Page Six

THE ADVOCATE

March 29, a

THE ADVOCATE

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

EDITOR - HAL GRIFFIN
Qne Year $2.00 Three Months ___
Half Year $1.00 Single Copy

Make All Cheques Payable to: The People’s Advocate

VANCOUVER, B.C., FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 1949

The People Must Organize

Now that the election has returned the King government
to power with approximately the same majority it re-
ceived in 1935 the big business press of both Canada and Britain
vie with each other in assuring the people the Liberal victory
is proof positive that the Canadian people are all for winning
the war.

Says the Vancouver Sun: “Before the world, this young
nation has demonstrated by free vote that it is united as never
before, in spirit, in policy, in its determination to win the war,”
and the Province adds: “Yesterday's vote expresses confidence
in the war policies of the government and the war administra-
tion. It asks the government to carry out also the promises
made in this campaign of energetic prosecution of the war.”

That the results of the election would be interpreted as a
‘win the war’ mandate, regardless of which of the only two
parties with sufficient candidates to obtain a majority won
the election, was, of course, a foregone conclusion, further
substantiated by the London News-Chronicle, which comments:
“Whichever way the election had gone between the two great
parties, it would have been a ‘win the war’ vote.”

This being the viewpoint of big business, it is obvious that
the working people of Canada, in estimating the political sig-
nificance of the election, cannot attribute return of the King
government to any such ‘win the war’ sentiment.

ee two most significant results of the election are, first,
the crushing defeat of the Conservatives and, second, the
fact that after five years in office in a period of economic de-
pression the CCF not only failed to increased its vote but
actually emerged, on the basis of present returns, with 87,000
less votes than it obtained in 1935, a loss of some 22 percent.

Why did the Tories receive such a rebuff? Was it because
the people felt disinclined to change the government because
Canada was at war, as the kept press would have us believe?
Not at all.

The real reason can be found in the returns from Quebec,
the last province to experience a Conservative administration,
the notorious “Padlock’ government of Duplessis. There the
Conservative vote dropped from 323,000 in 1935 to 141,000 in
1940. Not a single Tory was elected.

While the people of Canada as a whole could not forget
the reactionary Iron Heel’ regime of R. B. Bennett, the people
of Quebee with the more recent experience of the ‘Padlock’
regime of Duplessis were even more decisive in their rejection
of what they considered a reactionary party, and rightly so.

They have not yet had an opportunity to appraise the
equally reactionary measures incorporated in the War Meas-
ures Act which far outdoes even Bennett's Section 98 and
Duplessis’ padlock law.

Rejection of the CCF as an alternative to both Liberals
and Conservatives was to be expected in view of its official
attitude towards Canadian participation in the war, which in
all essentials differed not a whit from the old-line parties.
Its voluble protests that the ‘economic problem’ was the main
issue and the war of secondary importance was not taken
seriously by anyone but the CCF. Even a child knows the mag-
nitude of the effect of war on all domestic problems and par-
ticularly the ‘economic’ question. The CCF betrayal of its
own principles on war in its opportunist attempts to select
a ‘respectable,’ midde-of-the-road course resulted inevitably in
a milk and water policy that met with the defeat it deserved.

HE Daily Herald, organ of the CCF counterpart in Britain,
the British Labor party, gloats that “the various stop-the-
war candidates were almost annihilated in yesterday’s elec-
tion.” Considering the intimidation and terrorism instituted
in Canada, under the provisions of the dictatorial War Meas-
ures Act, the showing made by the ten Communist anti-war
candidates was significant. In Montreal police raided the com-
mittee room of the candidate and arrested all found within it.
In Winnipeg four supporters were arrested. In Hamilton the
campaign manager was out on bail awaiting trial under the
War Measures Act while conducting the campaign.

