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Page Eight

THE

ADVOCATE

April 26, 1940

THE ADVOCATE

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

EDITOR - HAL GRIFFIN
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VANCOUVER, B.C., FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 1940

MAY DAY, 1940

eS HALF a century and more of working class struggle, of
which May Day, since it was first established in 1886, is
the proud symbol, never were the issues confronting the
Canadian labor movement graver than on this May Day of
1940 in a world where liberty is defiled by tyrants and democ-
tacy too often has become the threadbare cloak of hypocrites.

2

This May Day, as the British Columbia labor movement

raises its slogan, ‘Safeguard labor’s rights, Repeal the War

Measures Act,’ it will remember those other workers, countless

millions of them, who in cities throughout the world have

marched in parades long past. Their name is the lesion of

labor, striving upward through the night of capitalism to a

world freed of exploitation of man by man, engraven always

upon their banners the unchanging slogan, ‘Workers Of All

Countries, Unite.’

Only in one country, where on May Day the 180) million
citizens of a socialist society will celebrate, has the ultimate
aspiration of the working class been realized. But in every
country the working class in unending struggle has established
its deathless traditions, has striven with varying success to
wrest its democratic rights of freedom of organization, of
speech and press and assembly.

Sometimes, as in Germany, through the betrayal of those
‘socialists’ who professed to be its leaders and through the
treacherous denial of uhity, it has lost these rights and fascism
has followed with all its attendant horrors. But within Ger-
many, aS within every country. where all legal rights are
denied or restricted the struggle of the working class for
peace and the true freedom of socialism continues.

This May Day the working class in British Columbia and
throughout Canada faces a threat to its rights and the demo-
eratic liberties of all working people greater than that which
confronted it when it organized to throw off the ‘iron heel’
under which the Bennett government sought to crush its
liberties.

Reaction, having entered upon the path that leads to fas-

cism, has reinforced its threat to the people’s democratic rights

with the War Measures Act, under which no right is sacred

before an expediency, real or invented, no organization im-

mune from arbitrary suppression, no traditional liberty in-

violable.
ee

This is the challenge Canadian labor must answer this
May Day with a preparedness to defend its rights in the spirit
of struggle which won them, with a determination to strengthen
its organizations by uniting all organized workers around a
program for higher wages to meet higher living costs and by
organizing the hundreds of thousands of unorganized workers.
As in past critical periods—though none so critical as this—
there are those labor leaders who, in their craven desire to
follow the easy road of collaboration rather than the hard
road of struggle, are willing to sacrifice all that labor has won
in its century-long fight. Against these ‘fifth columnists, many
of whom occupy leading positions, labor must turn its united
ranks, for these are the men who, by their capitulation, would
reduce the trade unions to impotence as they did in Germany,
as they have already succeeded in doing in France, and as they
are seeking to do in Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

Labor in British Columbia will march this May Day, re-

lying in the strength of its organizations, knowing that through-

out the world, wherever democracy has not entirely been

obliterated, organized workers are also marching towards the

same goal. It will march, strong in its militant traditions, se-

cure in the knowledge that the clock of progress moves forward

despite all setbacks and however unevenly, aware that all the

hampering efforts of those clinging desperately to its hands

cannot prevent the eventual hour of socialism from striking.

Depression Millionaires

AM unnoticed by the daily press this week was a
brief dispatch from London disclosing that the “report
of the commissioners of inland revenue for the 1937-38 fiscal
year reveals that Britain had 1024 sterling millionaires—per-
sons with £1,000,000, then equivalent to about $4,800,000. This
was an increase of 107 millionaires in a year.”

If this development showing the increasing disparity of
wealth in capitalist society could take place during a period
of depression when Britain had more than 1,000,000 unem-
ployed, how many new millionaires will be ereated during a
war period which has already diverted the greater part of
Britain’s national income to war industries and sent profits and
dividends soaring?

The statement made by Lord Lothian, British ambassador
to the United States at St. Louis last week that “what we
are fighting for is security, security for everybody against
aggression and.war, poverty and unemployment,” sounds
strange indeed in the face of the facts as contained in the
British government’s official reports.

The Chamberlain government, in presenting its new bud-
get, may have rejected the notorious Keynes plan, but it seems
to have accepted most of its features.

* k *

And in Canada, Sir Edward Beatty is objecting to the King
government's very moderate excess profits tax. It should be

declared unfair to millionaires.

