Page Two 7 Ta i

THE PEOPLE’S ADVOCATE

THE )
PEOPLE’S ADVOCAT

Published Weekly by the Proletarian Publishing
Association, Room 10, 163, 3West Hastings Street,
Vancouver, BC. Phone Trinity 2019.

One vear $2.00 Three Months
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Make All Cheques Payable to: The People’s Adyocate
Vancouver, B.C. - Friday, January 27, 19393

Fraternity and Friendship
Our Watchwerd!

HERE will be no fratricidal warfare be-
tween American Federation of Labor and
ClO-affiliated unions in Canada! ©

This was the challenging cry to reaction
that swept through the country this week as
organized labor greeted the warm expression
of fraternity and friendship extended by
Trades Congress secretary R. J. Tallon to his
brother unionists in the CIO.

Events of the past two weeks within the
ranks of the Canadian labor movement re-
veal one outstanding fact: that delegates to
last September’s convention of the Trades and
Labor Congress meant what they said when
they voted for unity.

The executive council of the Trades Con-
press was faced, however, with a difficult
Situation. They had been handed an ulti-
matum by AFI President William Green—
either suspend the CIO affiliates,or face the
prospect of withdrawal of AFL atfiliates
which comprise the majority of the Congress
unions and membership.

There was only one choice to make—sus-
pension of the CIO, but while making the
choice, the Congress leadership made it plain
that “friendly relations between the two
sroups will continue.’ And the job facing
Canadian labor now is to see that friendly re-
lations are maintained and extended, that co-
operation between craft and industrial
unions, the Railway Brotherhoods and the
Catholic syndicates will be further developed
toward a more complete and binding trade
union unity.

There will be unhappiness in the camp of
reactionary big business at the clear-headed
manner in which unionists met the suspension
move, of course.

Reaction was hoping against hope for con-
fusion, for a fierce internal fight that would
have split labor’s ranks wide open. Their
hopes were shown in the premature press
stories that appeared, in the scare headlines
that have preceded every critical point in the
unity campaign during the past two years.

Tt would have been right down the reac-
tionaries’ back alley had the Trades Congress
and the CIO declared war on each other,
started a movement which would have ended
in the smashing of all principal trade union
groups.

That such a warfare was not opened proved.
again the commonsense attitude of those who
jave gained positions of trust in the trade
gnion movement, proved again that ultimate
reestablishment of unity is possible.

To Honor Lenin Means To Work
For Peace, Democracy

IFTEEN years ago the world’s common
people suffered a tremendous loss. This
weel marks the anniversary of the death of
one of the greatest leaders of oppressed hu-
manity this world has ever known—Lenin.

Lenin founded the first socialist state in
history—established firmly on one-sixth of
the world’s surface the broadest and freest
democracy in the world—a country without
exploiters and exploited, oppressors or Op-
pressed, a country where the way is open for
humanity to advance to the highest reaches
of human fulfilment.

Lenin is dead, but his teachings every year
show new millions the path of struggle to-
wards a new and better life. The inex-
tinguishable torch of Leninism burns ever
more brightly in a world darkened by fascist
warmakers and stranglers of human freedom.

The people of Spain, hungry and poorly
armed, are desperately striving, with match-
less heroism, to hold back the hordes of Hit-
ler, Mussolini and Franco, who seek to stifle
Spanish democracy in blood.

The war-tortured masses of China are

locked in desperate conflict with the Japanese _

military juggernaut, which seeks to lay all
Asia prostrate beneath its jackboot.

In Europe, Hitler, aided by Premier Cham-
berlain, is bent on subjugating Central Eu-
rope with the purpose of driving through it a
military highroad to the borders of the state
which Lenin founded:

And, everywhere, including Canada, the
foes of human liberty are seeking to curb and
encroach on human rights, long established
and sealed with the blood of our forefathers.

To act in the spirit of Lenin today is to rally
all possible opposition to the fascist war-
makers and to extend all possible aid to their
victims.

To properly honor Lenin’s memory today is
to play a part in uniting the broadest masses
in defense of imperilled democracy.

Tt means with greater determination to
strive for wider democracy, greater pros-
perity, and secure peace.

Humanity, guided by Lenin’s genius, made
one of the greatest advances in its long his-
tory. The embracing of Leninism by still
wider numbers will lead te the commence-
ment of another great period of advance.

