Page Two THE PEOPLE’S ADVOCATE June 23, 1939: THE PEOPLE’S ADVOCATE Published Weekly by the Proletarian Publishing Association, Room 20, 163 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, B.C: Phone TRinity 2019. One Year... — $2.00 Three Months _.__...$ .60 Half Year Single Copy ————..$ -05 Make Ali Cheques Payable to: The People’s Advocate Vancouver, B.C. - Friday, June 23, 1939 The CCF Convention 4 Eaes Feople’s Advocate extends greetings to the provincial convention of the CCF which is being held this weekend in Vancou- ver. The CCF is a power in the political life of BC and much depends on its decisions and the course of action it maps out. Like many other organizations, govern- ments and nations, it has its Fifth Column within its ranks, the Trotskyists, who are striving to make use of the party for its own anti-labor ends. This vicious, blatant, but numerically small group is highly vocal and adept at covering its disruptive work with high-sounding “left” phrases and crass dis- tortions of Marxism. Undoubtedly these traitors to the working- class movement will strive to have the con- vention declare against an embargo on ag- gressor nations as a part of its service to re- action and fascism. But it will be against the Communist Party that it will direct its sniping, and continue its service to reaction by sabotaging every effort to achieve unity of the progressive forces at the head of which stands the Communist Party and the CCF. Misrepresentation, deception and down- right lying are the chief weapons of the Trotskyists, in the use of which against Com- munists they are as savagely unscrupulous as their colleagues, Hitler, Mussolini and Franco. At the convention they can be ex- pected to create confusion and sow distrust by repeating the lying charge that the Com- munist Party supports the Liberal govern- ment and party against the CCF. Denying that it is necessary to make tem- porary alliances with advanced sections of the middle class, they will advocate a go-it- alone policy in the name of socialist “purity” and thus play into the hands of reaction and without presuming to tell the CCF what to do, it is not out of place to remind the dele- gates of what refusal to unite the democratic forces led to in Germany, Austria and Czecho- slovakia. Ti was Lenin who said that only those workingcelass organizations which have no confidence in themselves shrink from tem- porary alliances with non-workingclass, but progressive, groups. In Canada one of the great needs has been a break of a substantial section of the middle class from the capitalist parties. That this is now taking place is shown in the New Democracy movement led by Berridge. No Socialist, no Communist, no progressive but welcomes this development; and knowing that the way a majority of the great middle class will go, whether over to fascist reaction or for progress and the de- fense of democracy, will be decisive, they will encourage and develop it. The strength and importance of the CCF in BC makes the policy and line of action which will be decided upon at the convention a matter of grave concern to the people of the province. The line of unity and building a demo- eratic front will lead to growth, strength and increased influence of the CCF as it did for the Socialist Party of France. Prevention of unity will lead to isolation, stagnation and ineffectiveness as in the case of the British Labor Party. Don’t Let Them Become Forgotten Men! Q* THE many appeals by the different sections of the labor movement for fin- ancial aid, none are perhaps so deserving of attention and sympathetic response as the ap- peals for funds now being made by the Friends of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion. Wauch has been written of the heroism of those Canadians who went over to Spain to face fascist guns and prison camps to preserve the democratic way, and nothing could be written that would approach a real expression of the gratitude that Canadian labor and the progressive people hold toward them. But there is still another phase of the Mac- Paps’ fight which tends to be overlooked— their efforts to find a place for themselves now that they are back in civilian life, faced with the old problem of jobs or merely a place to eat and sleep, many of them severely handicapped by wounds and the loss of limbs. Obviously, this is a problem which they ean’t fight alone, and the local labor move- ment would be a poor thing indeed if it failed to come to the veterans’ assistance. Send your donations and pledges of support to Friends of the Mackenzie-Papineau Bat- talion, Room 43, 615 West Hastings Street, now! ‘Let ’em Eat Sirloin Steaks’ The workers of Paris, starving