Page Two

THE PEOPLE’S

ADVOCATE

June 9, 1939

THE
PEOPLE’S ADVOCATE

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

One Wear: = ___.$2.00 Three Months
Halif Year —— $1.00 Single Copy

Make Ali Cheques Payable to: The People’s Advocate

Vancouver, B.C. Friday, June 9, 1939

Pearson Goes From Bad to Worse

SEEMS that as the need for improvement

in treatment of the single unemployed men

becomes clearer to the general public, the at-

titude of Minister of Labor Pearson toward

them becomes more arrogant as his schemes
become worse.

The winter camps were pad enough in
respect of the wages paid, while the holding
back of part of the meagre wages earned—to
dole it out in driblets on a semi-starvation
basis after the closing of the camps—was de-
eidedly obnoxious.

In the winter camps the men were paid
$2.40 a day, out of which Pearson took 75¢
for board and 80c as “deferred pay.” This
left the worker 85c a day with which to pay
for clothes, tobacco, reading materials and
other mecessities.

Bad as that arrangement was, Pearson now
dictates that in the new summer camps the
85c a day which the worker previously re-
ceived on the job be reduced by 33c a day and
added to the “deferred pay,’ leaving still less
for the worker to live on while working. But
it does not increase the weekly dole when he
is not working.

Since Pearson also dictates that acceptance
of work in tht summer camps will make a
worker ineligible for work in the camps next
winter, the new scheme of Pearson—if he is
permitted to get away with it—means that
the money earned in the summer camps will
be made to stretch over a longer period to
“maintain” the worker—in effect, a wage cut.

Pearson must not be permitted to continue
regarding the money earned in the camps as
relief money, to be doled out in amounts and
at times to suit him.

Instead of part of the money earned being
held back to make the worker pay for his
own relief when refused work in the winter
camps, it should be paid in full as the work
proceeds and work provided the year round.

This is what public work means and what
the single men demand, and not the tricky
schemes of Pearson, whose policy, apparently,
is a gradual reversion to the slave camps es-
tablished by the Bennett government.

Chamberlain’s Cheap Tricks

5 ae continuation of Chamberlain’s policy
of “appeasement,” especially as it is ex-
pressed in his deliberate dragging out of “ne-
gotiations’” with the Soviet Union by means
of one fake proposal after another which he
lImnows are unacceptable to the Soviet Union,
is getting under the skin of even the French
government, the leading members of which
are face to face with the terrible dangers
which the policy of appeasement (their policy
also) has brought to France.

Daladier and Bonnet now admit that un-
less early completion of an Anglo-French-
Russian military defense pact against fascist
aggression is effected, a European war is
certain. They also see that the Soviet Union
can not be duped into pulling chestnuts out of
the fire for Britain and France in Western
Europe while exposing itself to isolated de-
fense against attack by Hitler which the pro-
posed Chamberlain pact would bring about
and for which it was designed.

Instead of the genuine tri-power military
alliance, as proposed by the Soviet Union
against aggression, Chamberlain is still striv-
ing to leave the northwest (Baltic States)
door open to Hitler to attack the Soviet
Union.

Meanwhile, some of the smaller states, re-
membering Chamberlain’s betrayal of Au-
stria, Czechoslovakia and Albania, and see-
ing even now his appeasement of the fascist
aggressor states while sabotaging the forma-
tion of a real peace front, are moving toward
Hitler by signing “non-aggression” pacts with
him.

Latest news says that Chamberlain once
again is forced to come closer to the Soviet
demands, but not all of the way; he still holds
out against direct guarantees to the three
buffer states, Latvia, Esthonia and Finland,
which if given would close that door also to
Hitler.

Chamberlain remains the appeaser, and
even if Britain and France are compelled to
enter into a peace front with the Soviet Union,
the present pro-fascist government of Cham-
berlain and Daladier must be destroyed and
anti-fascist, anti-aggression governments of
the people put in their places, if the honoring
of the terms of such an alliance is to be as-
sured.