WAR AIMS AND POST-WAR RECONSTRUCTION

By WILLIAM LAWSON

HE long-suffering Canadian public is now being deluged with despatches about the ‘new world order’ which is to follow
an Allied victory. These despatches are eagerly taken up by Liberal and CCF supporters of the war. In certain quarters
speculation on post-war reconstruction tends to eliminate all discussion of immediate problems confronting the labor moyve-
Ment. A patient on the operating table often tries to forget his terror of the surgeon’s knife by concentrating his thoughts
on the happy days ahead, when his health will be restored. In like manner, CCF leaders soft-pedal discussion of the horrors
of war and concentrate their bemused attention on the beauties of the new world order which is to arise, phoenix-like, from
the ashes of Europe’s devastated cities.

But all operations do not turn
out successfully. Some prove
fatal to the patient; many leave
him worse off than before. So
far the vague and ambiguous
Statements on Allied war aims
provide scant factual basis for
those who argue that an Allied
victory will bring a sweeping im-
Provement in the European set-
up,

Let us clear our minds of any
confusion between the real war
aims of the belligerent powers
and the alleged ‘war aims’ put
forward by CCF leaders. During
the last War, the aims of the Al-
lied Powers were precisely set
forth in a series of secret treaties,
which were not revealed to the
public until they were found in
the Czar’s archives and published
by the victorious Soviet govern-
ment. These treaties provided for
dismemberment of the German
and Turkish empires among the
victorious powers. They con-
tained detailed agreements about
the division of spoils, on which
territories were to go to Britain,
which to Russia and France.

The Allied governments denied
the existence of any such agree-
ments, and solemnly assured the
people that they did not want
an inch of territory. Public opin-
jon could not be won for a war
whose ‘aims were the economic
and territorial agrandizement of
the belligerent powers. The Al-
lies fought German imperialism
under the slogans of ‘a war to
end war’ and ‘to establish a last-
ing peace in Europe.’ They ex-
ploited the popularity of Presi-
dent Wilson by publicly pretend-
ing great enthusiasm for his lib-
eral pronouncements, while in
private curtly refusing to have
anything to do with humanitar-
jan schemes for post-war recon-
struction.

e

TLSON’S Fourteen Points,
outlined in a speech deliv-
ered in Jan., 1918, called for peace
without annexations, guarantees
for the independence of small
states, and for the freedom of the
Soviet government against inter-
vention. To a large extent these
points succeeded in convincing
public opinion that the Allies were
fighting for a just cause. They
did not result in the abandon-
ment of the secret treaties. The
reality behind Wilson’s beautiful
phrases was revealed by the Ver-
sailles treaty, which inflicted un-
bearable hardships on the peoples

THE FORUM OF THE PEOPLE

Lillooet Relief
Troubles Told

To the Editor—I am enclosing
an extract from the Bridge River-
Lillooet News, owned and oper-
ated by G. M. Murray, wife of
George Murray, MUA for this
constituency, If possible, I would
like to see it dealt with in the
Advocate.

Below, is a little information
on relief works in this town.

Relief allowances are $9.60 a
month for single persons; $16 a
month for a married couple and
one child; $22.50 a month for a
married couple and two children.

I have always understood that
an extra allowance was made for
clothing, but I have never been
able to get it. Last month it cost
me $2 for shoe repairs to enable
me to work. This month it cost
me another $2.95 to have my
wife’s shoes repaired. Not very
important to the government,
maybe, but very important to me.
And now the government is talk-
ing of cutting our miserable al-
lowances, of which, speaking for
the men in this district, we earn
every red cenf.

—LONE WOLF.
Lillooet, BC,

(The article referred to, con-
sisting in the main of a vicious
attack on the CQO and on the
Mine, Mill and Smelter Work-
ers union in particular, will be
dealt with in our next issue.)

What About
General Franco?

To the Editor,—Which are the
nations possessing the courage
and decency not to recognize
Franco? In the event of a new
League of Nations being formed,
could not the former Republican
government of Spain demand that
it be restored to power? After
all it did not resign, but was
forced to leave Spain because of
Franco and his German and
Italian allies, Simce both the
Italian and German governments
sent troops and supplies to Spain,
the war in that country was not
really a civil war at all, but an
act of aggression committed by
Germany and Italy against the
Spanish Republican government.

I would like to hear other
opinions on this subject.
Smithers, BC.

Pues mic vasr 15 vous cetan—

of the defeated countries, opened
the way for large-scale interven-
tion against the Soviet Union,
and laid the basis for the inevi-
table future war.

Wilson’s grandiose schemes for
post-war reconstruction, which
bamboozled tens of thousands of
soldiers, proved to be a cloak be-
hind which the imperialist gov-
ernments carried threugh their
imperialist war aims. Some his-
toriams contend that it was the
greatest single factor preventing
the overthrow of these govern-
ments and the establishment of
a just peace between peoples. Is
there any reason to suppose that
plans now being advanced for
post-war reconstruction are not
designed for similar purposes?