for bread, were once told te eat cake. Now the housewives of Vancouver, unable to purchase even the lowly hamburger because of prohibitive prices, are urged by Louis Lebourdais, MULA, te eat more sirlom steaks. Here’s the answer of the Housewives’ League. * By DIRS. GRACE GREENWOOD 66@QHEER coincidence,” of course, when Monday’s Daily Province carried a story at the top of one of its pages touchingly headed “MLA Pleads for More Beefsteaks,” and on the same page in the extreme righthand corner, about ten lines to the effect that the Housewives’ League of British Co- lumbia is calling another “meatless week” from June 21 to June 28. Yet this “coincidence” illustrates clearly the Prov- ince’s partiality for mere showmanship when it is an MLA who is domg the somersaults—as against the human appeal in a meat strike. Why do they think we are call- ing this strike—we housewives who find it difficult eneugh to balance the budget, the baby and the bill collectors, without having to balance a new menu for tem- porary vegetarians? Do they think we are doing it just for fun, so that life will be a bit more complicated—or could we have a reason? Surely beefsteaks are one of the good things of life, and the aver- age housewife is just as keen about having them on the family dinner table as Mr. Louis Lebour- dais, MLA, is anxious for them to be there—to the end that cat- tlemen of the Cariboo should be wealthier, happier men. But we housewives find an obstacle which Mr. Lebourdais’ flippancy overlooks. We can’t buy them ! If, as Mr. LeB. points out, beef- steak has been fighting a losing battle with spinach these past few years, there must be another reason other than the blandish- ments of Popeye the Sailor. And this reason is the cold logic of HE military situation in China is going from bad te worse for Japan. On the basis of the most reliable information from Tokio and Shungking, the future will see Japan’s military defficul- ties aggravated. For instance, after 20 months of Nipponese domination in the Shanghai area, the Chinese gueril- ja fighters have grown from sev- eral tens of thousands to more than 400,000 today. While extending her resistance and counter-offensive operations, together with large-scale guerilla fighting behind the Japanese lines, the Chinese military com- mand is building up the Army of the Ten Million.” “On a training ground which covers hundreds of square miles and scores of villages,” we are authoritatively told, “the 10 mil- lion are being trained in three groups each composed of between 50 and 60 Chinese divisions, One third are for use as mobile units on the flanks of the Japanese, one- third as ‘positional troops,’ and one-third as reserves.” Though it will be some months before this army is forged into an effective striking weapon, Japan is already feeling the effects of China’s growing fighting strength. Be only by comparing China’s unlimited human reserves to what Japan faces can we get the full significance of the “Army of the Ten Million.” Japan’s population does not ex- ceed 60,000,000, excluding the colonial peoples. From these, the government can mobilize not more than three million. There are 2,000,000 already in the army, and 750,000 have already been killed or disabled for service in the futile effort to subjugate China. Thus, the war in China has practically absorbed almost all of Japan’s human forces. It will hardly be possible to send fresh reniforcements, even to replace the killed and disabled soldiers. The Japanese high military command is not uninformed of the general development of the Chinese “Army of Ten Million” and is becoming more desperate over trying to end China’s resist- the pocketbook, arguing with no comeback that spinach and tur- nip tops are possible but sirloin steak is not! e W the Housewives’ League came into existence in March, 1838, one of the first things it wanted to find out was the wheres and whyfors of the meat industry. ‘Where do they go—all those cents between the six or seven per pound paid to the producer and the 15 to 35 cents paid by the consumer? Why is it that we consumers can’t buy more meat at a lower price? We asked questions every- where. We asked Mr. Lebour- dais himself, and he gave us an- other of his little fables about Adam and Eve. We asked the Butchers’ Division of the Retail Merchants Association. They told us all would be well when we had a srading act, and to be sure that the act would satisfy us as consumers, assured us we would be allowed to act in a standing ings of its regulations during the first critical period. We also asked the Master Butchers’ Asso- ciation. They chided us for poor buyers, recommended budgets— and suet! According