Page Six THE ADVOCATE February 16, 194 THE ADVOCATE Published Weekly by the Advocate Publishing Association, Room 20 163 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, B.C. Phone TRinity 2019 EDITOR - HAL GRIFFIN One Year $2.00 Three Months __._..____--__$ .60 Half Year $1.00 Single Copy —~-—-.___.-___-$ .05 Make All Cheques Payable to: The People’s Advocate Vancouver, B.C., Friday, February 16, 1940 The Unholy Crusade RITAIN and France will be at war with the Soviet Union “very soon.” This is what Alfred Duff-Cooper, former first lord of the British admiralty now carrying the torch of war for the Chamberlain government in the United States, told newspaper- men at Portland, Ore., the other day. Duff-Cooper’s statement made news only in that it was the first ‘blunt admission of the British government’s anti-Soviet aims. On every side preparations for imperialism’s unholy crusade against the land of socialism are being intensified, with Finland already the battleground between the forces of living socialism and dying capitalism, between the new world that stands for peace, for progress and the prosperity of the people, and the old that represents only privilege and profit. The Chamberlain government, which invoked the Foreign Enlistment Act against British volunteers seeking to enlist in the Spanish republic’s international brigades in pursuing its cynical non-intervention policy, has now adopted the tactics employed by Nazi Germany in Spain and is openly sending troops to Finland. In doing so it admits the truth of the Soviet government’s charges that the Finnish White Guard regime is only the tool of Anglo-French imperialism. But it is from the Near East that the most ominous news comes. More than half a million British and French troops are now concentrated in Egypt, Palestine, Iraq and Syria. For what? Troops from Australia and New Zealand have been sent, not to France but to Egypt. For what? The Turkish army is fully mobilized. For what? This formidable force is far greater than needed for pos- sible defensive purposes. The Soviet Union, which has treaties of amity with all bordering states in the Near East and has maintained consistently friendly relations with Turkey, has of- fered no threat. Yet all capitalist press despatches speak of possible Russian or Russo-German aggression in-the Near East. It is inconceivable, of course, that the ‘holy crusade’ against the Soviet Union will be launched with imperialism con- ceding the moral advantage. The Soviet Union must be pre- sented as the ‘aggressor.’ Will we then, be hearing of ‘border ‘incidents’ around “the end of March or the beginning of April?” Are we to be treated to a repetition of the Finnish pro- vocations on a more extensive scale? No less a person than David Lloyd George, who unlike other imperialists realizes “the incalculable consequences” of a war against the Soviet Union, thinks so. “There is a suspicion that there is a considerable movement in France for an attack on Germany through Russia,“ he writes this week, and adds, “There is a suspicion that promin- ent and forceful members of the British government would not regard such a project with disfavor.” Lloyd George too, reveals the fundamental reason for im- perialism’s desire to redirect the war against the Soviet Union. “There can be no doubt that there are powerful classes both in France and Britain who would be much more in- terested in a war against Bolshevist Russia than in a war against Nazi Germany ... there is deep down in the ruling classes of every country a hatred and dread of the Commu- ~ nist regime in Russia. It is regarded as a constant menace to the existing social order.” Lloyd George believes that “a war against Russia would be a catastrophe.” And again he is thinking not of the peoples upon whom the burden of such a war, even as the burden of this war, would be placed, but of Anglo-French imperialist interests, for he adds: “Tt would extend hostilities to Asia, where Britain and France have vast interests, and the end would be incalculable.” Britain’s prime minister during the last war remembers “there was an attempt made in 1919 to destroy Bolshevism by force of arms. It was a dismal failure, despite the fact that the Bolsheviks at that time possessed only an ill-organized and very badly equipped army.” He knows, although he does not say so, that the action of the international working class was a powerful factor in defeating that first attempt to crush the infant Soviet state. And he recognizes, when he writes that “British opinion would be hope- lessly