, the Food Products Minimum
Loss Act, which curbs the sale of
“Toss Leaders” as bait for un-
wary housewives. But of vital
concern to the small storekeeper
is his lack of liquid eredit that
keeps him in virtual bondage to
his wholesaler. He does not re-
ceive the “kickbacks” given to the
heavy buyer.

And now Premier Pattullo has
decreed that the little man shall
eonstitute himself a “potential
agent’ for combine merchandiz—
ing, while the consuming public
pays the piper. Higher prices
must eventually react to the dis-
advantage of the.retailer by cut-
ting his volume of business and
hit the poorer consumer by ren-
dering prohibitive commodities.

In their own interests, the peo-
ple of British Columbia must de-
mand the repeal of the Com-
modities Retail Sales Act.

BY PHIL GIBBENS

Faq Fae ae Pag ag eae be Fae ae ee eg a gg ea ES: [

BILL 89
Retail Sales Act

1. This Act may be cited as the “Commodities Retail Sales Act.”

2. In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires:

“Commodity” means any subject of commerce:

“Producer” means any baker, maker, manufacturer,
packer, converter, or processer:

“Retailer” means any person selling a commodity to consumers
for use:

“Retail set price of a commodity” means the price for the time
being set by a producer or wholesaler as the retail selling price
of the commodity:

“Wholesaler” means any person selling a commodity other than
a producer or retailer.

8. A producer or wholesaler may fix a retail set price of a com-
modity:

(a) By informing the retailer at the time of the sale of the com-

modity to him of the price at which the commodity is to be sold

by retail; or .

(b) By publishing the retail price in a catalogue, or in a price-list,

or in a newspaper or other publication; or

(ce) By notice in writing to the Retail Merchants’ Association of

Ganada, Incorporated, British Golumbia Branch, of the retail

set price of the commodity.

4. No retailer shall sell or offer for sale in the Province any com-
modity which bears, or the label or container of which bears, the trade-
mark, brand, or name of the producer, distributor, or wholesaler of
such commodity, at a price less than the price, if any, set by the pro-
ducer or wholesaler as the retail set price of the commodity at the time
of the sale by him of the commodity to the retailer.

5. The sale of a commodity coming within the provisions of section
4 in combination with any other commodity or commodities at a com-
bined price, or at prices not applicable to the purchase of the com-
modities individually, or the sale of a commodity coming within the
provisions of section 4 contemporaneously with a gift of any other
commodity, shall be deemed to be a violation of that section: Provided
that if such commodity is sold in combination only with another or
other commodities also coming within the provisions of section 4, such
sale shall not be deemed to be a yiolation of that section, in the case of
any prosecution for violation of this Act, if the retailer accused proves
that the total price charged for the combination is not less than the
aggregate of the prices at which each of such commodities might law-
fully have been sold by him under this Act.

6. In any prosecution of any retailer for a violation of this Act, the
retail set price below which the retailer is chargea with selling may
be proved:

(a) By proof that the accused was informed by the producer or whole-
saler of the retail set price of the commodity at the time or prior
to the sale of the commodity to him; or
By proof of the publication of the catalogue or pricelist as pro-
vided for in clause (b) of section 3 and proof that the retail set
price so published, either directly or by inference, purported to be
for the year or period within which the sale to the retailer was
made. It shall not be necessary to prove that the catalogue or
pricelist was published in this Province, or that the accused
lkmew of its existence; or

By proof that notice of the retail set price of the commodity had
been served on the Retail Merchants’ Association of Canada,
Incorporated, British Columbia Branch, and by that organization
had been served on the accused.

7. The retailer charged with a violation of this Act may prove as a
defence:

(a) That he did not know of the existence of the retail set price of

the commodity for the sale of which he is charged, and that he
could not have ascertained the same by the exercise of reasonable
care or by making reasonable inquiries:
That the producer or wholesaler has set a retail selling price
for the commodity subsequent to the one on which the charge is
based, and that the sale in question was fora price not less than
the subsequent retail set price.

8. This Act shall not apply to sales by a retailer to his own servants
or employees for their own use, or to sales by a Sheriff, 6r by judicial
process; or to sales of damaged goods sold at a price proportionately
reduced because of such damage and not merely reduced in evasion of
this Act; or to any general sale of commodities in a store or premises
where the retailer is actually retiring from business or moving to other
premises; or to any other general Sale at a price reduced because of
some special conditions or circumstances which in the opinion of the
Court is not made for the purpose of defeating the provisions of this
Act and is not contrary to its intent and purpose.