to one gen-— tleman, all would be well if we ate pounds more suet and tried eur own lard. Wone of these things worked. We got the Beef Grading Act— but no standing committee. We tortured our poor budgets and even ate suet—but beef went higher and higher. So we fin- ally got together—the House- wives’ League and 28 other women’s organizations, and de cided we'd try a little direct ac- tion. @ IN OUR researches we had learned that supply and demand govern prices. Alright—no de- mand for one week, and if that didn’t work, one strike in each month till it did work. The first one was in May. it worked quite well, but beef is still too high for many purses. So we're doing it again during the week of June 21 to 28, and this time we are going to have to put it over in a big way. We intend to show the meat industry in this province that when we ask for more beef at lower prices, with mo reduction to the producer, we mean what we say. The best part of it is, the beef producers of the Cariboo, repre- sented by the facetious Mr. Le bourdais, will be one of the first groups to benefit by an increased consumption of beef, brought about not by some sales appeal superior to Popeye's, but by the simple expedient of forcing the price of sirloin steak down to a level that the average housewife committee to watch the work-can afford to pay. Nippon Sinks Deeper ance before the situation becomes catastrophic for Tokio. ECOGNITION of the inex- haustible reservoir of China's human resources has had & gloomy effect on a large number of Japanese officers and soldiers. Tt is the subject of many as des- pondent letter from Japanese sol- diers to their friends at home. For example, a Japanese officer who was taken prisoner by the Chinese in Hunan province, had in his pocket a letter to his par- ents in Osaka. The letter said, in part: ‘When our campaign started, we thought everything would be over with the fall of Hankow. Hankow is now occupied but there is nothing to show that the war will end very soon. “T do not know when this war will be over. The Chinese are too mumerous, they appear every- where in great numbers. They (a) a |) | An Ofticer But No Gentleman i CULL the following gem from the writings of “Peter- borough,” the Daily Telegraph’s well-known columnist. He writes: “A pleasant story of naval courte- sies in the Spanish Civil War has just reached me. One afternoon a Franco cruiser shadowed a tramp steamer that was doding near the three-mile limit. “A few thousand yards seaward lay a British battleship ready to enforce the freedom of the high seas. At last the tramp seemed to the cruiser to have passed in- side the threemile line. The Spanish commander was still anxious not to take any action likely to bring down on him the wrath of the battleship. “What shall I do?’ he signalled. “Almost immediately came back the flickering semaphore from the British Admiral: “Y-O-U-R- B-I-R-D-S-LR’.” The gentleman-columnist fails to reveal whether the “bird” was a British ship or not. Neverthe- less, “a pleasant story.” have an irresistible audacity. Our losses are terrible.” FEW months ago several Japanese officers committed suicide in the Tatung sector (North China). In a joint letter sent to their families they wrote: “Japan has been fighting China for more than a year. It is very difficult to beat the Chinese, for China’s population is large; and its territory is immense.” The enormous task of trying to defeat Ghina is aiso depressing the people in Japan who were keyed up with official promises that the war against China would be a short one ending in a devas— tating defeat of Chiang Kai-shek’s armies. The feeling of confiaence in CGhina of ultimate victory over the Wipponese aggressor is growing. This fortifies the political and national unity of the people, in- spires the army, and recruits new hundreds of thousands to the guerilla forces. More important still, this rela- tion of forces and the unconceal- able jitters of the Japanese mili- tary command are making it harder for traitors to gain any headway. The drastic measures taken against the traitor Wang Ching- wei and his group, which includes Trotskyite running dogs of Jap- anese imperialism, have discredit- ed any further moves of treach- ery in the guise of “peace” with Japan on Tokio’s terms. VERY day that China is able to continue the fighting proves crushingly costly to Japan. When Japan reaches the break- ing point financially and econom- ically, which cannot be concealed, then China will pass from her present stage of resistance to ever larger-scale offensive opera- tions. Meanwhile, the Japanese fas- cist samurais are multiplying serious incidents against France, Great Britain and the