Page Four

THE PEHEOPLE’S

ADVOCATSERE

May 5, 1939

THE
PEOPLE’S ADVOCATE

Published Weekly by the Proletarian Publishing
Association, Room i0, 163 West Hastings Street,

Vancouver, B.C. Phone TRinity 2019.
One Year —_._._____—-$2.00 Three Months ____- $ -60
Half Year 222 $1.00 Single Copy ———--— $ .05

Make All Cheques Payable to: The People’s Advocate

Vancouver, B.C. Friday, May 5, 1939

The Milk Question

ae THE innocent bystander the current
fight between milk distributing interests
over the Single Agency would seem to re-
solve itself down to the fact that a certain Mr.
Sherwood doesn’t like Mr. Gardom and Mr.
Gardom certainly doesn’t like Mr. Sherwood.

But the issue goes far deeper than that.
It’s a revival of the old fight between private
interests as to which will corral the biggest
slice of velvet in the fluid milk business, and
the producer be damned.

The trouble is, all the contending groups
and the Marketins Board are forgetting one
important factor—the consumer. The likeli-
hood is—and the Board has already indicated
as much—that consumer prices will be hoisted
within a few months. And a boost in milk
prices to the consumer will also inevitably
mean a loss to the producer through reduced
purchasins power.

On the surface, the situation would appear
hopelessly confused. But there are some very
simple remedies. First of all, the interests of
the producer must be guarded. Let’s make
‘sure then that the Marketing Board carries
out its task of eliminating wasteful methods
of distribution, cutting down on overlapping
services, and guaranteeing of a price to the
producer which will allow him to realize a
fair price for his product at the expense of
She exorbitant spread now enjoyed by the
distributor.

Second, let’s protect the interests of the
consumer by placing consumer representa-
tives on the Marketing Board, just in case
there should be any idea in board members”
minds that high distribution costs can be load-
ed onto the shoulders of the buying public.
It should be made plain here and now that
milk consumers in the Greater Vancouver
area do not intend to allow prices to be
hoisted, that they won’t stand for Big Business
taking more milk from their children.

As for Mr. Gardom and Mr. Sherwood —
well, is there anyone who particularly cares
what happens to these two gentlemen?

Make it Two in a Row!

N MAY DAY Vancouver’s labor and pro-

gressive movement, fed up with the anti-
union Pattullo Liberal machine, swept Mrs.
Laura E. Jamieson into provincial office as
WMiLA-elect for Vancouver Center.

Wext Wednesday, May 10, there’s going to
be another opportunity to express an opinion
on the Patiullo stooges in the city administra-
tion, and indications are that labor will repeat
its action by electing ex-Alderman Alfred
Hurry to City Council.

Monday’s CCF-labor victory left no room
for doubt as to what Vancouver Center voters
thought about the Liberal candidate.

With memories of Pattullo’s consistently
anti-labor actions over the past few years—
Blubber Bay, the administration of the Con-
ciliation and Arbitration Act, the disgraceful
events of June 19 at the Postoffice and Art
Gallery—labor turned thumbs down on May 1
and gave the Liberal administration one of
its most slashing defeats in years.

The Liberal heelers were of course quick to
offer alibis. “We were too confident,” they
claimed. But that weak excuse can’t explain
why their candidate was pushed out of the
running altogether. If they’re honestly look-
ing for a reason, let them examine the whole
policy of the Liberal cabinet which, with one
or two exceptions, is a policy of backing down
before the demands of Big Business, and the
people know it.

Wow the labor and progressive movement
has its second chance within a week to let
Pattullo’s Liberal machine, this time that sec-
tion of it that works within the city admini-
stration, realize what the people want.

With the chance of putting another progres-
sive in City Council, confidence is high that
Alfred Hurry will be elected. This time, let’s
make it two in a row!

A Labor Victory

HE present session of the Ottawa House,

with all it has so far failed to do in the
way of needed legislation, with all the rotten
features of its economic policy as outlined in
the Dunning budget, will still be remembered
aS a session that marked a significant conces-
sion to labor—passage of the measure making
it illegal to intimidate workers from joining
a trade union.