Problems Demanding Answer .oorr JABS

Deaths and injuries
blacklist system, the BC Labor Department’s
attitude in labor disputes, loss of franchise by
lozzers—these were the important questions
placed before Hon. George S. Pearson on Janu-
ary 19 by the International Woodworkers of
America in its brief which requests the co-

in logging camps,

ExT

the

operation of the Department.

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| (eas BC Coast District Council of the International Wood-
workers of America welcomes you to your Vancouver
conference in which, no doubt, many problems of importance
to laboring men and women will be discussed. :

The Council, therefore, desires to place before you a short
statement of its views of certain matters which vitally affect
our great woodworking industry and the thousands employed

in it.

Our submissions fall under four headings: (1) deaths and
injuries to woodworkers; (2) the present system of hiring
woodworkers; (3) the Department’s attitude in labor disputes;
(4) the loss of franchise by loggers.

The death and injury toll
among BC woodworkers over the
past five years has shown 2
steady and alarming increase:

Deaths Accidents
193455 S525: 4Q ee ei as 9,289
AQ35 ESS gD eS a 12,089
4193632 See ae Reese 13,651
IES EY (Rae SG GO ssc: 16,102
LOSS Sees = 63s 5255-=

(Figures supplied by Department
of Labor Bulletins.)

To suggest that loggers are by
nature reckless and that they de-
liberately throw away their lives,
as has been stated by responsible
persons, including the Minister, is
begging the question.

The real reason for the above
increase in death and mutilation
lies in a number of factors. Most
prominent among these is the de-
Sire of Owners and lessees of tim-
ber limits, and particularly of
members of the BC Loggers’ As-
sociation, to secure a larger pro-
duction per man. To attain this
objective, the rate of work per
man is speeded up, without any
increase in wages, but with a ter-
rible increase in accidents.

It is clear that the operators
stand to profit by such a policy.
But if the Department of Labor
is impartially to protect the in-
terests of the woodworkers, it
should surely enforce its own
safety regulations and fearlessly
penalize those operators who
break the law.

Were the department to
change its present lax policy in
this alone it would save many
lives, prevent hundreds of ter-
rible accidents resulting im the
mutilation of many healthy
men and secure the respect of
thousands of woodworkers and
of the general public.

It is true that the Department
did establish a Safety Committee
in INovember, 1937, under one
Gharles Pearce. This commiuttee,
however, decided to co-operate
with the BC Loggers’ Association
and its signal failing to improve
the accident situation is clearly
seen in the above table.

J£ this committee is te perform
2 truly useful function it will re-
verse its present policy of co-
operation with those whose finan-
cial interests are furthered
through speedup in the industry
and will instead co-operate with
the men themselves by assisting
them to organize their own safety
committees in every camp and
mill.

We definitely make this sug-
gestion as a recommendation to
the Department for its immediate
consideration.

e

| See from the prob-

lem of accidents and indeed
one of their main causes is the
system of employing men which
is now in general use in the
woodworking industry and which
is referred to as the “blacklist.”

The extensive filing system in
which the names of thousands of
woodworkers are placed on
ecards, together with a statement
of their “character,” has now
been operating for years. it has
been established time without
number that men who have par-
ticipated in strikes, men who
have been members of a trade
union, men who have subscribed
to labor papers, and men who
haye expressed themselves ver-
bally as favoring trade unions—
have been unable to secure em-
ployment in a major portion of
the industry and particularly in
camps and milis operated by
members of the BC Loggers’ As—
sociation. In this respect, the
employment agency of the Asso-
ciation is the chief offender.

This employment agency, of
course, does not openly deny em-—
ployment to men because of
their sympathy for labor organi-
zation. A fine variety of excuses
is always on hand for the black-
listed logger. Consequently Sec-
tion 5 of the Industrial Concilia-
tion and Arbitration Act—which
recognizes the right of labor to
organize—is not overtly broken.
It is clear, however, that the net
effect of this system mnullifies
whatever protection Is given to
lumberworkers by vartue of Sec-
tion 5:

Furthermore, the “Tyee” sys-
tem under which Oriental lum-
berworkers are compelled to
purchase jobs through 2 job
broker is so notorious and wide-
spread that it scarcely requires
mention.

