Page Two

THE PEOPLE’S ADVOCATE

July 14, 1939

THE
PEOPLE’S ADVOCATE

Published Weekly by the Proletarian Publishing
Association, Room 20, 163 West Hastings Street,
Vancouver, B.C. Phone TRinity 2019.

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Vancouver, B.C. = Friday, July 14, 1939

(Continued from Page 1)

Germany, to Spain. They don’t want fascism
in Canada. They do want jobs and security.
They do want peace. For thousands of them
the demagogic promises of the two old-line
parties have lost their allure. For these people
the New Democracy program has a strong
appeal. It offers them hope for fulfilment of
their needs. It represents the things they
2an agree with. They are prepared to cooper-
ate with the CCF to elect members pledged
:o follow the New Democracy program, al-
though they are not yet prepared to accept
she entire CCF program. :

These people, awakening to political strug-
‘le, encouraged by the prospect of unity, re-
yelled by disunity in the past, could applaud
he decision made by the CCF convention.
3ut the statement made by the CCF provin-
Mal executive reversing this decision can
mly fll them with dismay.

SCF Not Asked To Surrender
?rinciples.

The CCF, says the statement, cannot “sur-
‘ender to the demands of any self-appointed
leader’.” Since when has the New Democracy
novement made any demands upon the CCF
wr asked it to surrender its principles or iden-
ity ?

Replying recently to J. S. Woodsworth,
SCF national leader, W. D. Herridge made it
Jear that “the New Democracy does not
isk the CCF to surrender its political identity
1x its economic principles. But we do ask
he members of the CCF to unite with all
air-minded people who believe that Cana-
lians have the right to happiness and secur-
ty and who know that without unity we will
1ever set that right.”

The only demand upon the CCF is made by
ts own membership—the convention showed
his—and the thousands of British Colum-
yians who regard jobs and security, demo-
macy and peace, the defeat of reaction in Can-
ida and fascism abroad as the great oversha-
lowing issues of this election.

statement Based on Misconception.

The CCF provincial executive’s statement
s itself based on a misconception.

Assertion is made that “since the CCF pro-
rincial convention the Herridge group has
volved into another political party. Mr. Her-
idge has declared that it is the intention of
he “New Democracy’ to nominate candidates
m every constituency in Canada and that
hese candidates must be pledged to the prin-
iples and the program of the “New Demo-
racy.”

""The fact that the ‘New Democracy is now
mother political party alters the basis upon
vhich the CCF convention made its decision
0 permit members of the party the choice
£ associationg themselves with the Herridge
roup.”

The fact is, however, that New Democracy
pokesmen have constantly reiterated that the
Jew Democracy is not a political party, but a
novement centered around a program of the
yeople’s needs, that its objective is to con-
entrate upon attainment of unity around a
ingle progressive candidate in each federal
‘constituency, regardless of whether that can-
lidate be a member of the CCF, Social Cre-
lit, an independent Liberal, so long as he is
jledged to carry through the demands of the
yeople, and is that candidate most capable of
-allying the support of all progressives.

In British Columbia the CCF is the strong-
»st single progressive party, possessing wide
nfluence and enjoying the confidence of a
arge section of the people. As such it bears
1 Sreat responsibility. Certainly in many con-
stituencies the CCF candidate must be the
shoice of the united progressive forces.

Will the CCF lose anything by permitting
ndividual members and clubs to participate
n united progressive action in the constituen-
sies? It will not. On the contrary, it stands
to gain, for only in Vancouver East had the
CCF a clear majority in 1935. In many other
eonstituencies the united support of all pro-
sressives behind the CCF candidate will en-
Sure CCE victory, although the CCF alone
cannot take the seat.

Without united action of progressives, then,
the danger as made real by the CCF provin-
cial executive’s stand, is that reactionary can-
didates of one of the old-line parties may win
where unity will secure their defeat.

Election Issue Distorted.