Originally proposed as an amendment to
the Criminal Code by CCF leader J. S. Woods-
worth ,the bill was adopted as a government
measure and passed last week, marking the
end of a nation-wide campaign by organized
labor.

Wot by any means as complete a piece of
legislation as is necessary, it is nevertheless
a big step forward in the field of labor rela-
tions and gives the labor movement a stronger
foothold from which to push forward its de-
mand for more complete legislation along the
lines demanded by the Trades and Labor
Congress of Canada.

Keep An Eye On Chamberlain

By HARRY GANNES
UNILICH circles in London

and Paris now bear the
closest watching after Hitler’s
war-spreadins speech.

As an important part of
Wazi aggressions, and in an ef-
fort to block the rapidly-
forming peace front, Hitler
seeks another “appeasement”
Lift.

This should
clear when he

“Those who
never another
Wwar-mongers.”

When Hitler said this he had
more than an inkling that the
British and French Munichmen
were busy to hand him other
Czechoslovakias and consequent—
ly to make the present war dan-
ger pale into imsignificance in
the light of the raging fires of
an actual world war.

be made crystal
stated:

raise the cry of
Munich are the

e@

ESSES. Weville Henderson
and Robert Coulondre, re-
spectively British and French en-
voys to Berlin, by their very pres-
ence in Berlin when Hitler
shrieked his latest threats and
demanded new appeasements, en-
couraged the Nazi war-fomenters
in the hope of further Munich-

style assistance to aggression.

Already, reports emanating
from London, are multiplying, to
the effect that Chamberlain right
now is conspiring with Hitler for
“appeasement” terms.

The ‘Tory premier’s objective,
in this respect, is to avoid, if he
ean, realization of collective se-
curity proposed by the Soviet
Union as well as to distort Pres-
ident Roosevelt’s world-inspiring
peace efforts.

RE should be little doubt

that Chamberlain began these

maneuvers when he sent Hender-
son to Berlin.

The Daladiers and SBonnets,
moreover, seconded his new Mun-
ich attempt by having Coulondre
trail Herpierson to the Nazi cap-
ital.

European observers are agreed
that Poland had been picked as
the immediate and main victim
of any new “appeasement” con-
spiracy, should the perpetrators
be able to get away with it

Hitler himself during
speech shook his finger
menacingly at Poland.

Though official circles in War-
saw wigorously deny they will
permit any part of their country
to become another Sudetenland,
Poland has as many Hachas and
Tisos as Prague and Bratislavia
combined.

Wor should one be misled by
the dangerously shrewd move of
Mr. Chamberlain in treating one

his
most

- SATA:

=e BLISS —

“They told me to apply at the WPA.”
«.. And they told me to go get a job in industry.”

fSxfos isch sel s=fs< ls) o< ios hos io< fo= t=) oI cls sla ol Cle >< ocyl< tee <A N>< |<.

of his own promises in the Hitler
fashion and introducing a form
of conscription.

e@

RiITISH labor is by no means

against conscription, per se.

This is true, as well, of wider
progressive forces, Liberals, the
majority of the middle class, dis-
sident Conservatives.

But Chamberlain’s conscription
move has all the earmarks of
being a crafty tactic to sidetrack
a genuine peace front policy
within which conscription could
be a strong move against fascist
aggression.

The question is being asked in
all British trade union and Labor

Party circles: Is Chamberlain
trying to smuggle in coercive
measures against the trade

unions and attempting to limit
labor’s rights by his phony con-
seription maneuver?
Se
HEIN one examines the dif-
ferent world situation of the
Munich days and that confronting
the Municheers in any renewed
“appeasement” attempt today one
can readily appreciate the sus-
picion surrounding Chamber-
lain’s “conscription” step.
The people of England are pro-
foundly aroused over the conse-
quences of Munich.

Sidibzaib=aibee
ies

di ah=4

Esidib=4

Casi

Only the most desperate meth-
ods could be used by those who
would scheme to jam through a
new Munich agreement with Hit-
ler.

