he EGF ERE ETE

NEW SCHEME IS
UNDER CLOSE
‘CONSIDERATION

Marks Step Ahead
In Development Of

Socialist State

LONDON, Eng.—The Soviet
Union plans to distribute bread
free to anyone who wants it,
as freely as water is now avail-
‘able without charge in most
| countries.

This is the startling development
recently revealed by The Week,
authoritative information journal
credited with a long series of
Similar inside stories.

distribution of bread te the citizens
ef the Soviet has now become 2
subject of practical discussion in
official circles and may become an
actuality before the end of 1939.

it is stated the matter is still
in the more or iess preliminary and
“unofficial” stage, and while the
practical means of putting it into
effect at a fairly early date are
certainly available, there is some
discussion on the pros and cons as
opposed to other forms of utilizing

the resources available to the best
| SESS from the point of the
view of the general standard of
living.

There is no anticipation with-
in the country that free bread
would greatly increase consump-
tion. The effect, it is believed,
would be felt most powerfully in
the consumption of other com-
modiiies, for which consumption

_ power would be liberated by the
provision of bread, in the same
way that consumption ,power
would be limited if charges were
made for water.

Any reaction by Soviet citizens
to the proposal—to the surprise
of observers—was far less notice-
able than the sensation which
would haye been created by a

Similar announcement in any other

People of the Soviet Union have
been accustomed to envisage such
possibilities as more and more
practical probabilities in the course
of the transition from Socialism to
Communism.

equal importance is the fact that
in Russia a sufficient number of
Services are already sufficiently
mear to being free as to accustom
people to the idea of very large
vextension of the system.

For example, the exceedingly
‘cheap electric service, as well as
the fact that telephone calls are
j free, with payment for the instru-
ment as the only charze.

in a number of districts also
free services for travellers have
been an established fact for some
time. :

CITY TO FAVOR
UNION LABOR

Hinance committee of the Van-
couver City Council endorsed a re—
solution Tuesday that all contracts
be placed with firms employing
union labor and purchase of ma-
terials to companies recognizing
the employees’ right to collective
bargaining,

A letter from the Trades and
Tabor Council introduced the mai-
ter to the finance committee and
asked that city firms employing
union iabor be considered in the
contract awards of the city coun-
cil whenever possible

Aldermen stated the city had al-
ways favored union firms in the
lecontracts and purchases where it
Was practical,

E. A. Jamieson, president, and
P. R. Bengough, secretary of the
Trades and Labor Council, told
committee members that purchase
of chearer materials was a short-
Sighted policy as it favored a
breaking down of wages and in-
directly forced down living stan-
dards, whereas patronage of union
‘firms would have the reverse ef-
fect.

, The Trades Council officers were
delegzated to attend the finance
committee meeting when a dele-
gate informed the Council that
Aldermen Bennett and Cornett
were opposed to giving preference

-of contracts and purchases to
union Arms.

‘Senate May Oppose
Railway Commission
OTTAWA, Ont—Opposition to

continuing the Senate railway com-
‘Maittee investigations may develop
‘in the Upper House this session.
it is Known that the sovernment
leader, Senator Dandurand, is very
lukewarm about the investigation.
' The committee last year sub-
jmitted an incomplete report and
suggested that the probe continue
‘this year. The report was con-
dirmed by the Senate and a vote
in the Upper Chamber will be
mecessary to decide that the com-
Mittee will discontinue its investi—
gations,

OD

According to The VWreek, the free

country. >

it appears too that of at least -|-

Free Bread Plannec

By Soviets

THE

EOPLE’S ADVOCATE

VANCOUVER, B.C., FRIDAY, JANUARY 27, 1939

| ~RUSSIANS HONOR LENIN’S ANNIVERSARY

Crowds waiting in the snow ef Moscow's Red Square to enter
Lenin’s tomb during the memorial observances commemorating his

death 15 years 2g0.
throughout the civilized world.

Meetings observing the occasion were held

Call Provincial Convention

BC Federation To Seek
Broad Public Works Plan

Federal responsibility for all-social services and a public
works program along the lines and magnitude of the United
States’ Public Works Adminsitration will be sought by the BC
Federation on Unemployment when it convenes its provincial

conference early in March.

invitations “have been sent to
Mayor Ieyle Telford, Dr. George M.
Weir, Minister of Health and Edu-
eation, R. P. Bone, civic social ser-
wice administrator, Union of BG
Municipalities, Vancouver Housing
Association and Rey. Andrew Rod-
dan, of the ministerial association,
to lend support to the federation’s
plans.