9. Every person violating the provisions of this Act shall be guilty
of an offence, and shall be liable, on summary conviction, to a penalty
not exceeding five hundred dollars.

BILL 88 |
Loss lLLeacler

1. This Act may be cited as the “Hood Products Minimum Loss Act.’

2. In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires:

“Commodity means any subject of commerce:

“Cost”? means purchase price plus cost of transportation from the
place of purchase to the retailer's place of business, customs and
excise duties, and sales tax, if any:

“Hood product’? means any commodity alone or in combination, in its
natural state, or manufactured, processed, preserved, pickled,
smoked, dried, evaporated, condensed, bottled, cammed, or other-
wise put up or prepared, intended for human consumption as
food; but does not include fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, and other
highly perishable goods:

“Invoice price’ means the price of a product as it appears in the
invoice sales slip, or other memorandum of sale given, issued,
or sent to the retailer by the seller in the regular course of busi-
ness in connection with the transaction of the sale of the product
to the retailer:

“Retailer” means any person who offers for sale, sells, or keeps for
sale a product or commodity to consumers for use.

3. No retailer shall offer for sale, sell, or keep for sale in the Proy-
ince any food product at a price less than five per centum above the
2est of the same to the retailer.

4. This Act shall not apply to sales by a trustee in bankruptey or a
receiver under the “Bankruptcy Act’ of the Dominion or a liquidator
under the “Winding—up Act” of the Dominion, or a Sheriff, or by judi-
cial process, or a sale to which any order, rule, or regulation made by
any board constituted under the “Natural Products Marketing (British
Columbia) Act” is applicable; or to sales of damaged goods sold at a
price proportionately reduced because of such damage and not merely
reduced in evasion of this Act; or to any general sale of commodities
in a store or premises where the retailer is actually retiring from busi-
ness or moving to other premises; or where the retailer is discontinuing
the distribution of the line of goods so being offered for sale; or to any
other general sale at a price reduced because of some special conditions
or circumstances and which in the opinion of the Court is not reduced
for the purpose of defeating the provisions of this Act and is not con-
trary to its intent and purpose.

5. The sale of a food product in combination with any other com-
modity at a combined price or at prices not applicable to the purchase
of the commodities individually, or a sale of a food product contempor-
aneously with a gift of any commodity, shall be deemed to be a violation
of section 3 of this Act: Provided that if the food product is sold in
combination only with other food products, such sale shall not be
deemed to be a violation of section 3, in the case of any prosecution for
violation of this Act, if the retailer accused proves that the total price
charged for the combination is not less than the aggregate of the prices
at which each of such food products might lawfully be sold by him
under this Act.

6. In any prosecution for violation of this Act the purchase price
may be proved by proof of the invoice price.

7. Every person violating the provisions of this Act shall be guilty
of an offence and liable. on summary conviction, to a penalty not ex
ceeding five hundred dollars.

(pat dd a a ES

bottler,

Cb)

(Ce)

(b)

SSS Be I I yo RS)

SHORT JABS

A 5
Weekly

Commentary

By Ol’ Bill

“Teddy” Thaelmann has lain
Heil On Earth in a Nazi dungeon for five
and a half years without being brought to trial
The Nazis have been unable to bring any charges
against him that would stand the light of worid
publicity, and they are afraid of another Dimitroft.
Along with Teddy are thousands of communists and
socialists. But only the most alert section of the
world’s people, the revolutionary workers and peas—
ants, remember Thaelmann and his Red comrades.

The Spanish people have been subjected to tor-—
tures worse than purgatory and hell combined for
two and a half years; peaceful, innocent children,
women and men haye been torn to shreds, slaugh-
tered, by the hell's legions of Hitler and Mussolini,
by the same brutal and sadistic capitalist agency
that keeps Thaelmann buried alive in his tomb, fas-
cism. But wider masses of people have taken up the
defence of the Spanish victims of the black and
brown pestilence that has broken out in the world.

The savage atrocities of the past few weeks
wreaked on the inoffensive and peaceful Jews in
Germany and Austria have, however, awakened
from the lethargy every decent individual who had_
not already been sickened to the point of vomiting.
Everybody, in fact, except the most confirmed re-
actionaries; and even some of them out of very
shame, have been compelled to express horror at
the beastiality of the gang that has the German
people in its toils.

