ees

aay 3, 1940

Barts

THE

ADVOCATE

Page Five

és power in the republic.
eefused to validate fraudulent

| When the highest tribunal of
*he nation ruled in favor of the
il workers’ unions, the compan-
=€s openly expressed their inten-

y ion not to obey the supreme

‘court. When President Lazaro
‘Sardenas attempted to reach a
settlement with the companies,

i hey deceived him.

Then on March 18, 1938, the
mower of the oil trusts of Mexico
ended forever. President Carde-
nas, abiding strictly by bourgeois
canon of law, by the Mexican
‘constitution of 1917, “by reason
of public utility and on behalf

 »of the nation,” declared the ex-
) propriation of all the properties
os the oil companies.

Over two years have passed

»since Mexico thus declared its

“economic independence from

? Wall street and the ciy of Lon-

(don. In these two years Stan-
dard Oil and Royal Dutch Sheil
have not ceased attempting to

» recover their ‘stolen properties.’
bee

ab
4
4
=

f

_ startling admissions.
| stance: “We are going to stop the

| in and out.
© lation if it works.” And: ‘In the
/jast few years of peace we did

‘They have used the only means
that imperialists understand —
‘fraud and violence. And these
‘methods they are planning to
apply tomorrow on an even great-
er scale than heretofore.
e
MMEDIATELY after
propriation decree,

the ex-
when de-

Instead, Hutchison makes some
Hor, In-

German economy from breathing
It is certain strangu-

this by almost precisely the same
method. We did not use battle-
ships, as we do now, but we ac-
complished the same result, in
less degree, by tariffs, by embar-

) goes, and by the new method of
' barter.
) treaties were a part of it.”

The empire trade

Again: “During the war we

+ have perfected this system.’ (!)

Then we are asured that this pol-
icy must be abandoned, immedi-

ately peace is declared: “It may

Relief Slash Protested

To the Editor,—I crave a little space in your columns to

By ROBERTO GARCIA

"he nation’s right, generals were corrupted and civil wars fo mented.
‘niserable condition of subsistence,

ceit and bluff had failed, Gen-
eral Saturnino Cedillo, openly:

espousing the cause of the oil-

trusts, rose in arms against the
Mexican government. That was
on May 20, 1988. In two weeks
the rebellion, supported only by
a@ handful of misguided troops
and camp followers, was crushed
and Cedillo, a debauched traitor,
Was dead.

That was two years ago. A
‘liberal’ sat in the White House,
proclaiming the Good Neighbor
policy, non-intervention in the
internal affairs of the other
American republics. Times have
changed and the man in the
White House has changed with
them. Waked imperialism is now
the policy of Washington. Ce
dillo’s ghost can rest in peace.
General Juan Andreu Almazan
has taken up where the dead left
off. General Almazan has the
support of the ‘Yankees,’ the in-
dispensable prerequisite of Mexi-
ean traitors.

In the spring of 1940, Cordell
Hull is sending threatening and
insulting notes to the Mexican
government. The American army
along the Rio Grande has been
strengthened. The administra-
tion of Washington has a politi-

THE FORUM
OF THE PEOPLE

j Unusual Frankcmess

To the Editor, — I have to hand, an article by Bruce
Hutchison, which appeared in the Sun, on April 23. The
usual paeans of praise for democracy on paper; the flights of
fancy regarding the ‘rights’ of small nations; these are strangely —
absent. :

seem to give us a preferred posi-
tion but, in the end, it will com-
pel us to fight for it again and
again until we are all ruined.”

Tf all writers and broadcasters
would be honest, only to this de-
gree, clarification of war aims
would follow immediately.

It is in his reference to the
abandonment of the struggie for
world markets, that B. H falls
down. As well as you and i, he
knows that that struggle is the
ineradicable concomitant of pro-
duction for profit. The real cure?
Well, now, Hutchison would not
whisper it—even to himself!

FRED GRANGE.
Vancouver, BC.

cal jackal, Martin Dies, who
howls that Russians and Ger-
mans are plotting a ‘Red’ rebel-
lion in Mexico.

ITHIN the borders of Mex-
ico, the partisans of Alma-
zan, sworn enemies of everythin=
that the democratic Mexican Re-
volution stands for, are increas-
ing their provocations, attacking
the campaign headquarters of
General Avila Camacho, the pop-
ular candidate.

The ‘liberty and order’ that Al-
mazan has promised his backers
will be distinguished, amonz=
other things, by a settlement with
the oi] trusts, return of the large
expropriated landed estates to
their foreign owners, as well to
the Mexican landed proprietors.

legalization of the Gommunist
party, smashing of the trade
unions, and creation in Mexico
of a state modeled on the ‘New
Spain,’ where an Almazan will
play the part of Franco, and
Franklin D. Roosevelt the part of
Mussolini—all these things are
promised by Almazan.