Therefore, the argument is
made that the Chamberlains in
Great Britain are, on the one
hand, giving the appearance of
tightening British military de-
fenses against fascism, while ac-
tually they are opening the way
for legal coercion of all critics
ef a new Munich, particularly
by military and labor compulsion
of the British workers.

@
T the exposure of Munich
and the inescapable subse-—

quent moves leading to a peace
front did not result in ousting
even one important guilty min-
ister in either the British or
French cabinet is an ominous
fact as far as new Munich ef
forts are concerned.

When they cannot avoid it, the
Chamberlains and Daladiers are
eompelled to go the way of the
peace front.

But they constantly
around for detours to
ment” of fascism.

Despite “snubs” and bullying
harangues Hitler is doing all he
can to help his Munich abettors
re-enact another Munich.

peel
“appease—

- Canada’s Best Defense

ANADA’S best defense against

external aggression is by the
maintenance of world peace.
While adhering to the belief that
this can be most permanently
established by collective action
through the League of IWNations,
organized labor recognizes the
need for other measures to meet
the immediate challenge of inter-
national lawlessness.

The resolution adopted at the
Wiagara Falls conyention of the
Trades and Labor Congress of
Canada last September pledged
support to the government in
whatever action it may deem es-
sential to take in cooperation
with other peace-loving countries
to destroy the reign of terror
being imposed by Nazi and fas-
eist dictators

Coupled with this was a strong
declaration in favor of nationali-
zation of the manufacture of
arms. and munitions as the most

Comament From Our

Editor, People’s Advocate:

I cannot resist replying to the
article which the chairman of
the Milk Board gave out to the
press on April 24

In the first place I cannot agree
with the board that opposition
has been eliminated. On the con-
trary, in my opinion it has been
increased and is now worse than
in its previous history, because
the board has now added to its
problems two more organizations
that are not satisfied with the
situation. One of these is the
consuming public, which the
board is ignoring entirely, and
which I am afraid will likely
prove to be their Waterloo.

The Milk Board, like its pre-
decessor, is starting at the
wrong end, as it is really the
consumers which it should take
into its foid. The producers
have been organized, and dis-
organized, and organized again,
until all the velvet (surplus
eream) is gone. They are left
very much poorer financially,
and not much wiser than when
they started.

in March, 1938, there was an
organization of consumers form-
ed, and it clearly outlined that
there is only one solution to the
problem of hundreds of milk
wagons, 18 city dairies, and hun-
dreds of producer-vendors, and
that solution lies with the con-
sumer. Organize the consumers
and distribution, and producer
troubles will disappear, and in my
opinion this is a very simple
problem.

But the writer is thinking that

effective means of preventing
the country’s needs being ex-
ploited for private profit.

=)

De. against external ag-
gression is not, however, the
only requirement if our demo-
eratie institutions and forms of
government are to be preserved.
It is too much to expect that
men will be willing to make sac-
rifices to preserve a system that
forces them to stay on the bread-
lines and denies to them and
their dependents the ordinary
amenities of life. Destitute men
cannot be pedsuaded that they
are not hungry py preaching to
them that they live in a land of
opportunity and a country blessed
with a wealth of natural re-
sources.
O AMOUNT of juggling with
figures as to the number ac-
tually unemployed or loosely cast
aspersions as to their unwilling-

the reason this is not done is be-
eause the Milk Board is very
much afraid of the Fraser Valley
Milk Producers’ Association; so
has the board’s predecessor been
one of the reasons for its failure.

The Fraser Valley Milk Pro-
ducers, in organizing the As-
sociated Dairies in 1930-31 made
a blunder that has brought about
this great tragedy in the milk
jndustry. They created a monop-
oly in the distributing end, and
probably intended to go to Vic-
toria and get legislation passed
as to the retail price when—
presto—it would be in the bag.
But unfortunately for them it did
not happen, as dissention gradual-
ly crept in on them like a fog
and it became very dark for
them indeed. It is a great pity
that the FVMPA stepped out of
the producing end, as they have
a very fine product. I use no
other.