On Your ‘“‘Must’”’ List

|e a significant sign of the times when one
of the major Hollywood producers can
turn out a movie like “Juarez,’ currently
showing in Vancouver. Perhaps no other
development indicates so sharply the sweep of
progressive ideas throughout the world as the
last two productions of this company, starting
with the “Confessions of a Nazi Spy” and now
its greatest offering, the story of Mexico's
Indian president, Benito Juarez. Theatre-
goers who view this latest achievement will
be seeing movie history in the making—cer-
tainly Hollywood's finest masterpiece.

History Is Repeating Itself

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P<i5< (E¢edEs

[FG e baa bak Se ad ag ae ae ae bee ae bee ag ae es Ee es EE

Big Finance went on a sitdown strike back in
1872-—in order to blackmail the people out of
their railway. Now Big Finance is on a second sit-
down strike—this time to smash the railway the

people built.

Em Rs i Se SS eR Sele Si es Ee EE Ee) I b=aibeaipealbraipeaib=aibeg =a)b=aibaab=s b= abe dib=dib= sexe]

By JOHN WEIR
2a S| eee repeats itself: the first time a tragedy, the sec-

ond time a farce.”

This saying is true of at least one incident in Canadian his-

tory of nearly seventy years ago, the story of the Alexander
Mackenzie Liberal administration a few years after Confeder-

ation.

John A. Macdonald’s Tory administration went down to
defeat in 1873 ’mid the stench of scandal. It was found out that

fovernment leaders had accepted
a large bribe (amounting to the
sum, substantial even in our days,
but large indeed for that time, of
$350,000).

The bribe (offered and accept
ed, according to an old Canadian
custom, as an election contribu-—
tion) came from powerful money-
ed interests, headed by Sir Hugh
Allan, which were seeking mono-
poly rights and profuse govern-
ment subsidies in the building of
a trans-Canada railway that was
essential to knit together the
newly-federated provinces.

The deal was exposed. Mac-
donald resigned. And in the 1874
election Grit leader Alexander
Mackenzie was given the reins of
power.

@
HE Mackenize period was
noted for its honesty and good
government. It was during this
administration that the secret
ballot was introduced in Canada.
There were no scandals.

But—the railroad was not being
built!

Qur official history pooks give
no details. All that is said is that
the railroad was not being con-
structed despite the efforts made
by the administration to get it
going.

There was money in the coun-
try. Emough of it to have been
willing to give the Tories hun-
dreds of thousands for the privi-
lege of building the railway. Yet
as soon as Mackenzie came to
power, it froze up.

“Wo corruption—no railway!”

eo
Hrs was the first instance of a
large-scale “sitdown” strike

of Capital in Canada.

Tt was a strike against the gov-
ernment of the day. Confedera-
tion itself was in peril. (British
Columbia and the Maritimes had
been persuaded to join only on
the promise that the railroad
would be constructed, compen-
sating them with trade in Central
Ganada and with the empire for
what they lost in trade with
American states to the south).

But Gapital struck and stayed
on strike!

And the moneyed interests
won.
At the next election, in 1878,

Mackenzie went down to defeat
and the Tories came back. They
had organized (and it takes
money to do it) very well.
Mackenzie was broken. To his
dying day he could not under-
stand how he had failed. He had
given good government. He had
given clean administration. He
had tried to carry out, in a demo-
cratic fashion, the tasks of Con-

federation. And yet he had failed
and the exposed bribe-takers,
agents of the wealthy, had won.

@
ee subsequent history is well-
known.

The Canadian Pacific Railway
Company was formed almost im-
mediately with plenty of money
te build the railroad. It was siven
the monopoly, vast land grants,
tremendous subsidies from the
public purse, first choice of the
natural resources in the West
that was being opened up.

In 1885 the railway was com-
pleted.

Fabulous profits were made by
the railroad promoters, them-
selves linked with the Bank of
Montreal, the Hudson Bay Com-
pany fortunes, the land-grabbers’
wealth. The CPR and its allied
financial and industrial groups
have controlled the political and
economic destinies of Canada
ever since.

That was nearly seventy years
ago. In the very babyhood of
Canada’s nationhood.

That was—‘the tragedy.”

Se
OW we come to the second
analogous historic situation,
the great Sitdown Strike of Cap-
ital in 1939.

Ganada is in the throes of
severe economic crisis. The perioa
is now that of the doddering olc-
age of capitalism. Canada has
hardly got out of its knee-pants
when it is afflicted—the youngest
of the nations—with this scourge
of sterility.