One candidate in Toronto was already serving a two-year
sentence. Thousands of copies of election pamphlets and leat-
lets were seized, anti-war speakers were barred from the
radio, in most cases committee rooms were unobtainable and
an air of intimidation prevailed throughout. Despite these
terrific handicaps the anti-war candidates polled a respectable
vote in all constituencies, headed by Leslie Morris in Winnipeg,
who received over 5,000 votes.

The election did not settle any of the basic issues contront-
ing the working class of Canada. The issues of paramount im-
portance, conscription, increased taxation, profiteering, living
costs, the threatened extinction of civil rights, still remain to be
dealt with as well as the war itself.

The working people of Canada will settle these issues in
their own way, but first of all by further strengthening their
organizations designed to defend working class interests, labor
defense organizations, anti-conscription leagues, consumers’
associations, trade unions and above all, their political party,
the Communist party.

Fascists In Disguise

EMOCRACY has some strange defenders these days. But
mone stranger than Major Harold Brown, president of
Union Steamships, who in an address to the Bankers Lecture
Club of British Columbia this week expressed his preference
for fascism in indirect but obvious fashion terming it ‘a
Sundy afternoon’ in comparison to communism.

What does Major Brown imply by his reference to ‘a Sun-
day afternoon?’ He implies quiet. And who is ‘quiet’ under
fascism? It is the working class, deprived of its rights to or-
ganize, denied its own press, barred from platform and radio,
ferrorized and forced to underground methods of struggle.
This is what Major Brown and his fellow industrialists would
like to see in Canada.

His remarks should serve to open the eyes of the Canadian
people to. the enemies of the people now masquerading as
‘democrats, avowedly warring against fascism, but, through
the King governments War Measures Act, actually introduc-

ing it in Canada.

From The Socialist Sixth of the World

EAND WHERE YOUIR RULES |

HEWLETT JOHNSON, DEAN OF CANTERBURY |

“Ee SOVIET UNION is a young country. Youth controls factories, workshops, and scientific institutes. The managers o:

the Moscow Dynamo works are under thirty years of age. The majority of those participating in the Arctic exploration:
expeditions were under twenty-five years. The percentage of the population under twenty-nine years—that is, of those whe
either were born under the Soviet regime or retained but blurred recollection of tsarist day

By VERY REV.

Britain is 50.

What has the Soviet Union done for its youth and what is it doing?

At fifteen years of age — that is, at the end of the seven-year school age, which extends from eight to fifteen years — twee
altrnatives present themselves: the child may enter the ten-year school and proceed to the university or technical college, ane
an extremely large percentage do so; or he may start at once to learn the profession of his choice.

Should he choose to become a
technician—an engineer, say, or
an aviation meschanic—he enters
a machine-constructing technical
college, where he studies the ele
ments of mechanics, The course
lasts.for two years, and is free.
On his seventeenth birthday, and
not before, he can enter industry.
AS a juvenile he works for not
more than five or six hours a day,
receiving an appropriate wage.

At the end of his eighteenth

year he leaves the workers, and
after an examination enters a
higher technical college. For
the next five years he under-
goes an extensive course of
theoretical and practical ser-
vise. On his twenty-fourth
birthday he emerges as a quali-
fied engineer.

During all this time he has re-
ceived, in addition to his meals,
instruments, and text-books, a
monthly allowance which makes
him independent of outside fin-
ancial aid.

At college he meets students
from every country in the Union.
He comes into closer touch with
the outside world than in his
school-days. He may become one
of the five million members of
the Communist League of Youth.
He comes of age politically. He
becomes politically aware, which
is altogether desirable in poli-
tics is “the art of living with
one’s fellows.” At the age of
eighteen he or she obtains the
right to vote and is eligible for
election. Of the 1,148 deputies to
the Supreme Soviet of the USSR,
284 are between the ages of eigh-
teen and thirty.

e

2 THE earlier days of the revo-

lution this external activity
Was much overdone, though nec-
essity demanded it. The best
young members of the Commun-
ist party built entire works dur-
ing the First Five-Year Plan and
educated large mumbers of the
backward peasantry.