United States to distract the attention of the people in Japan from Nippon’'s military impasse, and to use pro- vocative methods to try to hasten a Munich “solution” for the Far East. Comments From Our Readers CRIPPS WELCOMES JAMIESON ELECTION Editor, People’s Advocate: The Advocate and the staff generally, including our genial and proficient columnist Ol’ Bill seem at all times to be friendly disposed toward the noted Eng- lish labor leader, Sir Stafford Cripps, MP, judging from the prominence given to news of Sir Stafford in the paper. This week I had the pleasure of receiving a letter from Sir Stafford Cripps, saying he was pleased to know that Mrs. Jamie- son, the CCE candidate, «was elected in Vancouver Center, that it was a preat victory and should encourage progressive thought an dthe movement in British Co- lumbia. The progressive press and sup- porters may also be interested to know that the daughter and son- in-law of Sir Stafford have de cided to come and settle perman- ently among us near Vancouver in the near future. The last paragraph of the let- ter I received from Sir Stafford is as follows: “You will be interested to know that my daughter and son-in-law have recently bought a house near Vancouver and contemplate going out there in the coming winter to live permanently. This will give me a fresh contact with Western Canada which I shall appreciate.”—G. Jeffries. “WAGES” IN PROJECT CAMPS Editor, People’s Advocate: Will you please accept this as a correction on your editorial of June 9 re the single unemployed men entitled “Pearson Goes From Bad to Worse.” The article states that we re- eeived in the winter projects 85 eents per day clear of board and deferred pay. This would give us a check of $21.25 for a 25- working day month. The facts are, however, that this figure is 25 percent over what we actually received. Instead of 85 cents per day clear, we received 63 cents. The deductions from our 30-cents an hour wage were 10 cents per hour deferred pay, and $5.25 a week or 12 cents per hour for board, including Saturday after- noon and Sunday. This left us the grand sum of 63 cents after deducting one cent for compen- sation. On our monthly payday we usually received a check that mecessary commissary expenses had reduced to the $10 mark. This meager wage of the Pear- son administration is responsible for the fact that so many of the singlemen, on leaving camp, pur- chase as their Sunday best a pair of $1.65 black denim trousers and haunt the second-hand shops for a half decent pair of shoes and a windbreaker. In conclusion I would like to say that we single project work- ers are proud of haying such 2 staunch, powerful ally as the People’s Advocate in our cam paign for work and wages, and we are convinced that with your continued support we will gain our objective in the near future. —T, R. Peters, Project Camp 4- SHORT JABS A Weekly Commentary om By Ol’ Bill ey 93 In the controversy over the Rn nd nm = £ depe > ent marketing of milk in the Of What? city, the term ‘“independ- ent” is being used extensively, but very thought- lessly, by the city people most affected. Many of © the people of Vancouver, off whose tongues it slips glibly, give no thought whatever to what it means. st what is an “independent” dairy? What is an independent” producer or producer-vendor? Who, or what, are they independent of? The Fraser Valley Milk Producers’ Association is a farmers’ co-operative, set up over twenty years ago by the dairy farmers in the Valley. If they had succeeded in establishing one hundred pervent marketing, the increased efficiency would have brought higher prices to the farmers for their milk and lower prices to the consumers for the milk 4 they used. 2g The farmers, not being “good businessmen,” did mot succeed, however, because greedy chisellers with big farms, and small farms, too, for that matter, and other chisellers in the dairy game in = the city, like P. Burns and €o., under the cloak of “independents,” took the cream off the milk mar keting business, possible here because of the over- production of fluid milk by the Valley farmers. The “independents,” producers and dairymen alike, were and are “independent” of the farmers’ co-operative. They are like the non-union worker who refuses to accept the responsibilities and bur- dens of a union, but grabs all the advantages won by a trade union organization. The Union Since the farmers’ coopera- T tive, FP VMPA_ first started est selling milk in Vancouver they have employed only union dairymen, drivers and stablemen. Only in recent years and after they had been compelled by trade union pressure, have any of these “independent” plants been union- ized and not all of