The board talks about compara-
tive prices. This is a red herring,
as Vancouver and British Colum-
bia, because of climatic and other
favorable conditions, cannot be
compared with other less favored
localities. The telephone petition
taught me all IT want to know
about the “comparative” red
herring.

The writer's opinion in regard
to the price of milk to the con-
sumer of four percent milk for
10 cents per quart. Stop man-
ipulating, homogenizing, etc.,
and under a proper system of
distribution you will do what
you desire—give the producer
more. That is quite simple to

mess to work can counteract the
canker of demoralization which
inevitably results from long con-
tinued involuntary idleness.

The seed of dictatorship finds
a fertile field in which to srow
where freedom to work and
maintain one’s self-respect is
denied. Padlock laws bring no
eure for this situation. Lip seryv—
ice as to the need for essential
reforms, unless coupled with def-
inite action, only aggravates the
situation.

Sound national defense de—
mands not only a willingness to
cooperate against destruction
from forees operating outside
Canada, but equal, and even
greater readiness to work to-
gether for the elimination of the
menace of internal disintegration,
signs of which are all too pre-
valent today throughout Canada.
—(Editorial, Canadian Congress
Journal).

Readers

accomplish, as I have done a
let of research work on this
subject, and the appointment
of two members en the WHlk
Board from the consuming pub-
lic will very scon result in
eleaning up this mess.

Forget about the FYMPA, Mr.
Gardom and Mr. Sherwood. Not
one of them is interested in your
economies but only in the busi-
ness of milk.

Mr. Gardom’s group is now in-
serting a large advertisement in
the papers “Fight the Combine.”
Yes, if there is going to be a
eombine, let it be a consumers’
combine for a change.

The Milk Board chairman says
that the farmers are to be paid
53 cents per pound butter fat for
their milk Here is a table show-
ing how it works out:

You are now being allowed 32.5
percent butterfat content in your
milk. Let us use four percent as
an example. One hundred pounds
of milk (40 quarts) containing
four percent butterfat at 53 cents
anwunts to $2.12. Sold at 10 cents
per quart this would realize $4.00,
leaving a balance of $1.88 for the
distributor. Now, there are 25,G00
gallons of milk sold in Yancou-
ver daily, resulting as follows:
The consumer would pay daily
$10,000; the farmer would receive
$5,300; the distributor would re-
eeive $4,700. Ten thousand dollars
daily—a very nice business!

Uder a proper system of dis-
tribution these figures could very
easily be changed to the adyan-
tage of both the consumer and
the producer.

Ww. R. BRADBURY.

SHORT JABS

A
Weekly

Commentary

By Ol’ Bill

W In another part of the paper
ell ore you will read that Ol Bills
Atlin! column has gone over the

top in the Press Drive. This has been accomplished
largely by the support of good friends of the labor
movement in the mining camps of the Atlin country.
A couple of energetic friends of mine took the initia-—
tive and the miners did the rest.

My heart almost missed a beat GUs a Scot, you
know) when I opened a letter yesterday morning
and found it to contain $124. Not all of this is going
into the quota for the column, but enough to put us
in the clear. If you read back through Short Jabs
you will find that IT always had a soft side for the
coal-diggers and rock-busters who go down into the
bowels of the earth to add to the real wealth of
the world, and ft feel even more so right now.

Qne item is a donation from the Mine, Mill and
Smelter Workers’ Union, Atlin Local 252, of 350-00.
There were $20.00 worth of subscriptions for the
Clarion and People’s Advocate, and $44.00 in indi-
vidual donations. Any more mining camps to hear

from?

S : In the March 21 issue of the
Business Mercantile Guardian, organ
Booming. of the British export busi-

ness, announcement of the opening of a new Len-
don merchant house receives a prominent place-

This announcement came almost in the same
breath as the other announcement that the British
Wational government had extended recognition to
the Hranco bandit regime in Spain.