4p Allied governments, as
well as the government of
Canada, have consistently re-
fused to make any clear and de-
finite statement of war aims.
“None of us knows how long this
war will last,’ said Prime Min-
ister Chamberlain in the House
of Commons, ‘SNone of us knows
in what directions it will develop,
none of us knows when it is end-
ed who will be standing by our
Side, and who will be against us.”
The nearest thing to an official
statement was made by the Su-
preme War Council on March
28, which pledged Britain and
France

“to effect the reconstruction,
tegether with other nations of
an international order which
will ensure the liberty of
peoples, respect for the law,
and maintenance of power in
Europe.”

Lord Lothian, British Ambas-
sador to the United States, en-
larged on this statement in a re-
cent speech. He doubted whether
the end of the war “would see
another great peace conference,
like the last.” The basic condi-
tions of the post war world will
be settled
“by the terms of the armistice,
by the question of power, by
the fact of where the prepon-
derant power will lie at the
time when the ‘cease fire’
sounds. (In 1919) we believed
that peace would come from
freedom carried to the point of
international anarchy. It did
not and cannot.. Peace only
comes from unity and constitu-
tional law backed by adequate
power.”

An almost supernatural degree
of naivete is required to inter-
pret these statements as indicat-
ing that the Allied governments
have abandoned imperialist mo-
tives. And yet simple minded ‘so-
cialists’ and ‘Federal Unionists’
have leaped on such pronounce-
ments. The Allies, they inform
us, Plan the creation of a United
States of Europe, that long-
dreamed-of utopia of the Second
International This may or may
not be the case. Certainly the
Allied governments are not
pledged to this or any other
scheme of post-war reconstruc-
tion.

@

W ANY case, what is the real

meaning of the United States
of Hurope slogan? Under capi-
talism, a union of Huropean
states could be achieved only
with a centralized economic sys-
tem, a corresponding centraliza-
tion of ownershp and control of
Capital, and of state power. By
inflicting a crushing military de-
feat on Germany and her allies,
British and French finance capi-
tal would gain complete economic
domination over these imperial-
jst rivals. Germany would be
broken up into smaller states, or
her. frontiers delimited and her
economic system destroyed as In
1918. Poland, Austria, Czecho-
slovakia would be granted their
freedom from German rule, un-
der the pro-British puppet goy-
ernments now situated in Lon-
don and Paris would be placed
in office with Allied bayonets.

Anglo-French military might
would be extended to dominate
the peoples of the entire Euro-
pean continent. In theory, the
smaller nations would be part-
ners in an alliance; in fact, they
would be economic and military
vassals of Anglo-French capital-
ism. This is what Lord Lothian
means when he states that peace
comes from “unity and constitu-
tional law backed by adequate
power.” Before the war these
small European states had no
independence, but they enjoyed
a modicum of freedom of action
by playing off one imperialist
rival against the other. After an
Allied (or German) victory, even
this would be taken from them.

The colonial countries would
not be liberated, but fastened
more securely to the imperialist
yoke, and exploited more inten-
sively through the elimination of
competition between the Euro-

Chinese Defense League
Appeals For Help

To the Editor:—I am enclosing a letter I received recently
from Hilda Selwyn-Clarke, secretary of the central committee
of the China Defense League, with headquarters in Hongkong.
I am sure it will interest your readers who have responded so
readily to the cause of suffering china.

MRs. A. M. STEPHEN,
Vancouver China Aid Council.

Dear Friends:—Another appeal

‘we wish to make to you is in con-

nection with surgical instruments
so badly needed in order to help
Save lives in our war-torn coun-
try. We cannot buy good instru-
ments now in Hongkong and
Shanghai, even when we have
the money. German instruments
in Hongkong are no longer ob-
tainable; to obtain British instru-
ments a special permit must be
obtained from the Board of
Trade in London and there is
much delay. American instru-
ments are very high in price.

We are therefore asking all
organizations working for China
to carry out a campaign for used
and new surgical instruments.
This seems to us the only way
now left of obtaining the instru-
ments that China so badly needs.

This appeal is being sent to the
United States, Britain, New Zea-
land and Australia. If all coun-
tries respond we should go some
way to meet the needs of 100 sets
of surgical instruments needed
for the Red Cross curative units,
which include the guerilla areas.

At the beginning of the war,
the American Red Cross gave a
large murmber of instruments
with which the curative units
were outfitted. These instru-
ments are large damaged, lost or
destroyed through bombing. In
addition, Dr. Lim’s units have in-
creased to 85 on all fronts. With
the assistance of the 17 doctors
who served in Spain and are now
with the Medical Relief Corps,
the units are now being reorgan-
ized. The curative units are be-
ing divided into two, in order that
half a unit may be attached to
each division at the front, instead

of being stationed at the base
hospitals.