As a result of the “blacklist”
and “tyee” systems, hundreds of
perfectly competent loggers are
denied employment and are in
many instances replaced by in-
experienced young men coming
into BG from the Prairies. It is
significant that the death and
accident toll above referred to is
particularly high in this category
of inexperienced labor. The
“blacklist” and “tyee’ systems

Commissioner Wood

By WS. BENNETT
wv IS MAJESTY” Commissioner

Wood of the RCMP, who
gallantly led his mounties at the
battle of Regina, tabled a report
on the “work” of “Canada’s fin-
est” in the House of Commons
on January i4.

In his report he claimed that
the task of maintaining an atti-
tude of patience and understand-
ing toward the public is compli-
eated by deliberate propaganda
campaigns, designed to under-
mine confidence in the force and
constituted authority generally.

“Subversive elements, follow-
ing any police action, immedi-—
ately accuse the police of unne—

cessary brutality, intoxication
and similar offenses,” he com=-
plained.

There is no need for any “sub-
versive elements’ to frame the
mounties on any false charges of

that kind as they provide such

incidents in sufficient volume
themselves.
e
Be there is another source of
incidents that sap the “con-
fidence of the public” in this
Canadian “patrician” band,

snooping ratlike into the private
and personal affairs of people
who by no stretch of imagina-
tion can be called criminals.

The London Tribune in its issue
of December 18 in a short para-
graph tells how a Vancouver
man, Mr. M. S. Reynolds, wrote
a letter to Premier Neville Cham-
berlain protesting against the
British government’s foreign pol-
icy.

Shortly after, on November 23,
two plainclothes members of the
RCMP called on Mr. Reynolds in
Vancouver. They produced a copy
of the letter he had sent to

~

are therefore directly responsible
for at least a portion of deaths
and accidents in the lumbering
industry.

The District Council therefore
urges upon the Department the
initiation of an immediate public
investigation by a board of three,
of whom one snould be appointed
by the Council, into the methods
by which both the white and
Oriental workers are employed,
and into the activities of all em-—
ployment agencies used by the in-
dustry in BC.

By the Department’s willing-
ness to sponsor such an invyesti-
gation its true attitude toward
jabor will be easily judged.

e

ROM what has been said above,
it is plain that the Depart-
ment’s attitude toward labor dis-
putes might be expected, in gen-
eral, to run toward favoring the
employer at the expense of labor
and in fact that is exactly what

has happened e

Two outstanding examples in
the last year will sufficiently indi-
cate the Departments partial at-
titude — the Blubber Bay and
Bloedel mil] disputes.

The Blubber Bay strike af-
forded, and still does afford fine
opportunities for the Department
to intervene in a dispute in which
certain basic principles of civil
liberties and union rights are
concerned. ©f these opportuni-
ties, however, the Department
has refused to avail itself except
under pressure, and aS.a result
a whole Canadian community has_
been in serious jeopardy of dam-
age to life and property for a

considerable time, and at the
hands of an American corpora-
tion. od

MAN logging camps and mills
in BC are in very isolated
places and on election day it has
been found that regulations
which require an employer to
permit his employees time off for
balloting have not been enforced.
Even where time permitted em-
ployees to exercise their franchise
the facilities for balloting are
often non-existent.

We call the Department’s at-
tention to a situation which de-
nies bona-fide citizens the all-
important rights of the franchise,
and we ask the Department to
definitely pledge its word that
steps will be taken in co-opera-
tion with returning officers to see
that all legging camps and mills
are completely covered in the
next election.

e

N CONCLUSION, the District

Council wishes the Depart
ment of Labor -.to know that it
can count on the Council’s fear-
Jess co-operation should the De
partment decide to correct any
or all of “the abuses which are
noted above.

British Columbia employers
to dread the organization of
basic industries in the Provy-
ince. Experience in the United
States, however, leads us to
believe that organization, far
from disrupting industry, actu-
ally has a beneficial and stabil-
izing effect on the whole in-
ternal economy and raises the
standard of living throughout
the community.

The District Council therefore
sicerely seeks the fullest co-
operation of the Labor Depart—
ment and is satisHed that if the
same is secured, beneficial re-
sults will be obtained which far
exceed present expectations.

Complains

Chamberlain and another he had
sent to Lord Lloyd. He was told
that he must not write such let
ters in future.

Mr. Reynolds told them bluntly
that he would write to anyone
he pleased “and when I please as
long as postage stamps are avail-
able.”