The country is barely half-de-
veloped. Its natural resources
have only been scratched. Un-
known wealth awaits the Hand
of Man. Greatmess and prosperity
hitherto unknown lie unborn in
the bowels of the earth, the rich-
mess of the soil, the genius of its
people.

But not only is the future left
untouched. Its present natural
and human resources are being
ruined. It is going backward.

And it is in this situation, when
the people of the nation are striv—
ing to hold what they have, let
alone lead the country forward,

-that Capital has gone on a sit-

down.
, e@
HERE is another Liberal gov-
ernment in power. Of course,
time has wrought changes. No
longer can the political grand-
sons of the Grits of 1878 claim
that their hands are clean. There
are Dunnings in their highest
councils. There is Beauharnois in
their record.
It has agreed to pass the death
sentence on Western agriculture

Labor On National

An editorial from the Ca-
nadian Congress Journal,
organ of the Trades and Labor
Congress of Canada.
©

ANADA’S pest defense against
external aggression is by the
maintenance of world peace.

While adhering to the belief
that this can be most permanent-
ly established by collective action
through the League of Nations,
organized labor recognizes the
meed for other measures to meet
the immediate challenge of inter-
national lawlessness.

The resolution adopted at the
Wiagara Falls convention of the
Trades and Labor Congress last
September pledged support to the
government in whatever action
it may deem essential to take in
cooperation with other peace-
Joving countries to destroy the
reign of terror being imposed by
Wazi and fascist dictators.

CGoupled with this was a strong
declaration in favor of nationali-
gation of the manufacture of
arms and munitions as the. most
effective means of preventing the
country’s needs being exploited
for private profit.

BFENSE against external ag-
fression iS not, however, the
enly requirement if our demo-
eratic 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-
jine and denies to them and their
dependents the ordinary ameni-
ties of life.

Destitute men cannot be per
suaded that they are hungry by
preaching to them that they live
in a land of opportunity and a
country blessed with a wealth of
natural resources.

Wo amount of jugsling with
figures as to the number actual-

(that same West that Laurier
peopled and made to bloom).

It has placed the taxes on the
poor and exempted the rich.

Tt has but weakly and only
under pressure from the people
done some little things to allevi-
ate the plight of the people, care-
fully guarding that the rich
should not be annoyed in conse
quence.

But that is not enough for the
heirs of the railway promoters of
yore. .. They are demanding
much more.

e

A hes want an aggressive policy

of ruination. They demand:
That the government-owned (to
guarantee, out of the ‘public
treasury, dividends to bondhold-
ers) Ganadian National Railway
be handed over to the CPR in
order that great stretches of that
railway be destroyed (destroying,
too, entire communities and the
livelihood of thousands); —

That public works (whereby
things that Canada needs are
built and unemployed Canadians
given work) be stopped where
they have hardly begun;

That “government interference
in business and industry” (i.e.,
the merest attempt to protect
consumers against. monopolist
robbery, and slightest protection
of Ganadian workmen in the mat-
ter of hours and wages) be
stopped;

That the rich be practically en-
tirely relieved of taxes, and that
the task of caring for the poor
be placed on the poor themselves
or completely eliminated; that a
government of the rich, secure
against pressure from the masses,
be initiated, and the democratic
rights of the people abrogated.

@
if lea is the voice of Beatty and
Holt, of Meighen and Manion,
Hepburn and Duplessis, Mc-
Cullagh and Drew, Dunning and
the rest of the pack. This is the
program of the leadership
League.
@
NLESS they are given these
things, they threaten that
Capital will continue to strike
and to keep the country in the
depths of economic erises. These
things they must have, they say,
before Capital will “regain confi-
dence.”

But the things they demand
are exactly the things which will
deepen the economic crisis and
place the very life of the nation
in jeopardy.

Tt is the proposal to amalga-
mate the railways that the ironic
touch to the historic parallel with
18748 is given. If it makes it a
farce, it is a farce that spelis
tragedy for Canada and her peo-
ple far greater than that of sev-
enty years ago.

@
T THAT time Capital went on
strike, but whatever the loot
it wrung out of the country, it
did build a railroad.