This again is necessitated by
the breaking up of roads, which
means the wounded having often
to be transported 150 miles—eight
to ten days’ jorney.

As far as possible the wounded
must be treated and operated on
at the front and then evacuated
to the base hospital. This means
that each half unit must have the
greater part of equipment, which
means doubling the surgical
equipment as well as replacing
the instruments no longer of use
or available. If each committee
could be responsible for the rais-
ing of one set of instruments,
either new instruments or instru-
ments no longer of use to medical]
men abroad, but yet in good con-
dition, this would be of tremen-
dous service to all groups in
China.

The shipment of 13 cases and a
Sterilizer have arrived in Chung-
king safely, although through
Poor transportation conditions,
it took months to get these
things in to these people so badly
in need of all the things you
people of Vancouver sent to us
to distribute where most needed
at the time. We are all very
grateful to you all, and I thank
you for these people.

We shall be grateful if you will
write and let us know whether
you feel you can assist in the
campaign for more surgical in-
struments and whether you can
help in contributing medical
books and money to help us in
this distressing time.

HILDA SELWYN-CLAREE,

(Secretary, Central Committee,
China Defense League)

pean powers. The economic might
of Anglo-French imperialism
would be bolstered up and its
war machine immeasurably
Strengthened against its imper-
ialist rivals — Japan and the
United States of America, This
would lead to a- heightening of
imperialist contradictions on a
world scale, and to a new world
conflict more frightful than the
last.

HAT kind of government

would an Allied victory
bring to the German people?
France, fearful of a strong Ger-
many on her borders, favors
Splitting her into a number of
smaller states. But the British
government objects to this plan,
pointing out, in the words of the
Toronto Globe and Mail:

“A strong Germany, operat-
ing on a sane foreign policy,
is a guard against imperialist
Russia.”

Such a strong Germany would
not be a socialist state; the Al-
lies will use all their military

F

strength to prevent the German ~

people from seizing control 7

their own destiny and establish-
ing a socialist republic.
more likely be a fascist dictator-
ship headed by the pro-British
elements of the German capital-
ist class. Duff Cooper's admis-
Sion that Britain would make
peace with a fascist dictatorship
under Goering has never been de-
nied by the British government.

From the anti-Soviet bias of
the present Allied governments
We are justified in concluding
that their conception of a ‘sane’
foreign policy for Germany is an
anti-Soviet policy, in fact, a pol-
icy similar to that proclaimed by
Hitler before he double-crossed
Munich and signed a non-aggres-
Sion pact with the Soviets. The
role of this new Germany would
not be that of a ‘guard’ against
non-existent Russian ‘imperial-
ism, but of the spearhead for
world wide imperialist interven-
tion against the Soviet Union.

A United States of Europe un-
der Anglo-French domination, a~
‘strong anti-Soviet Germany
threatening the borders of the so-
cialist state, are these the war
aims of Canada and the Allied
powers?
just reason why Canada should
remain a participant in the Eur-
opean war?

War M easures
Act Condemned

To the Editor,—In a letter to
the Sun a woman correspondent
denies that in Canada “we have
a beautiful dictatorship drapped
up in the colors of what we choose
to call democracy.” But she made
no attempt to prove this state-
ment incorrect, Instead she
merely wrapped up excuses for
the dictatorship in Canada by
Saying, “There are faults to be
found in every government the
world over. Ours is no exception.”

But if we are not under a dic-
tatorship, it is not only our right
but our duty to demand that our
government remove such vicious
faults as the Defense of Canada
regulations. The people of Britain
quickly voiced their opposition to
similar fascist regulations that
negated their democracy. As a
result these have been modified
and the people of Britain enjoy
a much greater measure of free-
dom than do we.

The War Measures Act is di-
rected against Canadian labor
and particularly endangers trade
union rights. This is being sup-
pressed and editors and workers
being arrested.

Only by wide publicity can we
rally the people and by mass
protest force our government to
delete the most drastic clauses
from these regulations and thus

prevent our democracy from be-
ing completely scuttled.

To combat this menace that is
rapidly producing a condition
wherein one-half of the population
will be spying on the other half
we must redouble our efforts to
build a powerful workers’ press
and strengthen the
Labor Defense League.

C. A. Saunders.
Vancouver, BC.

Readers are invited to write let.

ters for publication on this page,

the only stipulation being that ||

they are brief and to the point’
because of
Views expressed are not neces-!
sarily those of the Advocate.

ay

Tt will

And if so, are there any=

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space limitations. :

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