The conference will also seek to

impress the present session of the
federal parliament with the need
to enact legislation along the lines
of national unemployment insur-
ance, a residence and responsibility
act, reduction in eligibility for Old
Age Pensions from 70 to 60 years
and amendments to the National
Housing Act to allow municipali-
ties better facilities for cooperation
with senior governments in better
housing.

Robert H. Lealess, an official of
the Federation, expects the March
conference will be much larger and
more fruitful than the one held in
September where over 67,000 were
represented by 92 delegates

Nanaimo Raises
$189 For Mac-Paps

NANAIMO, BC, Jan. 26—Resi-
dents of this city swelled the re-
habilitation fund of the Friends of
the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion
by contributing $189.58 in a tag day
held last Saturday.

Application for the tag day was
made by Charles Beasor, a wound-
ed veteran and resident of the
island.

|

TRAIL UNION
DRIVE ASSISTED

The drive to organize employees
of the Consolidated Mining and
Smelting Company at Trail re-
ceived a boost when the executive
board of the International Union
of Mine, Mill and Smelter Work—
ers recently voted a grant of $400
monthly to the BC sub-district for
organization purposes.

The grant came on the recom-
mendation of J. Lovelett, board
member and former international
representative for British Colum-
bia, who attended a special con-
vention of the union in Yaneouver
jlate in December.

in its letter to the Vancouver
office, the international board sec-
retary stated: “For your informa-
tion the motion put before the
board on the recommendation of
Brother Lovelett that $400 a month
be granted to the British Columbia
section for organization purposes,
Was granted, and therefore we will
forward to you each month $400
for this organizational campaign.”

Commenting on the move, local
officials of the TUMMESW de-
clared the grant will be a “tre—
mendous boost” in the organiza-
tion of Trial and in building the
union throughout the province
generally.

Boycott Japanese Goods!

[THOUSANDS PAY

LENIN TRIBUTE -

Vancouver's labor movement
commemorated the anniversary of
Toenin’s death last Sunday in one of
the biggest meetings in recent
years.

Every corner of the big Empress
Theatre was packed by the time
Malcolm Bruce, feature speaker of
the evening, took the platform to
pay brief but warm tribute to cone
of the greatest figures in history,
founder of the first Socialist state.
_ “We meet here tonight notin a
spirit of mourning but a spirit of
pride and happiness—pride for the
part he played as the leader of the
world’s people, happiness at the
Success of his accomplishments as
exemplified in the Soviet Union,”
Bruce stated. <

“Toenin’s teachinss were a guide
to the world workings class during
the dark days of the Great War.
Today, with war raging in Spain
and China, his teachings are being
applied by millions of people.

Briefly outlining Lenin’s life, the
BC Communist leader stated that
one of Lenin’s greatest contribu-
tions was his stubborn fight to
purify Marxism, to rescue it from
the distortionists and revisionists.

“This work alone, even had he
accomplished nothing else, would
have brought him world acclaim
from the labor movement. The
best way that we here in British

Columbia can commemorate his

death is to fight to build that
democratic front which vill be

the main bulwark against fas-
¢cism,” Bruce concluded.

The commemoration meeting was
marked by an excellent program
of orchestral music, choir singing
and specialty numbers.

Among the many outst)mding
numbers on the all-star program
were songs by Herb Nustrum, out
Standing local tenar, character
songs by Charles Jones, baritone,
and several plano accordion num-
bers by Victor Ricci. Other groups
contributing included the Ukrain-
jan choir and orchestra, the Fin-
nish choir and the Russia choir and
orchestra.

eee,

Stop Canada Being
Partner to Fascism

Urges Rev. Villett

“Our government imposes a $60 million defense bill on a tax-

ridden populace, partly to build Pacific Coast defenses against

an aggressor who we must infer is Japan, while at the same time

we continue to ship the sinews of war to that nation—the most

outlandish reasoning ever heard of,” declared Rev. G. Harrison
Villett in addressing last Sunday’s Embargo Council meeting in

the Paradise Theatre.

“What is the sense of cooperating with a nation that has

declared it will slam the doors of
China against our trade?” Rev.
Villett asked. “If we continue to
ship war materials to Japan we
become the partner in a most dia-—
bolical cruelty. Atrocities which
we could not imagine in our wild-
est dreams have become an every-

day ocgurrence in Ghina,” he
charged, pointing out that by stop-
ping the shipment of gasoline
alone, Great- Britain and United

States could bring the Japanese in-
vasion to a speedy conclusion.