Today, Capital is on strike—to
destroy a railroad!

History repeats itself . . . and
the second event is a thousand
times greater tragedy than the
first.

Only—it does not have to have
the same ending as did the first
experience. The second time,
Capital must lose!

Canada can and must break
Gapital’s sitdown!

Defence

ly unemployed or loosely-cast as-
persions as to their unwillingness
to work can counteract the cank-
er of demoralization which inevit-
ably results from long continued
involuntary idleness.

AGES seed of dictatorship finds
a fertile field in which to
frow where freedom to work and
maintain one’s self-respect is
denied.

Padiock laws bring no cure to
this situation.

Lip service as to the need for
essential reforms, unless coupled
with definite action, can only ag-
erayvate the situation.

Sound national defense de-
mands not only the willingness to
cooperate against destruction
from forces operating outside of
Ganada, but equal, and even
greater readiness to work to-
gether for the elimination of the
menace of internal disintegra-
tion, sigus of which are too pre—
valent throughout Canada today.

Labor Bill Opens Way For Seamen

Editor, People’s Advocate:

The amendment to the Criminal
Code of Canada giving workers
the right to organize into 2
union of their choice, without
fear of discrimination, is the
most important piece of legisla-
tion. yet passed by the govern-
ment from the point of view of
the BC seamen’

This bill, which makes inter-
ference from the employer, or any
form of discrimination or intimi-
dation on the part of the em-
ployer, a criminal offense, will
undoubtedly lift the greatest bar-
rier to complete organization of
the entire coast.

Heretofore the

seamen, while

realizing the necessity of organ-
ization in order to better his con—
ditions, has “been frightened
through subtle intimidation and,
in some cases, outright discrimin-
ation from joining a union. Gone
now is that fear which kept him
from fighting shoulder to shoul-
der with his shipmates for short-
er working hours, for more pay,
and for a greater amount of
Jeisure time with his family and
friends. Gone now is the fear of
discrimination, gone is the sha-
dow of insecurity which forever
hung over him. Now there is
only the realization that, at long
last, the government of ‘this coun-
try has recognized his right to

organize and bargain collectively
alone with his fellow worker.
This realization will undoubt-
edly manifest itself in a great
influx of members into the organ-
ization which has always been
the champion of seamen’s rights.
Now the campaign for the eight-
hour day will gain added impetus,
now the fight for better living
quarters and holidays with pay
will be carried on by all seamen,
banded together in one organiza-
tion. Now the seaman will come
into his own with the realization
that “the right to organize is the
law of the land.”
JAMES THOMPSON,
Sec., Inland Boatmen’s Union.

SHORT JABS

A
Weekly

Commentary

6
By Ol’ Bill

Submarines have been in the news this past week.
There was the Squalus, the sinking of which brought
sorrow into the homes of many American families.

That was followed a few days

Subs Jater by the disastrous loss of
nearly one hundred British
navymen, shipyard workers and techniciams on

board the Thetis of the British navy.

These two marine calamities brought a response
from the British and American people of such mag-
nitude as to squeeez the Royal visitors off part of
the front pages of the Canadian press. The why
and the wherefore of this latter disaster is still meat
for the scribblers who get paid by the inch but no-
body so far has pointed out that the dividends of
Cammell, Laird and Company, the builders, May
have a great deal of bearing on the disaster. in
1933 this firm paid out only $144,856, but by 1937
their dividends had risen to $1,164,280. In making
up these dividends they naturally sluff both ma-
terial and labor and so “calamities” occur-

In this disaster, also, Chamberlain had to rush in
to the defense of a captain who was not the last
to leave the ship, as the tradition of the sea used to
demand. Even though this captain was not in com-
mand of the Thetis, he was the highest ranking
officer and since he was the first to leave the ship,
Chamberlain had to try to prove that he was a2 hero.

But other submarines, unter-see or U-boats of the
Hitler nayy, which also got into the news, did not
make the front pages. Their actions were of greater
historical significance than the disasters which
overtook the American and British crafts. Their
exploits, however, were buried in the letterpress,
where nothing but hawk-like vision and keen under-
standing might learn of them.