Today, happily, none of that
work, or overwork, is needed, and
there is a happier blend of study
with external work, such as tree
planting or harvesting in holiday
times.

But politics and work do not
absorb his whole time. Soviet
youths are as keen sportsmen as
British youths, and Soviet teams
can hold their own with any
teams they meet Soviet youth
Swims—perfecting new strokes—
skates and climbs. I have wat-
ched children of ten receive their
first lesson in air-mindedness: as
when a small girl eagerly offered

_ herself to be tied to a fixed chair

at the end of a long beam, to be
swung through the air at the
height of a two-storied house,
landing head downwards at the
far end, and then swinging back
again. The next stage is the
leap, attached to an open para-
chute, from the parachute tower.
After that the read thing: 5,000-
000 Soviet men and maidens in-
dulge in parachuting.
e
AURICE HINDUS, writing in
Asia of March 1938, assures
us that communistic organization
of industry in general, and agri-
culture in particular, has defin-
itely succeeded. As proof of this
he selects the following dramatic
instances. In the- city of Kiev, in
April, 1937, 1,112 girls left school
at the age of eighteen. Of these
not more than 10 percent consid-
ered their education complete and
went to work. The remaining 90
percent passed on to some form
or other of higher education. [I
suppose that in England the per-
centage would be nearer 5 or 6.
This wholesale desire for high-
er education seems to be inecred-
ible, and the ability to gratify
the desire more incredible still.
Three considerations may help to
account for it:
First, there is no financial dif-
ficulty to hinder a clever or keen
student from entering the uni-

versity or institute for higher ed-
ucation. Students receive a wage
according to the standard reached
in thei rwork, but in any event
adequate for maintenance. An
examination must be passed, but
it is not competitive, as here,
where a certain limited number
of places and certain limited fin-
ancial resources alone are avail-
able. The examination merely
tests fitness to profit by the
course of advanced study.

Second, the parents have no
need of the arly wages of their
children to ekeout the family in-
come o rprovide maintenance in
their own old age. Their own
earning power, the absence of un-
employment, and the certainty of
a pension on retirement, or main-
tenance if sick, cause them to en-
courage rather than hinder their
child’s desire for auniversity eru-
cation of the highest order ob-
tainable.

Third, and not of least impor-
tance ,is youth’s own eagerness
for the highest possible forms of
mental equipment. There is a zest
for learing; especially, but by no
means exclusively, in the several
fields of science. 3

6

HE NUMBER of students in

universities and technical col-
leges is to reach 650,000 during
the Third Five-Year Plan. Sec-
ondary education is to grow still
more rapidly, and the number of
those with a completed higher
education will increase from 650,-
000 to 1,290,000. And that is but
the beginning, not the end. For
the fundamental aim is the mat-
ter of education is to raise the
whole clutural and technical level
of the working class to that of
engineers and technical workers
and to remove forever the dis-
tinction between the man who
works with his brain and the
man who works with his hand.

Stalin expressed the intention
with his usual simplicity in words
spoken at a recent conference
of Stakhanovites:

“The elimination of the dis-
tinction between mental labor
and manual labor can be
achieved only by raising the
eultural and technical level of
the working class to the level
of engineers and technical
workers. it would be absurd to
think that this is unreasonable.
It is entirely reasonable under
the Soviet’ system, where the
productive forces of the coun-
try are freed from the fetters
of capitalism, where labor is
freed from the yoke of exploita-
tion, where the working class is
in power, and where the young-
er generation of the working
class has every opportunity of
obtaining an adequate technical
education. There is no reason
to doubt that only such a rise
in the cultural and technical
level of the working class can
undermine the basis of distinc-
tion between mental and man-
ual labor, that it alone can
ensure that higher level of pro-
ductivity of labor and that
abundance of articles of con-
sumption which are necessary
in order to begin the transition
from Socialism to Commun-
ism.”

The goal is that of a wholly ed-
ucated nation.