Equally dangerous is that part of the CCE
statement declaring, “.. . the CCF would take
this opportunity to point out that the Herridge
conception of a basis for progressive sovern-
ment—the uniting of ‘honest’ Liberals, Social
Crediters, Conservatives and Communists
under a common banner and on a program of
‘everything for everybody without hurting
anybody’—constitutes the most sinister bid
for power in recent Canadian history. In of-
fice, such a ‘government’ could only succeed
in making the existing confusion worse con-
founded, in aggravating the desperate and.
immediate needs of the people to whom it now

appeals and further fertilizing the ground for
fascism in Canada.”
To state this is to distort the whole issue

‘A Nightmare At Southport’

TEESESS Fa Bg SPS 4 6a Be babe roe xe Psd ded =o P-gbealb=s tag edd = xs Bd Pd Palas xe Pesala Pdlb=d aa be p= aE ES

A famous English journalist looks in on the recent
Southport Conference of the British Labor Party
and discovers a new “‘religious sect’’ whose ‘‘high
priests’’ hold the power ef life and death over the
fate of the great British labor movement.

Seaipes Ped bed =a beaibs alba bec b=elp=a s=a)baibea eq ice ed as eae pea lbs aibea ibaa baa baa b=aibaa beg bss bad bas bad ibaa bes bea lt=a ibaa be aibes bad baelbadibed pe

By CEDRIC BELFRAGE

Dear Joe and Brother:

“Vee know the interest I’ve had in strange mystical re-
ligions, ever since I saw Aimee MacPherson exorcising
the Bolshevik Upton Sinclair with lantern slides of hell, and
heard Saint Hoover lead the rousing Wall Street hymn, “Leave

Business Alone.”

Well, I’m writing to tell you of a movement I lit on here
in Southport, which bears out my theory more profoundly
than anything else I’ve struck. It is called the British Labor

Party and it had a conference in the worldly,

streamlined

Garrick Auditorium—but its pure supernatural message rose

superior to all that.

The leaders of this movement
have that refreshing old-time
faith which needs no mere mater-
jalistic facts to feed upon and is
complete without works; the kind
of faith that great spiritual fig-
ures like Canute had. They bla-
zoned this stirring faith across the
proscenium at the Conference in
the banner: THEY CONQUER
WHO BELIEVE THEY CAN.
Don’t you just worship it?

Now you've heard that much,
you'll be impatient to hear ail
about the Conference. It started
with Brother Dallas talking what
was practically socialism, almost
the kind of stuff you’d expect from
our Reds in America, ending with
the extraordinary description of
Moscow—Moscow, mark you—as
a ‘citadel of peace.”

Well, you know how tired these
Reds have always made me and
I was just reaching for my hat
when things began to happen that
brought out the real soul—a lovely
soul, Joe—of the Labor Party High
Priests.

@
Becreee OLIVER, a really re
fined type of High Priest,
asked us to take a sort of prayer
book of the sect which was on
every pew, called “Agenda of the
Conference.” Then began one of
the most remarkable and uplift-
ing ceremoniais I ever was priv-

ijleged to witness.

As we all reverently turned the
pages of our books (from the gal-
lery it was a beautiful sight, like
the fluttering of angels’ wings),
Brother Oliver took one page after
another and intoned the words:
“Dropped or Are Withdrawn” at
which each of us ran a pencil in
a sort of quick double cross over
the printed words as taken that
the resolution of some local group
of the sect was formally discarded
unheard.

I must tell you that the disci-
pline of the common people in
the sect is not all it might be,
and many of them seriously ima-
gine that their locai party resolu-
tions—the first 20-odd pages of
which in the book are no less
than a plan for making the Labor
Party “democratic’—will actually
be debated at the Conference. But
Brothers Oliver and Dallas soon
made the voice of priestly author-
ity heard about this. To those
who tried to spoil the sacredness
of the service by protesting inter-
ruptions, Brother Oliver said: ““‘We
are not interested in reasons why

resolutions were dropped. Come
around afterwards.”
oe
‘T WAS reassuring, too, about
Brother Dallas, who was

quickly making up for his slip
about Moscow. He now had his
hands folded over his stomach and
said: “We are getting along very
well.’ And so they were, for hav-
ing listened with exemplary pa-
tience to Cripps, an Ex-High
Priest of the sect who refused to
take the sacrament in the pre-
scribed manner, they had the Card
Vote ceremonial on the motion to
excommunicate him with other
renegades and over two million
votes were cast for excommunica-—
tion in a5 many minutes.

Perhaps this seems impos-
sible to you, but then you have
mever seen the Card Vote
eeremony, which for drama and
grandeur is comparable only
with the burning of the funeral
ghats at Benares.