JOIN OL’ BiLLL’S INTERNATIONAL BRIGADE!

“When Abdul

ce 2 Hamid “the
Adolf Hitler, 55 Dedamned”’ was sultan of
The Bedamned Turkey, committees func—

tioned in many of the democratic countries to care
for the refugee Armenians who were treated as the
German Jews are today. Such committees are being
revived today to find a new “pale” for the Jews in
Africa, in South America, in the British Colonies, in
the ex-German colonies—anywhere, to get rid of
them.

Albert Einstein, the world’s top-ranking physicist,
stated some time ago that “Britain was the best
friend of the Jewish people’ for providing a home
for them in Palestine. But the Jews in Palestine
have only traded one pogrom-country for another.
Nor would the Jews of the East End of London,
who have been man-handlied and had their property
destroyed by Moseley’s moronic followers, agree
with the great scientist Einstein. Britain under
Tory government is not a friend of the poor Jews
and Palestine under capitalist rule is not a solution
for Jewish pogroms.

To the capitalist class there is no Jewish question;
only a profit-making, dividend-paying- question, and
this is proved beyond any doubt by the Berlin cor-
respondent of the Daily Province. Ihast Saturday's
issue of that paper carries a story about “Profit
From Oppression.’ British and US. bankers are
ready to make loans to Germany since the seizure
and destruction of Jewish property is a great help
to the Third Reich’s financial position because it
will ‘help to improve the Reich’s balance of inter-
national payments, the country will be better able
to repay foreign loans, and besides, we can get
better interest on loans to Germany than we can
on loans in the United States.”

Such callous, cold-blooded gloating over coining
gold out of blood and tears and sweat is equalled
only by the hysterical screams of the leaders of
world fascism engaged in the rape and dismempber—
ment of countries like Abyssinia, Spain, China and
Czechoslovakia.

JOIN OL’ BILL’S INTERNATIONAL BRIGADE!

cé But there is one country where

A Land Of the Jewish people have no fear of
Promise pogroms; where they live their
own lives; where they produce wealth for them-
selves without paying tribute to any gang of profit
hungry ghouls; where there is no racial question;
where there is no “pale,” no ghetto, no Judengasse—
Birobidjan in the Soviet Union, where the national
question has been solved.

Birobidjan has been built up with the help of the
anti-fascist Jews throughout the world organized
in the Ieor, but that help is no longer needed. The
Icor, however, having played its part in establishing:
the autonomous Jewish republic of Birobidjan, did
not fold up and quit.

Its members have assumed the great task of help-
ing to destroy world fascism as part of the work
of solving ultimately the whole question of “racism,”
nationalism and exploitation. With its thousands
of members in North America it is doing a good
job.

Every antifascist, every one who has felt the
human being within him, or her, stirred by the
atrocities of the degraded Hitlerite tools of finance—
capital in Germany and Italy should make it their
business to support the Icor. The Vancouver Branch
is staging a bazaar in the O’Brien Hall on Homer
Street on the 6th and 7th of December. Let's all
be there to help them in their fight against Nazi
terror!

JOIN OL’ BILT’S INTERNATIONAL BRIGADE!

= A great crisis has developed in
A Terrible England. There are three millions
Crisis of starving unemployed on the dole
and the parish registers. There are four “‘dis-—
tressed’”’ areas where the people have no work now
and never will have while capitalism lasts- There
are other distressed areas developing, Wottingham,
for instance, which will become like South Wales
when Bata’s shoe factories in Gzechoslovakia flood
the world with cheap Nazi produced shoes. There
are many other questions just as eritical.

But it is none of these things that are responsible
for the grave crisis in English official life. The
worry is in the Colleges of Arms, among the experts
jn heraldic lore. The great problem: “Is the Earl of
MacbDuff, son and heir of the late Prince Arthur of
Connaught, entitled to any other title?’

We is a great-grandson or Queen Victoria, but
because his grandfather’s two titles have already
been grabbed off by other blue-bloods he is not en—
titled to use them, although he is the grandson of a
royal duke.

If no solution is found he will have to call himself
plain Mr. Duff. The College of Heralds has never
been confronted with such a situation in ali its his—
tory. Terrible!!!

JOEN OL’ BILI’S INTERNATIONAL BRIGADE!

1 Se - ‘(SE ea) et ae

tne yx" & OO

To to t