The statements of leading Al-
mazanistas that Mexico will be
‘saved’ by bullets if ballots fail,
is only one indication that the oil
companies have already arranged
With Almazan’s followers for de-
livery of Martin bombers, tanks,
machine guns.

@

T THE time of writing, the re-
ply of the Mexican govyern-
ment to Hull’s note has not been
made known. The reply of the
Mexican masses was given on
April 1 when hundreds of thous-
ands of Mexican workers and
peasants paraded through the
streets of all the cities.
President Cardenas has stated
on numerous occasions that Mex-
ico will never relinquish its right
to administer and exploit the
wealth of its subsoil as guaran-
teed by the constitution. The oil
conflict, the president has stated,
is not one between the United
States and the government of
Mexico.

BY FRAUD AND VIOLENCE

BY FRAUD and violence the oil trusts acquired their land in Mexico. And by fraud and violence they consolidated their
‘ If wretched Indians owned lands suspected of containing oil they were murdered. If officials
titles they were bought. If the government attempted to enforce the law of the land and protect
If workers attempted to organize and improve their
‘White Guard’ company police shot them down.

It is an internal affair of the
Mexican nation, a conflict be-
tween private ocmpanies, that
operated under a franchise which
Subjected them to Mexican law,
a franchise under which the com-
panies relinguished all right to
appeal to foreign governments
for intervention, under penalty of
forfeiting of all their holdings
Should they violate this ruling.
As such, the oil conflict is not a
matter of international arbitra-
tion.

ENHIND the sudden interest of

Franklin D. Roosevelt in the
plight of his erstwhile enemies
of Wall street, the Mexican peo-
ple see the poorly disguised war
plans of the American imperial-
ists. Every Mexican schoolboy
knows the famous words cabled
by the French war lord, Glemen-
ceau, in 1917, to the apostle of
peace, Woodrow Wilson: “A drop
of oil is worth a drop of blood!”
Well-known too are the words
of Lord Curzon, spoken the day
after the armistice of 1918, “The
Allies have floated to victory on
waves of oil”

To American imperialists, de-
termined to enter the second im-
perialist war, the Mexican oil is
worth seas of blood. Almazan is
prepared to rise in rebellion. The
oil trusts and Washington are
prepared to back him. The Mex-
ican people realize all this.

They have not forgotten that
when the American navy bom-
barded Vera Cruz in 1914, the
Secretary of the navy was Jos-
eph Daniels, now American am-
bassador to Mexico; and that the
under-secretary of the navy was
Hranklin D. Roosevelt.

The Mexican workers and peas-
ants, the majority of the army,
the party of the Mexican Revolu-
tion and the Communist party
of Mexico, are prepared to give
their lives for the nation’s po-
litical and economic independ-
ence, They realize that the work-
ing people of all countries will
stand with them.

They face the future resolute
and unafraid.

HALDANE URGES
STUDY OF ENGELS

(OBLONG are extracts from the preface written by
Prof. J. B. S. Haldane, outstanding British scientist, to
Frederick Engels’ Dialectics of Nature, recently puublished

in English for the first time.

Nia has a two-fold bearing on science. In the first
place Marxists study science among other human activi-

call attention to the threatening cuts to be made in the scale
of relief to workers and unemployables. In regard to the
former it may be argued that the expanding war business will

ties. They show how the scientifie activities of any society
depend on its changing needs, and so in the long run on its
productive methods, and how science changes the productive

present openings for the employment of these.

To some extent that may be
true, but surely the cuts should

not be made until the men have.

actually become absorbed in the
problematical general expansion.

It is recognized by the authori-
ties that the existing scale of re-
lief is insufficient to allow for the
proper healthy development of
the individual and particularly
the children. For this reason
the relief worker has been per-
mitted to earn from outside
sources an amount equal, IT be-
lieve, to the sum of relief allowed
for food and clothing.

Tt is now suggested that a man
should be penalized if he has a
cow, a garden or 29 chickens.

Tf a -worker is permitted to
earn a certain amount in addi-
tion to his relief, surely the 5ame
principle should apply to the un-

employable who may be able to
earn something in the only way
he can, by means of his garden
or his chickens.

A garden is useless without fer-
tilizer, and it is absurd to ima-
gine that 25 chickens is adequate
for the purpose,

Tf this latter cut is made effec-
tive it will be an everlasting blot
upon the escutcheon of a country
that pretends to the name of
Christian, because it will mean a
reduction in the standard of liy-
ing, already far too low, of the
old and helpless—Christ’s especial
proteges.

Where is the voice of the vari-
ous Ghristian bodies to be heard
in this matter?

A. CHEVERTON.
White Rock, BC.

BANNED FROM CANADA

NE hundred and eleven publications have been prohibited
O entry into Canada since the outbreak of the war, accord-
ing to figures compiled by the Canadian Civil Liberties Union
from records furnished by the department of national revenue.
With the exception of a few banned under the Customs act,
publications were prohibited entry by the press censors under
Section 39A of the Defence of Canada regulations.