Warning against any attempt
from the outside to wealcen the
HEmbarge Council movement, the
United Church minister stated
that when certain people try to
drive a wedge into any propres-
Sive movement, they speak of
Communism, drag in the well-
iEmown red herring.

“A victorious Japan and victor-
ious fascism will mean an emaci-
ated and bound Christianity,” he
concluded.

Canadian industrialists were
Short visioned, stated Mrs. Stuart
Jamieson, a leading member of the
Embargo Council.

“Tf they were realists they would
be granting credits to China as a
means of helping win the war and
keeping the door open to Cana-
dian trade.”

Answering those ‘defeatists”
Who maintain that an embargo on
War materials would bring unem-
ployment to Canada, Mrs. Jamie—
son pointed out that the money for

War materials did not go into the ]

pockets of the people in any case.

“It goes into the pockets of the
directors and bankers who con-
trol International WNickel and
Consolidated Mining and Smelt-
ing,” she asserted. “Im any case,’
the estimated $9-million ioss
through an embargo could more
than be made up by launching a
nation-wide public works and
industrialization program which
would put our people to work
and really build Ganada_”’

Sam Shearer, chairman of the
Trades and Labor Council boycott
committee, took the platform in

Place of President E. A. Jamieson
to declare that the Council and or-
ganized labor was fully behind the
embarzo movement.

“We are going to help build a
powerful boycett and embargo
movement here that will make
the friends of reaction tremble,”
Shearer stated.

Other speakers included Arnold
Webster, Mrs. R. GCG Weldon and
Dr. W. G Black, president of the
League of Nations Society.

The meeting endorsed unani-
mously plans for Saturday’s protest
Parade, and resolutions to Prime
Minister Mackenzie King urging
an embargo as well as a resolution
expressing the meeting’s sympathy
for the great mass of the Japan-
ese people suffering under the op-
pression of Japanese militarism.

Prisoner Of Franco

CUMBERLAND, BC, Jan. 26—
Relatives of Arthur WHoffheinz,
member of the Mackenzie-Papin-
€au Battalion in Spain, learned
from the British Foreign Office
that he is a prisoner of war in San
Pedro de Cardena and awaiting
release on the prisoner exchange.

Se
as

Democracy

ae aa
* =

1300 Delegates Gather To Discuss and Plan Island Nation’s Progress at Communist Party Congress

By LESLIE MORRIS
See CLARA, Cuba. — (By
Mail)—In a fiesta atmosphere
the third national congress of the
Communist Party of Guba met two
weeks ago in this provincial town,
200 miles inland from Havana.
The Theater Claridad, where
congress delegates assembled, is on
the town square, which teems with
the life of colorful Cubans. Fifty
feet across the road is the large
local branch of the Royal Bank
of Canada, enemy of thousands of
Cuban sugar growers. At the cther
corner is the local branch of the
Wational City Bank of New York.
Thus the very physical situation
of the Congress typified the close
inter-weaving of the fate of the
Cuban people with the forces of
US and Canadian imperialism.
it is fitting, therefore, that rep-
resentatives of the Communist
Parties of the USA and of Canada
should have been here, witnesses
ef the almost unbelievable rebirth
of the democratic forces of the
Cuban people, and to see for them-
esives the mighty strides which
this heroic party has made.

a eee months ago the Communist
Party of Cuba was illegal. In
the days of the tyrant Machado
and since, hundreds of Guban
fighters for freedom perished or
rotted in prison for their activities
in behalf of Cuban liberation.

Then the Cuban party was a
small group, hounded and perse—
cuted, publishing a weekly paper
with difficulty, maintainine a
hunted existence, and Slowly
building its ranks.

Today the Cuban party is grow-
ing so rapidly that the thousands
who are seeking membership can
be received only by virtue of the
strenuous efforts of the older mem-
bers. .

This island of a little over four
millions at this moment has a
Communist party of over 23,000,
four times the number it had
five months ago.

it supports a daily paper “To-
day,’ with a circulation of over
20,000, and a weekly paper with
12,000 copies sold. Tt has strong-
holds such as Regia, a small town
of 22,000 néar Havana, in which 2

Communist party of 1600 maintains
fraternal relations with the other
mational parties.

tt has succeeded in building up,
along with the best elements in
the Cuban labor movement, a trade
union membership of almost 500,-
000 out of an industrial working
class of 750,000 to the point where,
immediately this Congress closes,
the national trade union congress
will meet to form a national, aljl-
inclusive federation of trade unions
Which will have in its ranks more
than two-thirds of the entire
Cuban working class.

e
HE Congress was far more than
the first legal Communist gath-
ering of its Kind.