The small fry among the wor-
shippers hold up a card with a
“J” on it—the number of thous-
ands of votes they can register—
while two supreme doges hold up
cards worth over 400,000 votes
each. This is a really superb act
of faith, because the “i's” (who
mostly vote against the High
Priests) are those who have con-
sulted their local groups on the
matter to be debated, while the
400’s are those who have no con-
sultation on it at all with those
whose votes are represented.

Though Brother Dalton had
pointed out how hard it was for
a rich man like Cripps to enter
the Labor Party heaven, Im
happy to tell you, Joe, that the
caste distinctions are properly
observed in this sect. When the
Card Vote ceremony is performed
it’s fascinating to see all the
cards held up as if by machinery
in front and centre for the High
Priests’ resolutions, and the dis-
sident cards—the vulgar “1’s’”—
going up in a fringe at back and
sides, furthest from the Chair-
man’s altar.

It was, of course, from the
fringe that all the interruptions
came, but the seating was so
earefully planned by caste that
these cries were mostly lost in
the great space between the dis-
rupters and Brother Dallas. One
man from Mitcham did break
through with a suggestion that
the High Priests keep in touch
with the members. The man was
apparently a heretic and was
sharply dealt with.

N THE second day a very

Wigh Priest named Bevin
made a conciliatory gesture to-
ward the disrupters by endorsing
a common fellow’s proposition
that speakers should have the
right of reply—so that the aco-
lytes in the front pews all began
shouting for that right and it
was granted. I confess I was
bewildered at this seeming com-
promise with “democracy” Joe,
but on inquiry, I found to my
surprise that the sect is described
officially as “democratic.”

Well, the next ceremonial was
the Card Vote on the High
Priests’ own resolutions with re-
gard to such things as the inter-
national situation, Palestine and
Spain. The resolutions, Joe, were
beautifully composed and of the
healthiest moral tone, never de-
scending to the vulgarity of ac-
tual concrete suggestions. The
Card Votes, always won for the
High Priests by about two mil-
lion, were preceded by recita-
tives known as “debates” . in
which even a few disrupters
could take part if they thought
it would make them feel better
and could shout loud enough.

The recitations of the High
Priests themselves were more im-

aginative and spiritual, on an
altogether higher plane than the
disrupters’. There were crude,
ugly moments when disrupters
ealled for “guts” in the High
Priests and for a “class strug-
gle,’ and even called the Prime
Minister a cunning old fox

Here a gentleman in the Old
Boys’ and Girls’ section behind
the High Priests, who had been
sleeping peacefully for some
time, worke with a start and
made several notes on his
prayer-book.

e

Bic. NOEL - BAKER
made a splendid reply to the
“charge” that the High Priests’
resolutions were devoid of
“scientific socialist analysis” and
had no relation to realities.

“Of course, we've not forgotten
the Chinese struggle,” he cried;
“its on page four of the Annual
report As for social content, look
at the last two lines of number
one where we urge elimination of
the fundamental causes of war.
Comrades, we're trying ... we've
planned ... look at the memo-
randum .. . look at our message
to the German people last Sep-
tember. . .. We do want. ...
We've always said. ... What we
said in 1931. . . . Someday, some—
how, somewhere we've got to
stand with other peace forces
against aggression.”

I hurry to add that of course
he was speaking of cooperation
with Communists and other here-
tics only in international affairs.
On no account would the High
Priests of this great sect coop-
erate on the home front with
anyone who did not have faith
in Peaceful Socialism on Tues-
day. The common people on the
fringes did not seem to agree
and had become very noisy, but
Brother Dallas remarking that
“We've had a wonderful debate
jn a friendly spirit,” took a Card
Vote.

For the Labor Party's viewing
with alarm on foreign policy—
viewings expressed with truly
porcelain reticence and an un-
earthly soulfulnmess, Joe—a ma-
jority of almost two million was
cosily obtained.

HAVE to tell you that I left

soon after this because some
disrupters began disinterring the
corpse of Spanish democracy and
getting emotional about it and
about the High Priests’ assist
ance in the demise and hurried
embalming, and right after that
we were all asked to stand in
respect to the million dead fight-
ers for democracy in Spain.

Candidly I did not like the
smell—you know how sensitive
I am to smells, Joe—and I
thought if I was going to stand
I would do it somewhere else
where the air was fresher.