divided,” that the international working class would not stand idly by in any second desperate attempt to destroy the land of socialism, now grown to giant strength. Canada’s Prime Minister Mackenzie King appears to have timed his federal elections perfectly to mesh with the gears of international anti-Soviet intrigue. He speaks of a possible ‘spring offensive,’ but not against the Westwall, it seems. The salient fact emerges that a vote cast for any of the four major parties—Liberal, Conservative, Social Credit and CCF—contesting this election on the false issue of how the war shall be conducted will be a vote not only for continua- tion of the present war but for the looming unholy crusade against the Soviet Union. Selt-Convicted Liars Fo weeks special correspondents ‘with the Finnish armies at the front’ have been informing the millions who read the capitalist press that the invincibility of the Red army is a myth, that Soviet soldiers are ill-trained and ill-equipped, that Red planes are obsolete, Red mechanical equipment faulty, Red artillery poor. But now that the Red army has penetrated not only the Mannerheim line but also the capitalist censorship, a different story is heard. United Press’ Webb Miller is now forced to concede that Finnish White Guard “officers and men in the line admit Rus- sian artillery is excellent, that the tanks are good and that me- chanically, Russian airplanes are first class.’ Why? Because the Finnish White Guards now recognize that “reports abroad that the Russian army is poor are untrue and... it is undesir- able that such an impression should be entertained.” And Walter Kerr cables to the New York Herald-Tribune that “old time newspaper correspondents say the war in Fin- land is the first war in many years without war correspon- dents. It probably is ...no correspondent, so far as I know, has ever seen the troops in action.” When the capitalist press collectively reveals its mass lies, it is almost superfluous for us to ask if anything it prints can be believed. WAR SCANDALS OF 1939 The Cerrupt Record of the King Government VER 200 Canadian busi- nessmen became million- aires in the war of 1914-18, while members of parliament and senators, protected by Prime Minister Borden, grew rich. And in 1917 the Liber- als, including Dr. Manion, joined the Borden Tories to set up a union government, force conscription on the country and share the profit of war contracts. Canadian big business expects to do far better in the present war. The few months of war have produced a new crop of corrupting war contract scandals. The evidence shows that Prime Minister King, his cabinet and the Liberal machine are difectly involved in these robberies of the Canadian people. King’s sugar-coated propagan- da speeches against profiteering serve to pull the wool over the eyes of the people. But, never- theless, he is deeply involved in the sordid game, as a few ex- amples made public in the press go to show. e UGH PLAXTON, MFP for Trinity, Toronto—a Liberal politician—Major J. E. Hahn, and stockbrokers Cameron, Pointon and Merritt of Toronto are mak- ing millions of dollars out of the Bren gun contract, The King government gave the Plaxton-Hahn clique the govern- ment-owned machinery for manu- facturing these guns. While pre- tending to favor the idea of es- tablishing \a government-owned machine-gun and rifle plant at Valcartier where the machinery, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, was located, Ian Macken- zie, then minister of national de- fense, was making plans to give this public property to the Plax- ton-Hahn gang. The King government in pre- war days paid deceitful lip-ser- vice to the principle of public ownership of the armaments in- dustry, but in action collaborat- ed with Hahn and other big in- dustrialists to set up capitalist monopolies of the arms industry in Canada. Hahn and company have a 10-year monopoly on the manufacture of Bren machine guns! Consider: The King govern- ment owned a plant equipped with machinery at Valcartier, Quebec, where the Bren guns could have been made. But it gave the machinery to Hahn, shipped it free to Toronto, instal- led it in the old bankrupt Inglis boiler plant and paid thousands of dollars additional to: modern- ize the Inglis plant and equip it with more brand new machinery! A government serving the peo- ple and genuinely concerned with national defense would have es- tablished a plant at Valcartier— in the country, not in the centre of a populous city like Toronto. This is betraying national inter- ests to profiteering