And The Nazi admiral Raeder,

= welcoming the Hitler tools
Pirates who had committed the rape
of the Spanish people's repub-
lic, uttered the words that brand the WNazi undersea
boat’s crew as the pirates who sunk unarmed and
defenseless merchant yessels in the Mediterranean
during the last eighteen months.

Said this Nazi naval hero, Admiral Raeder, “My
thoughts turn with special recognition to two sub-
marines and their crews, who solved in splendid
manner an especially difficult task” This is a rei
erence to the acts of piracy which brought about
the deaths of almost one hundred brave British
merchant seamen. These British heroes of the sea,
the backbone of Britain’s maritime strength, lost
their lives in bringing food, clothing, medicine and
other necessary goods, to the Spanish people who
were defending themselves against piracy and
banditry.

When popular clamor compelled the Chamberlain
government to put a stop to the piracy for which
Admiral Raeder now pays honor to the submarines
and their crews, the orders to the destroyers com-
manders were to “sink without leaving a trace’;
“spurios versenkt’” in the German.

Chamberlain was afraid the people of Britain
would learn that the pirate chief was none other
than Chamberlain’s friend Hitler. Raeder has ad-
mitted the guilt of his pirate gang. ... Will Cham-
berlain now demand some restitution for the lves
of these murdered British sailors?

Eiitler’s paper, Volkischer Beobachter, on March
23 last, wrote: “The worst mistakes of Britain’s
policy in the Abyssinian and Spanish questions
Should really have been a lesson to all intelligent
Emeglishmen.” If the RHMATL mistakes are referred
to we can agree with that statement.

The ‘Beerage’ The British “beerage,” too,
Is Hare! cropped up in the news this

t week. Although the King’s
: trip had to be cut short, and
it was found impossible to give the Capilano and
Mission Indians an opportunity to see their great
white father, plenty of time was available to visit
ee real estate project known as British Properties

An opportunity was made for the King to stand
on a prominent place in this new sub-division, to
look out on the Inlet, the Gulf and the far-away
hills of Vancouver Island and say what a beautiful
view it was. One report has it that either the King
or his Consort said they had never seen anything
so beautiful in all their lives. What a selling point
for a real estate shark!

Wo wonder Mr. Norfolk, personal representative
of the Guinness family, at a meeting of the com-
pany officers here a few days ago, stated, “The
Guinness family is very well satisfied with the
show.”

Since the death of Lord Iveagh (yvhose title was
won by contributing to party warchests), the head
of this clan of “stout’ defenders of British institu-
tions, is the Hon. Rupert Guinness, friend of Mosley
and Hitler and backer of every fascist move in
Britain today.

Their interest in Vancouver and BC was well ex-
pressed by their representative, Norfolk, at the
meeting referred to above, “All we are interested
in is the investment,” he said. And if fascism is
necessary to protect that investment in the ex
ploitation of the Vancouver people, they will try
to impose it on us.

Tt is noticeable, too, that the Hon. Murrain has
his fingers in this pie also.

One of the scions of the
Woolworth 10-cent family
pulled out of Vancouver this
week in his palatial yacht, the Noparo, for a trip
to Alaska. Noparo might be a contraction from
“non-pareil,’ meaning without eaual. To imagine
so would be justified when one considers the wealth
which is wasted to bring these floating palaces up
to the standards of comfort and safety suitable for
a “5-10-15” millionaire.

We could suggest a more suitable name for this
particular vessel. It might, for example, be re
christened “Sixpences.” In England, where part of
the money came from, to equip the Noparo, the
Woolworth stores do most of their business in
“sixpences” instead of nickels and dimes.

Low wages are the rule in these stores, and some-
times a girl is tempted to slip an odd sixzpence into
her shoe. To prevent the store girls from getting
themselves yachts like the Noparo, the Woolworth
management now provides shoes for all of them,
which they must wear when at work. They are put
on when they start and put off when they quit.

Very generous of Mr. Woolworth, you say? But
wait! Inside of each shoe is a chemically treated
insole. If a silver coin should find its way into such
a shoe it leaves a photographic impression on the
chemical insole. And the shoes are examined every
night,

Yes! Sixpences, would be a good name for Wool-
worth’s floating home.

Sixpences.

tee yr