The Tribune comments that “it
is an interesting reflection on our
rulers’ attitude to democracy
when they set the police on citi-
zens who exercise their rights to
make known to them their poli-
tical views.”

And this does more to bring
Gommissioner Yiyood and his “yel-
low stripes” into contempt than
all the drunkards and embezziers
in their ranks who have been ex-
posed to public view.

J. S. Woodsworth is to be com-
mended for airing this piece of
snooping in the Ottawa House.

The Armchair “Experts”

By MAJOR SAM WILD
HAVE talked with many arm-
chair experts in and around

Whitehall during -recent years,
and have been appalled at the
complacent ignorance in high
places. The entire basis of British
foreign policy since 1933 has been
laid on a profound and obvious
fallacy, which has worked itself
out inexorably in the history of the
last five years.

The fallacy took the following
form: Russia is socialist, Germany
was in 1933 on the point of becom-
ing socialist. Fascism must be sup-
ported at all costs to break the
socialist menace in Central Eur-
ope, and to act as a spearhead in
the breaking of Russia. Build a
figantic bloc of fascist powers
based on Berlin; rearm in the
Wester democracies, while offer
ing financial support in Berlin
for a Russian war. The spoils of
all Hiastern Europe and especially

ef the Ukraine will tempt the
Wazis, and in the resulting clash
both Germany and Russia will be
so weakened that Britain will be
left as arbiter of the Continent.
e

HIS amazingly naive picture

was, as every political student
knows in London, actually held
to be a possible development of
reality by the co-called political
leaders of Britain. The deepest
geo-strategic forces doomed it to
futility. For Russia is a powerful

land bloc working on interior
lines. Any attack on her must
come from such impossibly-

stretched exterior lines that it
must fail—unless one factor could
be brought into play. This factor
was internal disruption. Hence
the huge sums that were ex
pended by the Gestapo and the
British Secret Service in subsidiz—
ing the Trotskyite epposition in
Russia.

When, through 1936 and 1937,
the sensational trials were held in
Moscow and the wrecking organiz—
ation smashed to pieces, military
men knew that a decisive his-
torical climax had passed un-
guessed before the world’s eyes.
And the Reichswehr Command
knew this also.

DEEPLY significant fact that
has been missed by the Eur-
opean press is that Hitler’s fren-
zgied outburst against Russia that
used to be a commonplace of his
speeches when he was still in the
first stages of his advance against
the democracies, have ceased en-
tirely since Munich. He knows,
and always knew, that five years
of road-building woudl be neces-
sary before he could use Poland
and the Balkans as a “place d’-
armes” against the USSR. He
meeds these areas as a granary,
a reserve of men and materials,
against the sea-power of the West.

A
Weekly

Commentary

By Ol’ Bill

In a week or two between four and five hundred
boys of the Mac-Paps who have been fighting for
us in Spain will return to Canada, about half of
Th Did them to BC. The time of their

ey i arrival will depend upon how
= much funds are available to
Thei = Share meet their railroad fares
across Canada. The Spanish government, beset
by Witler, Mussolini and Chamberlain is not at
present able to do 2s much for them as they in-
tend later. Both the Spanish people’s government
and our fighters have done their share fer democ-
racy—it is now up to us to do ours.

We must immediately make every preparation
to welcome them home and to care for them
when they get back. Money to provide for their
wants is needed and medical assistance for the
wounded; clothes will have to be found for most
of them, for even the scanty clothes in which they-
left Spanish barracks and hospitals are wern out —
through the meptitude ef the so-called “non-in-.
tervention” evacuation committee.

Democratic people of BG who recognize that
the Mac-Paps were fighting to save them from
fascism can help to solve their immediate and
urgent needs by inviting individual members of
the battalion to be fuests in their homes for 2
couple of weeks or longer, until the committee
can raise sufficient funds to provide for them.
This is only a matter of time. :

They did their share for democracy — now le
us do ours! .

= . The Nazi government agency
The Height in Ganada, eS eScAIS Ton
Of Gall Named “consulate-general,” in
= : keeping with the studied and
settled policies of the anti-civilization Nazi rulers ef
unfortunate Germany, is butting into the internal
affairs of the Canadian people again- =

A letter has been sent out from their Nazi thieves-
hideout in Ottawa to the boards of censorship in
all the provinces of this country, demanding that
the showing of the Soviet film “Professor Mamlock”
be prohibited .