big capital- ists. If German planes ever at- tempt to bomb the John Inglis plant out of existence and in the attempt kill thousands of Toron- tonians, it will be because of war graft stemming from King’s cab- inet. Major Hahn, Hugh Plaxton, MP, and Ian Mackenzie organiz- ed the Bren gun deal. Hahn bought the bankrupt John Inglis plant on Strachan avenue, Toron- to, for a song. The King govern- ment gave him the contract to make 7,000 Bren machine guns, and helped him to get an order for.5,000 of the same guns from the Chamberlain government. Hahn gets $8,000,000 for these 12,000 guns. The Canadian government agrees to pay Hahn all produc- tion costs plus 10 percent profit —to pay two-thirds of the cost of installing the machinery, the British government paying the other third—to pay all other ex- penses, executive salaries, travel- ling expenses, legal fees, cost of heat, light and power, telephone, telegraph—plus 10 percent! Hahn figures on cleaning up at least a million dollars clear profit on this end. But that is not all by any means. @ HE Plaxton-Hahn profiteers, having secured a monopoly of the manufacture of the Bren gun and greedily anticipating big- ger war contracts, are pyramid- ing the stock of the John Inglis company, unloading it on the public at a fancy price. Hahn holds shares worth round a million dollars in the John In- glis company. The Plaxton firm holds Inglis shares, 83,698 of them worth around $750,000. Two other subsidiaries have been rigged — Investment Reserves Ltd. and the Anglo-Engineering Ltd. — under the thumbs of Hahn and Plaxton —to slide part of the stock on the public. From stock market oper- ations the Hahn-Plaxton gang can clean up millions! On this deal aldne a half-dozen new mil- lionaires wil be created. Colonel J. F. Lash, director of many big monopolies; Lieut-Col. W. G. Mackendrick, director of Canadian Canners, Columbia Pa- ving, (Vancouver, BC) and other companies; R. H. Massie, vice- president of Dominion Fire In- surance company, and director of other companies; and T. L. Waldon, corporation president HILE taxes are being piled sky-high on the backs of the y people, wages and salaries depresse and farm incomes lowered—particularly sharply in Western Canada—an orgy of corruption and profiteering has been unleashed by the capitalist class and politicians in ‘the business of war.’ Opponents of war and militant workers are being imprisoned while the grafters and profiteers wax rich. The challenge is thrown to the Ca- nadian people to unite against the King government and Tory politicians and against the top leaders of the CCF, Social Credit and other groups who aid and abet the imperialist war and the corrupt policies of Canadian big business. and director of US and Canadian companies, joined. Hahn’s John Inglis company directorate on Jan, 18, 1940. Everything is set to rake in millions from Bren guns and the Dominion treasury and the stock market. AGE scales paid at the Inglis plant are far below trade union rates. The government re- fused to include a clause in the war contracts to provide for trade union wages. The Clause L ‘prevailing rates of wages in the area” enables Hahn and other war profiteers to drive wages down to the lowest level and to wreck trade union standing. Prime Minister King has white- washed the Hahn-Plaxton gang. Judge Davis brought in a report which evaded the real issues in order to screen the government. Public indignation was high, so what did King do? Norman Rog- ers was switched from the de partment of labor to take over Ian Mackenzie’s job. Mackenzie was transferred from the depart- Ment of national defense to the cabinet post of minister of pen- sions and national health. The political chimneys of Otta- wa send forth a stench of cor- ruption, permeating the Liberal cabinet and polluting the nation- al life, @ LIBERAL in Vancouver owned a house assessed at $49,150. It was registered in his wife’s name. She was very friendly with Ian Mackenzie. The department of national defense bought this house for $94,440. Honest working people are taxed to pay for this robbery. In Vancouver, due to influence with the Liberal machine at Ot- tawa, a group of war profiteers headed by Brigadier W. W. Fos- ter, president of the Canadian Legion, chief of Vancouver’s po- lice ((now on leave, filling the post of head of the Auxiliary Ser- vices of the department of na- tional defense!) obtained con- tracts totalling $3,000,000' for coastal defenses. % Once again, these contracts were given on the basis of pro- duction costs plus 10 percent. An over-all 