But the emotion in the voices
of those disrupters who spoke
for Spanish democracy and ac-
cused the High Priests left me
with an odd impression. I can’t
explain it, Joe, but I felt as if
the disrupters’ fringe there in
that church of the Labor Party
sect represented a vast body of
simple, voiceless working people,
who raged in bitter disillusion-
ment and frustration against the
sect’s Machine which made them
and kept them voiceless.

e

A® FOR the Labor Party, Joe,

I think it is the great spirit-
uel movement of our time and
it has a wonderful future, be-
cause the old shibboleth of
Reason has been killed here as
in many other happy lands, and
in this Brave New World of
dreams and whimsies we must
keep our ideals sacred.

T’ll be back in America by the
next boat, Joe, but how I’m going
to stand all that crass material-
ism of the CIO, all that absurd
Wew Deal application of reason
to the problem of defending
civilization ,I just don’t know.

Yours in the spirit,
Cedric Belfrage.

confronting the Canadian people, to make
indeed “the existing confusion worse con-
founded.” The CCF leadership is not blind
that it cannot see current political develop-
ments, not naive that it cannot understand
the significance of the drive towards formation
of a reactionary national government in Can-
ada. Yet its political sight is distorted indeed
in its assertion that the danger of fascism will
be increased by election of progressives
pledged to fight fascism when finance capital
is striving through reactionaries in both old
line parties for election of a national govern-
ment in Canada which would curtail the
democratic rights and civil liberties of the Ca-
nadian people as a prelude to the institution
of fascism itself.

The CCF statement itself points to the cen-
tral issue of the federal elections in its refer-
ence to “the desperate and immediate needs
of the people.” How are these needs to be
met? The forces of reaction as represented
by Meighen and Manion in the Conservative

Party, by Gardiner and Dunning in the Lib-
eral Party, by Hepburn and Duplessis, by
McCullagh and his Leadership League, are
determined to force the living standards of the
Canadian people even lower if a split progres-

sive vote permits a reactionary coalition to
come to power at Ottawa. Arraigned against
them are the progressive forces, the CCE,
Social Credit, the Communists, the thousands
breaking away from the old-line parties as
represented in the New Democracy move-
ment, and beyond them thousands more who
will be attracted by progressive unity and
strength. These progressive forces through
their elected representatives at Ottawa will
fight for the needs of the people for a national
recovery program.

If the CCF convention decision is adhered
to and no obstacles in the path of progressive
unity in the constituencies created there is
every possibility that BC will send a strong
progressive group to the House of Commons
—most of them CCF representatives. If the
reversal of the convention decision stands,
then the needs of the people will not be ful-
filled because reactionary old-line party can-
didates, pledged to serve party machines and
not the people, may be returned throush lack
of progressive unity.

Precisely because of its strength and influ-
ence the CCF bears a great responsibility to
the people whose needs cry out for redress.
The people will not forgive a policy which
gives the victory to reaction when they feel
it is already within their grasp.

SHORT JABS

A
Weekly

Commentary

oN
By Ol’ Bill

Read The The ad-cards in the BC Collec-
A a 1 tric tumbrils are very interest-
-Cards !_ ing these days. ‘For instance,

one blurb from Mr. “Murrain’s” publicity bureau in-
forms us that $10 will buy ten times as much milk
as $1.00 will buy, but $10 will buy twenty-eight
times as much electricity as $1.00 will buy

Maybe that reads good to the people who buy
juice in bulk but when it is considered critically
it is merely a proof that the purchaser of light, heat
and power in small quantities is discriminated
against in the interest of the “good” customers, the
people who are in the best position to pay.

Again, another ad. reads: “It’s good to live in
Vancouver. It’s the water.” A picture of a dripping
tap suggests that the clear, sparkling Capilano is
the water referred to—but we might be wrong.

The water that is good for the BC Collectric in
Vancouver is really the 60 million dollars of “water”
in the stock of the company which pays dividends
to Sir Herbert Holt, J. BH. Gundy, Harvey McMillan,
Austin Taylor, W. S. Murrin and the other “water-
drinkers” associated with them in “milking” the
people of BC. -

Don’t

In the spring of last year, Murrin
B ij = made some promises to a com-

eneve Him mittee of the City Council.
The committee, composed of Mayor Miller and
Aiderman Wilson and Crone, reported that Murrin
had undertaken that several hundred thousand dol-
lars would be expended by his public-spirited gang
of highjackers. The money was to be spent durines
1938 and 1939 in the purchase of new streetcars of
the latest type, similar to the ones now operating
in the larger US cities. Some of the cars were to
be placed in service in 1938 and the balance in 1939.