The letter says the consul “would be gratified if
you would see to it that the picture is not allowed
to pass.’ Granow, vice-consul-general, says, “It is
the English version (which proves that he has not
seen the picture) of a play produced by Communists
in Russia to.stir up bad feeling against Germany
and we think its. présentation should not be per-
mitted.” : i

The picture, “Professor Mamlock,” deals with the
atrocious treatment that was meted out to the
Jewish intellectual and professional classes in Ger-
many since the Nazis shed the garb of human
beings and adopted the ethics of the jungle. In it
a Jewish doctor is expelled from his clinic by the
brown-shirted mob and paraded through the streets
with the werd “Jude” (Jew) painted on his gown.
The Nazi so-called consul’s letter claims that the

picture does not represent conditions as they are
in Germany.

“Professor

A G Mamlock” has been ac-
reat claimea by New York critics as one
Picture of the finest foreign films of the year.

It has been described by them as “a
forthright and honest portrayal of conditions as
they exist in Nazi Germany.” The New Outlook,
official organ of the United Church of Canada, says
of it, “The most terrifying thing about the picture
is the fact, as those who have followed the news
from Germany know, it is but a mild version of the
awtul truth. ... A picture of this kind is long
overdue.”

The film is only a Soviet film technically. The
author of the script is a German intellectual, Fred-
erick Wolff, who had to flee from his native land
since the Nazis asumed control. The two directors
also are German, Adolf Minkin and Herbert Rap-
paport, the latter of whom was assistant to the
great Viennese director, G. W. Pabst.

The claim of the Nazi agent’s letter that the pic-
ture does not represent conditions as they are in
Germany is partly true. It does not paint half of
the terrible, Savage brutality that is being yented

on the German people today—Aryan and Jewish
alike.

Ths To Canadian, Americans and all
ey Rob other civilized people, robbing the
The Blind blind is the most despicable of

erimes. Scorm and contempt for
the brand of criminals who pilfer or plunder the
sightless is expressed in the common saying, “mean
enough to steal pennies from a blind man.” Yet
this is the height to which the Nazis have climbed
after six years of political domination over the
German people.

Wational News of the Blind, official organ of the
Canadian National Imstitute for the Blind, in its
January issue, carries a story entitled, “Darkest
Austria.” In a suburb of Vienna, Hohe Warte, ac-
cording to the story, was the Jewish Institute for
the Blind, one of the most progressive schools for
the blind in the whole world. To this school came
Jewish children from the four cormers of the earth.
In its departments of music and industrial arts it
was unexcelled. Psychological studies conducted
there, enabled teachers all over the world to under-—
stand the workings of the minds of children who
had never seen the light of day. It was maintained
by Jewish contributions from all countries.

But the Nazis do not consider that Jewish chil-
dren should be educated so the school is dispersed
and the property confiscated. The little blind Jewish
boys and girls have been seattered all over Hurope
to cower in holes and cellars. Their library of two
thousand Braille volumes has been destroyed. Sixty-
five years of intelligent social endeavor has been
“co-ordinated.” Spurlos versenkt! Schrecklichkeit!
“Blindness, unrelieved, reigns in Darkest Austria!”

5 Is it shame or fear that lies behind

Out With the demand for the prohibition of
Them! “Professor Mamlock?” it is not
shame, for, on their record, every

Nazi is a scoundrel, including all their agents in
Canada, consular or plain ordinary spies. At the
same time that Chamberlain works hand in glove
with Hitler, these Nazi agents are stirring up
trouble that is meant to bring about the downfall
of the British Empire. :

The British press has proved that Arabs in Pati-
estine killed British soldiers with Nazi bombs;
Wazi bombs are used to kill British merchant sea-
men in the Mediterranean and pretty soon the
same press will be proving that Nazi bombs in the
hands of Irish terrorists are being used to destroy
power plants, canals and railroads in Chamber-
lain’s England itself.

Wietsche, who is an idol of the Nazis, said of the
Germans that “every great crime against culture
for the last four centuries, lies on their conscience.”
Wietsche was wrong to speak thus of the German
people but it was correct of tne German rulers and
the Nazis are maintaining the tradition.

Their impertinence in telling us what pictures
we may see in Canada must be answered and their
agents sent about their business.

oO mt

"bed pa ty Pt!