10 percent is paid on ex- ecutive salaries, auditors’ fees, depreciation, municipal taxes, le- gal fees, insurance, travelling ex- penses. The government will pay the cost of plant improve- IS YOUR NAME ON THE VOTERS’ LIST? TE there is considerable interest in the forthcoming fed- eral elections is evidenced by the number of enquiries made daily at the Advocate office and at union offices in the city as to what steps eligible persons should take to ensure that their names are on the voters’ list. Canadian citizens are entitled to vote only if their names appear on the new voters’ list now in preparation. This list will nullify all previous (1935) federal voters’ lists. Enumer- ators are going from house to house in city and country reg- istering all persons entitled to vote. Once registered a receipt is given by the enumerators. The fact that your name appears on the provincial voters’ list does not entitle you to vote in this election. Provincial and federal elections are conducted with entirely different voters’ lists. If at the end of this month you have not been called upon by the enumerators you name does not appear on the list, each section of which is conspicuously posted in a public place, your last opportunity to register will come when the court of revision opens on March 11-12-13 in each constituency from 10 a.m. until 10 p.m. each day. Places where these courts will be held will be made known through posters and public an- nouncements. In the case of miners, loggers and fishermen, who may be unable to attend in person, their union secretary, if informed, can see that their names are placed on the voters’ list. Possibility that many persons in working class districts, unionized logging and mining camps where the vote may be solidly for anti-war candidates may find they have been omitted from the voters’ list can be safeguarded against if citizens will . take the trouble to check the lists and watch for announce- ments on opening of the courts of revision. WAR BOARDS expansion and continuation of the industrial policy that has been followed by the govern- ment for the past eight years, for in their hands control has nearly always meant the con- ferment of legal privileges on the organized producers al- ready established in the indus- try ... Not only is the system inequitable, it is also likely to be inefficient . .. It is not too much to say that the form which an _ industrial control take sduring the war will dom- inate the economic develop- ment after the war. We are in danger of slipping, through in- advertance, into a feudalistic system of cartel control” ee. GLANCE at the names which make up our own two most important boards—the War Sup- ply Board and the Prices and Trade Board—does little to as- sure us that the ‘Economist’s’ re- marks are inapplicable to Cana- da. W. R. Campbell, head of the War Supplies, is president and treasurer of the Ford Motor Com- pany of Canada. Ford, of course, is one of the two large motor firms of Canada. Motors and the machinery for making them are very important in war, and Ford has already received—as is inevitable—large contracts from the War Supply Board. The other three members of the board have between them a quite impressive list of directorships in Canadian firms and. connections with the Chamber of Commerce and other businessmen’s organizations. Noble, the sugar controller, is assistant general manager of the Royal Bank. The Royal Bank, of all Canadian banks, is the one with the largest West Indies bus- iness, particularly in Cuba, which is a heavy sugar producer. Noble’s assistant, H. J. Hobbins, is the vice-president and general Manager of Czarnikow Lid. a Montreal firm which is the larg- est firm of sugar brokers in the world. David Dick, the wool control- ler, is a past president of the Woollen manufacturers’ organiz- ation and continues as an active member of it. He is connected with three textile firms, J. Mac- Gregor Stewart, the coal control- ler, holds sixteen or seventeen directorships including ones on the Dominion Steel and Coal Cor- Poration and Nova Scotia Steel and Coal company. As for Hon. Gordon Scott, the ‘dollar-a-year man’, who is acting as executive director in arrang- ing contracts, this former mem- ber of the Taschereau govern- ment has connections with near- ly a score of Canadian corpora- tions. The 1939 issue of ‘Poor’s Register’ credits him with no fewer than seventeen director- ships, including the steel indus- try (General Steel Wares, Cana- dian Tube and Steel Products Ltd. Dominion Wire and Cable), the power