them are unionized yet. So don’t be bamboozled by “independents” who talk demagogically about marketing legislation be ing fascism, about “feeding fascism on milk”; who themselves believe in organizing into an “Independ- ent Dairymen’s Committee’ to fight progressive legislation, while they oppose every effort of their workers to organize into a union. Their real purpose was expressed only a few days ago by T. S. Montague, president of the Borden Co. before the Monopoly Committee of the United States Congress, when he said, “High prices for milk result frem monopolistic practices on the part of some producers organizations and labor unions without forward-looking leadership.” This statement from the sixty thousand dollar 2 year head of the company which the National Dairy, whose president, MciInnerney, draws down $150,000 yearly, control 76 percent of the milk sup- ply of the homedelivered milk of New York City. The statement also is false according to the mass of the evidence placed before the Committee by farmers, dairy associations and consumers. Don’t Sign any specious and misleading “pro- tests,” the sole purpose of which is to build up in Vancouver the possibilities for a Vancouver Mon- tague or MciInnerney. Stand by the farmers whom these “independents” would rob! Lesson in of all people in this world, Di I = the journalists who supply lalectics the London daily and week ly newspapers with reports on the City and Borough police courts, have the most wierd sense of humor. They are not dialecticians enough to know that tragedy and humor, in all human relationships, merge into each other and that tragedy and humor are determined, not objectively but subjectively. They draw a definite line between tragedy and humor. To them tragedy only occurs in the lives : of the class to whom they toady, their betters, while the most tragic incidents in the lives of the working class whom they despise, take on all the |} characteristics of humor in their scribbling. One of these “humorous” incidents was written-up recently in the London Referee. The scene was in a London police court about two months ago. The understudy for Solomon sitting on the bench eyed sterly the unfortunate in the dock. “You are charged with being drunk and incapable again,” he thundered. “How many times have I warned you against getting drunk? Why don’t you get some work?” The object of juristic wisdom and admonition ad- mitted his failings but in extenuation, replied, “It’s Sars to get drunk than to get work, your lord- ship.” The journalist who wrote up this incident as police court humor would have written it as tragedy if he had been on the breadline and knew from experience what a small measure of humor and what utter tragedy was implicit in the explanation of that poor drunk in the grip of his class enemies. Who Is It is unfortunate for the | The Li 2 Nazis that they do not have | = 1arYr: time on their side. The de- nials they make on any one day as to their program are proved to be merely lying words, by the course of events, in very Short periods of time. For instance, on March 23 last, the Nazi mouth- piece, Munchener Neueste Nachrichten, published an inspired story entitled “More Lies.” Hnumerat ing some of the news items from the press of the democratic countries regarding the next move of the fascist terrorists, all of which are posstbilities though not yet accomplishments, the following gem appears, “Other assertions were that Italy wanted to annex Albania.” Good Friday, April 7 came, and history proved that it was not the democratic press which was ly- ing but the frothy, paranoiac scribblers who pass for journalists in the Nazi Third Reich. If they have not yet seized Danzig, it is not for lack of desire, but because of the stiffening of morale in the democratic people, injected by the atti- tude of the Soviet Union. Maps showing Danzig — as part of the Nazi empire as of the beginning of — May, are being seized and destroyed by the Gestapo ~ to prevent the German people learning of the set- back to Hitler’s program. } First The truest thing ‘written E % about Chamberlain yet is ruits the characterization of him by EK. Zilliacus, who writes, “Pretending to be an idiot in order to conceal the fact that he is 2 erook, is just part of the Prime Miunister’s tech- nique.” His works prove this to be true. Munich : was followed by the rape of Czechoslovakia. His “Simple” belief that Franco will have to come to | “sas” for money to rebuild Spain now threatens Britain with the loss of Gibraltar. The latest fruits of this idiot-crook’s policies is Tientsin which is the direct result of Ghamberlain’s- refusal to Sign the Angio-Soviet treaty against agepression.