@

Tl HAVE traced the course of

Soviet youth from infancy
throughout the childhood to the
higher ranges of education in un-
iversity or technical institute; we
now reach the point where he is
ready to launch boldly forth into
the world of affairs with which
through his whole career he has
been acquainted, and the prin-
ciples of whose industries he has
been encouraged to understand.

What awaits him now?

It is that this moment, I ven-
ture to think, that the profound
difference between planned pro-
duction for community consump-

tion and production which is ei-
ther unplanned or planned only
for the safeguarding of profits is
seen the most clearly, and alto-
gether to the advantage of the
former,

For the Plan gives to Soviet
youth a creative purpose and a
hundred opportunities to work it
out. The Plan seeks his help. Un-
limited possibilities open up be-
fore him in the spheres of sci-
ence, economics, general culture,
and politics. For Soviet youth
the nightmare of unemployment
is forever gone. His future is full
of hope. There is a niche for
@€ach and a call for each. There
is for each a promise of security,
banishing devitalizing fear; and
an honored place in a cause
which gives, or can give, zest and
nobility to life.

@

ITVID indeed is the contrast

between the outlook on life
of the average Soviet youth, from
the otulook of the average Brit-
ish youth. No one in close touch
with British youth, or with their
parents too, can fail to know the
fears, anxieties and strain with
which they face the future, whe-
ther in times of slump through
which we are passing, or in times
of boom into which we may
shortly come, only with the
knowledge that another slump

. lies inevitably ahead.

More than most, perhaps, am I
placed in a position to know the
inner side of this question as it
affects the various types and
classes of boys and girls of Eng-
lang; being at the moment chair-
Man of governors of an elemen-
tary school, of two large second-
ary schools, and of a great public
school, the oldest in the English-
speaking world; having also held
Similar posts in the great indus-
trial centres of the north.

There is general and disturbing
anxiety in the later school years
as to whether a job can be se-
Cured which will provide a live-
lihood. The number of useful
jobs is limited, the number of ap-
plicants immense. Competition
is severe. Even the strain of ob-
taining a job through examina-
tion often leaves the winner ex-
hausted when the job is secured
and glad to leave forever the
Studies which secured it. thers
less fortunate, gain no job at all.
Hundreds of thousands of boys
and girls have been condemned
to pass to post-school life with-
out ever knowing the joy of work,
lacking tools, room, skill, or re-
sources to make their own em-
ployment. Life consists of hans-
ing around street corners, with
its morally degrading effects.

)

OUTH — TIT am speaking now

of vast numbers of youth in
industrial centers—sees no way
out. He cannot trace these things
to. their source. He feels that he
is in the grip of fate. Luck rules,
You are lucky if you are born in-
to the right circle. Lucky if you
have brains. Lucky if you get a

CONSCRIPTION IS. |
ON THE BOOKS

By T. G. MCMANUS

pee MINISTER MACKENZIE KING promised on Sept
_ 7 that there would be no expeditionary force. Today thou
sands of young Canadians have left our shores.
Dr. Manion agreed with King on Sept. 7 that there woulc
be no expeditionary force. Throughout the election campaisi
he criticized the King government because more men were no

sent overseas.

Manion was a member of the government that helped t

frame the Conscription Act.

M. J. Coldwell and the CCF leaders promised to fight fo
peace. Today they are supporting the war!
Coldwell and the CCF leaders promised that they woul

s — is 63. A similar percentage td

|

job. But, then, your luck may
turn against you. All life is 3/
gamble. Belief in 3 peneficients
providence, or in purpose behini
the order of things, departs. L

How can good work be done
against a background so black
and se discouraging? /

By
;