industry, chemicals, and several ‘financial’ companies, And now we hear that R. A CG. Henry of Beauharnois scandal ill- fame and the present vice-presi- dent of Beauharnois, has been appointed as special liaison offi- : cer between Transport Minister Howe (under whose jurisdiction the War Supply Board is found) and the board itself, re cent! ‘ a In these contracts, mainly fe the construction of undergrouy coastal defense nf King and Mackenzie did not hay any steam shovels, concrete mi ers and excavators lying at Vs cartier or elsewhere to give t Brigadier Foster and compan but they did something just | profitable. The governmer agreed to pay rentals on the m chinery used, - For example, on a three-qua ter-yard excavating shovel, ¢ ing around $14,000 the gover ment pays $35 rent an eight-ho day; $40 an eight-hour day rei] for a caterpillar crane-shovel ; costs around $15,000. It has been admitted that ¢ profiteers charged for a 24-hq! day—$105 a day on the showy: $120 a day on the crane-shoy4 In other words, the Foster car. = $38,000 in rent on the caterpilll” crane-shovel a year compared: its original cost of $14,000, m than double. ; Companies involved in thes) deals include Northern Constru tion company, W. J. Stewart Ca. struction Ltd. British Columb* Dredging Company and E. Ryan, contractors, ‘ Men involved include Brigadi. Foster, B. M. Boyd, D. McLec Lieut-Col. E. J. Ryan, John j Keer, D. B. MacDonald J. A. ji Keay, A R Mann of Vancouyg T. K. DeBeck of Victoria, ana; J. O’Brien and R. McF. Millar; Montreal. : a Gerry McGeer, MP, for Vaneo, ver-Burrard and Ian Mackenz 4 played the big roles at Ottawa}. pushing these contracts to- the. clique. Practically every one; the contracts was given ona ng) competitive basis. Mackenz King’s statement that all Wi contracts are given on a co petitive basis; that the order gq. to the lowest bidder is eyewai for the public. a3 A Liberal ward-heeler in Mon real, M. Shulman, sold the q- partment of national defense = building for $18,000. Six mont. before he sold it he paid $129 - for it. A clear gift of $6,000 te ; a | Liberal machine henchman. And who recommended | scandalous deal? ; = None other than the gshint knight, Norman Rogers, ne! minister of national defense! + — e A™= MARSHALL BISHO. member of the Interdepa mental council of Canadian 4 fense, is a director of the Fle Aircraft Corporation which h received several big contrac | The shares of Fleet Aircraft ha rocketed from $3.50 a share | 1939 to $9.75 a share at present ° A number of planes alreg Paid for are obsolete. Hundre’ of planes lie in storage, useli because contractors on propelli failed to deliver—although ¢ - took the money. Complaints ; becoming rife that the quality... Planes made by Canadian ¢i | tractors is not up to standar unsafe. A splintering strut, a fau. engine spell profits for the % profiteers and death for a Caj 2 dian airman. Lapointe and Cardin, King c., inet ministers from Quebec; :° looking after their Liberal x. § chine colleague in Quebec. 1° Sorel shipyards and the St. Ii rence dredging fleet, owned :° paid for by the government, hi { been handed over to the Sim: trust. , Contracts worth millions ¥ be shortly handed over to Sim: for mine-sweepers, patrol ba’ and it may even come to p> that Simard will sell back 50 of the dredging fleet to the = ernment. | e ; (PHESE are only a few samE of the hundreds of disgra ful war contract scandals # mark the corrupt regime of King government. The To make weak gestures of oppc tion to it all becausé they are furiated that they are on the c¢ side looking in. Manion recalls the days un Borden when millionaires wf made overnight by selling «& " marines (that were rejected a foreign government as unse to the Canadian navy; by sell ix dud shells and defective sh fi that exploded inthe gun-breec? f killing hundreds of Canadian tillerymen; by selling card-bor fy soled shoes, outworn horses ;{, diseased meat to the departm fo, of national defence. me The graft and corruption fp 1914-18 in war contracts was. sponsible for more Canad being killed, wounded and eased than all the fire of Gerr |, guns. Borden, Holt, Flav} Meighen and their associ} made millions out of the 191'}. war. They did not care wh happened to the boys who wf, Overseas believing they vi, fighting for democracy anc * ‘Canada fit for heroes.’ A Dr. Manion, Colonel Drew, }} onel McLean and the rest of | Tory gang will shut up /# clams on one condition— | Wi tt) That’s a partial picture}} much as has already been |¥ posed—of the war scandals¥# 1939. Is Canada going to sif for it? ; Fi