1939 is more than halfway gone and to date only
one new car has appeared, the alleged $30,000.00
PCC, one-man car on the Victoria Rd. run. This
car has not been brought here to better the service
for the people of Vancouver but to propagandize

them, to break down their opposition to one-man
juggernauts.

Instead of improving, the rolling stock gets
worse. Two weeks ago the delectable little “Buz
zard” made a detour from its usual line of expatia-
tion on the commercial futility and fiscal iniquities
of public ownership and reprinted a news item
from the News-Advertiser of June 30, 1890, forty-
nine years ago. The quotation told of the first
streetcar in Yamncouver; of the trip it made over
the two-mile system of that day: of the wonder-
ment and excitement it caused amongst the natives.

I was particularly interested in the story as I
tried to read it, coming in from Cedar Cove on
Powell Street over the same ground travelled on
that historic occasion by that first Vancouver
streetcar. The incident had a personal touch for
me, for I am willing to bet the only two-bits I’ve
got, that on that morning of Friday, June 30, 1939,
I was riding on the self-same streetcar that made
that first trip on Powell Street, 49 years ago.

This streetcar service will be the subject of de
bates in the City Council in a few days. If you have
any influence with any of the aldermen, use it to
get them to put up a front to the exactions of the
Holt, Gundy, MacMillan, Taylor, Murrin sans Urge
them to get Vancouver out of the proud position it
now holds of having the worst streetcar system in
the world, including Toonerville.

Good it has become quite a habit with
R a: colyumists to pass on any good
eaqcgins news story they meet up with in

the way of readings matter I am not much of a
book reviewer, but from the reviews of some of
the birds who get paid for it, it is a profession in
which it seems easy to make one’s mark.

Anyhow, I am not going to review a book this
time, but I certainly am going to advise the readers
of this column to get a copy immediately of one
of the books in the Penguin edition. The book is,
“Between Two Wars,” by EK. Zilliacus.

Zilliacus may be a new name to many readers
but it is already well-known to Left Book Club
enthusiasts, as he is a regular contributor to their
official paper, the Tribune We is also the author
of the searching and enlightening article in the

April Labor Monthly, “Appeasement and Arma-
geddon.”

This little book, not much bigger than a ten-cent
pamphiet, contains a fund of information garnered
from inside sources, which will arm with effective
weapons those who contend that the class struggle
has been the main factor in decidinge the policies of
European rulers during the last twenty years.

The author, K. Zilliacus, is well equipped for his
job. He was an officer in the British Intelligence
Service in Northern Russia in 1919. For eighteen
years after that he was on the secretariat of the
League of Nations. In his book he points his finger
On the deception, trickery and corruption practiced
by the “leading” capitalist statesmen of the Allied
nations to prevent the working class from sweep-
ing them and their class into the ashcan of history.

Ziliacus sets out to prove that the policies and
actions of these “elder statesmen” were dictated
by their class interests, by their fear of revolution,
and he succeeds. But read it for yourselves! It
may be got at the New Age Book Store and costs
only 18 cents. I know you will get your money’s
worth.

Who runs this country, anyway?
The game at the Mac-Pap pic-
Interference nic, in which an effigy of the
gangster leader of the German Nazis was the target,
not of bombs like the helpless little Spanish chil-
dren, but of baseballs, had to be changed to suit
the squawks of someone whom the police refuse to
name. It was undoubtedly the representative of
the Nazi murder resime.

Fascist

The representative also of the blustering paranoic
at the other end of the axis, appears to have had
his hand in the matter although his particular joss
was not on display.

“Tibelling the head of a friendly state,” was men-
tioned as the cause of police interference. is the
megalomaniac Mussolini, the head of the Italian
state? INo; the King of Italy is. If we admit that
the blood-spatteréd moron, Hitler, as Chancellor,
is head of the German state, is it a friendly state?
Wot while its spokesmen refer to members of the
British government as thieves and blackmailers.

Eiven if it were libel on these monsters, it does
not affect the truth of the estimate of them held
by the people at the Mac-Paps picnic. There is 4
saying among newspapermen, “The greater the truth
the greater the libel.” It applies here. Pictures are
banned by the Japanese consul; games are banned
by the fascist consuls. Who runs Canada?

RETR SQN IRAs Suna p ASOT UTE NET Sem eMC Pera Swed