Or, when a youth is lucky and |
finds a job, how often can we call;
it a creative job? Innumerahied
young men and women, capable :
of achieving much and enriching j
the world with the things they
could produce or the service; |
they could render, eke out a mis:
erable and precarious living ar.
touts urging the purehase of
commodities we neither need no;
want. And how many more arm:
tied down for life to routine taske
and dread the very invention:
which may make even these-
tasks superfluous and cast 4

present workers on the ‘scrayy
heap of unemployment? i

And, while many are unenj)
ployed, many more, and especial i
ly those in the more skilled type
of employment, are seriously oy
erworked. The end of the work
ing day finds them too fatigued ©
to take interest in the social and”
political order which -so vitally
affects their lives. The strain of
keeping the skilled job they have
Secured is incessant Age will
quickly prove a handicap. In or
der to keep to the front here is
danger of sriving for showy op
dramatic results. It is not easy
te do solid work in the time ai:
lotted. Life shrinks to small hor
izons. {

Some few, in ‘the higher ranges
of industrial or professional life,
inherit, or gain by influence, or |
even win by open competition, in)
a struggle for which they have
had all the advantages which |
wealth and leisure and every fa-~
vorable circumstance can give, q
sphere where life really has cre”
ative purpose, as in the case ‘af
many enterprising industrial con-~
cerns. i recall again my own ex-
perience. Such jobs are few and
precious.

eS

T IS just these creative tasks
that open up in the Sovie}
Union, not to a favored few, but
to all. Ail have a share in the
Ownership of industry and pro-
ductive processes. All have their
appropriate niche, and it is ths
niche of their own choosing
There is no hunt for a job. The
jobs do the hunting. And each
job is part of a greater whole
Nothing is haphazard. In what
ever job he chooses, a Soviet bor
may know that he is building up
@ national concern. What hi
does creatively affects himsel! j
his family, his city, his father

land.

Soviet youth is assured of
healthy, creative and attractive
work, his perplexity lies only in
its choice. It is no mere hum-
bug when you speak to a Sov-
iet child about vocation: each
ean hear an inner call and heed
it.

THE EPEITOMY OF CAUTION

fe to set aside a suitable day for general prayer

throughout the United Kingdom for the speedy end of
the war, Prime Minister Chamberlain replied that the question
would be considered at the proper time. “I do not think that
time has yet arrived,” he said. This remark, we feel, represents
about the ultimate in British caution. The prime minister ap-
parently has an uneasy faith in the power of prayer, combined
with a lack of faith in the divine grasp of the situation. Pray
for the end of war, and there’s just a chance that that’s what
you'll get; peace right on the dot, with all the issues still up

in the air and the balance of power yet to be determined. The
prime minister, it seems, has no doubt that God can put a stop
to hostilities any time He feels like it, but he would rather not
trust Him with the details. The time for peace will be deter-
mined at No. 10 Downing street. Until the cabinet gives the
word, the people will kindly refrain from stirring up the
Almighty until the empire has things under better control,
God can just count sparrows——_THE NEW YORKER.

fight against an expeditionary force leaving Canada. The
did not issue one leaflet or say one word of protest when Cana
dians were shipped overseas.

Coldwell says he is against conscription, but Tom Johnsor
CCF member for Touchwood, wants a registration of all mei
under the age of 40 years. He said so in the Saskatchewa?
legislature. On their past performance, can the people trus
them to fight against conscription?

The Liberals, Conservatives and the CCE’ers are sayin ¥
they are opposed to conscription. But it is hard to comprehen:
their attitude in view of hte fact that conscription is now oO.
the statute books of Canada — and can be enforced by th}
order-in-council at any time.

The statute reads:

“Section 8—Al]] the male inhabitants of Canada, of the ag
of eighteen years and upwards, and under sixty, not exemp)
or disqualified by law, and being British subjects, shall be liabi
to service in the militia: Provided that the Governor-Genere
may require all male inhabitants of Canada, capable of bearini
arms, to serve in the case of a levee en masse. :

“Section 69—The Governor-in-Council may place the mill),
tia ,or any part thereof on active service anywhere in Canad,
and also beyond Canada for the defense thereof at any tim)
when it appears advisable so to do by reason of emergency)