Juan March, whose name this new company bears,
and who is chairman of the concern, is received
with open arms by the highly moral business and
political associates of the highly moral Mr. Neville
Chamberlain and the other highly moral gentleman
who always finds an opportunity to inject propa-
ganda for his particular brand of religion imto his
political diatribes and who has been well-named by
Frank Piteairn as Lord Halifax

Birds Of Juan March is travelling in
fit company, for he is one of
A Feather. the worst scoundrels who

ever cursed the shores of the Mediterranean, the
one of Barbary pirates and Levantine thieves.

March has been at the head of every kind of dis—
reputable trading business, Such business as can
only operate outside the law, tobacco, arms and dope
smuggling and corrupting politicians being the
most respectable of his activities.

His money financed the revolt of the treasonable
militarist officers against the government of the
Spanish people and this new company, which is a
virtual monopoly of British-Spanish trade, is the
first fruits of that brigand rising against constitu-
tional government in Spain fostered and nurtured
carefully by the respectable English gentleman who
governs Britain today.

Did it strike you this way too?
Deadly While Hitler was declaring
Parallel. war on the democratic peo-

ples of the world, Soviet flyers were winging their
way across half the world bringing a message of
peace and goodwill to the democratic peoples taking
part in the New York world’s fair.

An old Chinese scholar was
A True asked what he thought of the
Saw. Japanese drive into his coun-
try. ‘Well,’ he replied, “when you plunge your

closed fist into a barrel of glue there is no resistance
until you try to pull it out.”

Coming back to Spain again,
Conducted 5 the Spanish Tourist Services,
Tours In Spain. Holburn, London, are adyver-
tising, ‘“INow that the war is over,’ conducted tours
in Spain may now be made Only conducted tours!
Wo individual travel allowed. Visitors will only be
permitted to visit certain parts of Spain, such cities
as Santander, San Sebastian and Oviedo, but not
Madrid. Trips will last nine days, and then the par-
ties must immediately leave the country.
Ts the war over? Does this not rather indicate
that the Franco junta is afraid to have witnesses
of the mass butchery of the Spanish people?

The appeal in this column
Letter To three weeks ago for contribu-
Spain tions to buy tobacco for some

of the International Brigade
victims of Chamberlain and Daladier did not meet
with a very hearty response. Only two donations
were received: $2 from the ICOR and $i from my
old friend Henry Parker, a goodly share of whose
small blind pension went regularly to Spain to
ease the lot of the boys in the International Brigade.
Joe Kelly may have received some but as he has
left town I am unable to say. What I collected,
100 franes, has gone on to the comrade who sent
the letter. It will buy quite a few cigarettes. (if have
just learned that Joe Kelly has also sent $2.00.)

After destroying 57 Chinese
' universities the hearts of the

kindly Japanese fascists are
bursting with love and ten-
derness for the orphans they are manufacturing
in China.

A recent news item from a Japanese paper in-
forms us that one hundred Chinese children who
have lost their parents through the Chinese Hmer-
gency (“ war’ to you!) will soon leave Peking for
Osaka where they will be given Japanese education.

This is killing two birds with one stone: demon-
strating the big-heartedness of the Japanese war-
mongers and training a future generation to im-
pose Japanese fascist will on the Chinese people if
it cannot be done otherwise. This is known as
“taking the long view.”

A New Soviet Movie

“Alexander Nevsky is a wonder movie. it should
be box office on a commercial scale because its
cast is Singularly attractive; it moves with a sense
of speed and humor; it has a smattering of ro-
mance and the most thrilling battle scene we've
seen in many seasons—inclusive of Hollywood's
wares, and with thoughts to America’s ace directors,
who will probably bow to Hisenstein’s brilliance and
attempt to borrow his cameraman, Edward Tisse,
who photographed the memosrable Potemkin and
all of Fisenstein’s efforts since, His effects in Nevsky
are enchanting and amazing. Do we find Alexander
Wevsky an entrancing, engrossing and completely
superb production? Well—what do you think?
Don’t miss seeing it. You'll be well rewarded.”—
Trene Thirer in the New York Post.

salir

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SN cord aR in Dahl pie dle agaist

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