The municipal council of Santa
Clara gave the freedom of the city
to the delesates and the population
was stirred and aroused by the
meeting as never before.

Sufficient food, drink and tobacco
was donated to the Congress to
feed 1300 delegates six days. The
waiters’ union sent its members
from Havana to take care of seryv-

ing the meals. Commercial firms

Gonated radio time and goods to
take care of the delegates.

Blas Rocas’ report (Francisco
Caliderio, 30-year-old secretary of
the party) was not a narrow party
document. it was above allia pro-
Sram for national economic and
political democracy, around which
masses of the Cuban people are
rallying — a program which this
fresh and throbbing party will take
to the masses.

it greeted the return of democra-
tic rights to Cuba, but warned of
the dangers ahead; called for vigi-
lance exercised through mass or-
Sanization and worker-peasant-
middle class unity, to preserve and
extend the democratic rights which
have been bought at such a price
of blood and suffering.

it defined what must be the sym-
pathetic attitude of Cuba to the
United States and the policy of the
Roosevelt administration. It called
for the real enactment of those so-
cial, labor and agrarian reforms
which, while placed on the statute

(Continued on Page Five)
See CUBANS

@

>

Chilean
Democracy
In Action

Popular Front
Launches Public
Works Program

SANTIAGO, Chile —A vast proe-
Sram of public works with an
annual expenditure of 500,000;-
000 pesos has been announced by
the Popular Front sovernment
of Chile. One of the chief items
in this program is the manufac-
ture and distribution of cheap
electric power to industrial units
tn all parts of the country.

President Aguirre Cerda and
his cabinet have lost no time in
taking the practical steps to put
the program of the Popular
Front into life Several all-day
Cabinet sessions during the past
week has brought the announce
ment that the government in-
tends to spend 10,000,000 pesos
per year for tubercular care, pur-
chase and distribute meat at low
cost, allot 8,000,000 pesos a4 year
for clothing for poor children,
jaunching a housing plan for the
workers.

in order to avoid the isolating
of the working class into segre-
gated sections, the cabinet has
announced that the cheap hous-
ing projects will be built neither
in particular areas nor in large
£roups.

Another government measure
will unify all social security or-
Sanizations into one unit with
the investments under govern-
ment control.

Im order to make education
available to wider numbers of
the population, the sovernment
has decided to abolish enroliment
fees and other changes which
have in the past made elementary
education prohibitive for poorer
families.

MINING PROFITS
ON CHINA WAR

OTTAWA, Ont—Divyidend pay-
ments by Ganadian mining com-
panies reached a total of $100,148 -
000 in 1938, which compares with
a- record total of $106,783,000 in
1937. The figures do not include
Gividends paid by holding com-
panies and do not include stock
dividends.

According to the department of
mines and resources, dividend pay-
ments by metal mining companies
in 19388 amounted to $93,776,200, of
which the base metal producers
contributed $54,400,000 and the £old
producers $39,000,000. >

Producers of coal, petroleum
and natural gas contributed $4,281,-
000, while dividend payments by
producers of industrial minerals
amounted to $2,000,000.

International WNickel Company
of Canada was far in the lead in
1938 with dividend payments of
$31,102,000, paid for in the blood
of Chinese and Spanish people,
and was followed by MWoranda
Mines with $8,995,000; Consolidated
Mining and Smelting, $8,164,000;
Lake Shore Mines, $8,000,000; Hol-
linger Consolidated Gold Mines,
34,920,000; and Hudson Bay Mining
and Smelting, $4,137,000.

Telford May Grant
Tag Day For China

Refugees from China’s wartorn
areas may be aided through a taf
day in Vancouver if Mayor Lyle
Telford decides the question next
Monday at the regular council
meeting. 5

Finance committee members

were evenly divided on the ques——

tion of granting a tag day to Rev.
S. S. Osterhout, who appeared on
behalf of Chinese business men.

Aldermen Halford Wilson, Hel-
ena Gutteridge, Fred. Crone and
HE. J. DeGarves favored the tags
day while those opposing the move
were Aldermen John Bennett, H.
L. Corey, T. HB. Kirk and J. W.
Cornett.

The latter tried to end the dead-
lock by declaring the motion Iost,
but the tie vote negated the motion
and will be brought up in council
meeting.

os

min eae perth Sow