Twenty-five other publications,
according to a recent Canadian

Press report, are being stopped
at the United States border “al-
though they are not formally out-
lawed.”

Publications from eighteen
countries have been placed under
ban, the survey reveals. Leadinz
the list, with 77 publications pro-
hibited, is the United States. The
USSR is next with nine, and Ger-
many is third with four. Other
countries with publications on
the banned list are The Nether-
lands, Yugoslavia, Mexico, Swit
zerland, Rumania, italy, Sweden,
Cuba, China, Brazil, Argentina
and France.

Two British publications are
prohibited although they circu-
late freely in Britain. These are
the Labor Monthly, a London

magazine, and Solidarity, pub-
lished at Glasgow, Scotland.

The United States publications
under ban are printed in four-
teen languages, from English to
Arabic. Twenty-nine of the 77
are in English, 27 in German and
the remainder in Ukrainian,
Greek, Italian, Croatian, Slova-
kian, Russian, Spanish, Yiddish,
@zech, Hungarian and Polish.

‘Among the banned American
publications are such pamphlets
as ‘Christian Reminders on War,
Not America’s War,’ ‘Behind the
War Headlines,’ ‘Technocracy
and War,’ “Technocracy indicts,’
‘Christian Pacifist Faith,’ “War
in Europe Today,’ and ‘Pacifist
Handbook, the last three pub-
lished by the Fellowship of Re-
conciliation. One book, ‘The Re-
public Reclaimed, by Newton
Jenkins, is on the list.

methods, and therefore the whole society.

This analysis is needed for any
Scientific approach to history,
and even non-Marxists are now
accepting parts of it.

But secondly Marx and Engels
were not content to analyse the
changes in society. In dialectics
they saw the science of the gen-
eral laws of change not only in
society and in human thought,
but in the external world which
is Mirrored by human thought.

That is to say, it can be applied
to problems of ‘pure’ science as
well as to the social relations of
science... .

Had Engels’ method of think-
ing been more familiar, the trans-
formations of our ideas on phy-
sics which have occurred during
the last thirty years would have
been smoother.

Had his remarks on Darwinism
been generally known, I for one
would have been saved a certain
amount of muddled thinking,

I therefore welcome whole-
heartedly publication of an Eng-
lish translation of ‘Dialectics of
Wature’ and hope that future gen-
erations of scientists will find
that it helps them to elasticity of
thought,

i)

{2 MUST not be thought that
Dialectics of Nature, is only of
interest to scientists. Any edu-
eated person, and above all, any-
one who is a student of philos-
ophy, will find much “to interest
him or her throughout the book,
though particularly in Chapters
1, DW, Vo, EX and &

One reason why Engels was
such a great writer is that he
was probably the most widely
educated man of his day,

Wot only had he a profound
knowledge of economics and his-
tory, but he knew enough to dis-
cuss the meaning of an obscure
Latin phrase concerning Roman
marriage law, or the processes
faking place when a piece of im-
pure zinc was dipped into sul-
phurie acid.

And he contrived to accumulate
this immense knowledge, not by
leading a life of cloistered learn-
ing, but while playing an active
part in politics,. running a busi-
mess, and even fox-hunting !

He needed this knowledge be-
cause dialectical materialism, the
philosophy which, along with
Marx, he founded, is not merely
a philosophy of history, but a phi-
losophy which illuminates all
events whatever, from the falling
of a stone to a poet's imaginings.

And it lays particular emphasis
on the inter-connection of all pro-
cesses, and the artificial charac-
ter of the distinctions which men
have drawn, not merely between
vertebrates and invertebrates or
liquids and gases, but between
the different fields of human
knowledge such as economics,
history and natural science.

HAPTER I contains an out-
line of this philosophy in its
relation to natural science, A very
careful and condensed summary
of it is given in Chapter IV of
the History of the CPSU(B), but
the main sources of its study are
Engels’ Feuerbach and Anti-
Dubring, Lenin’s Materialism and
Empirio-Criticism, and a number
of passages in the works of Marx.
Just because it is a living phi-
losophy with innumerable con-
crete applications, its full power
and importance can only be grad-
ually understood, when we see
it applied to history, science or
whatever field of study interests
us most.

For this reason a reader whose
concern lies primarily in the po-
litical] or economic field will come
baek to his main interest a bet-
ter dialectical materialist, and
therefore a clearer-sighted poli-
tician or economist, after study-
ing how Engels applied dialectics
to nature.

At the present moment, clear
thinking is vitally necessary if
we are to understand the ex-
tremely complicated situation in
Which the whole human race, and
our own nation in particular, is
placed, and to see the way out of
if in a better world.

A study of Engels will warn us
against Some of the facile solu-
tions which are put forward fo-
day, and help us to play an in-
telligent and courageous part in
the sreat events of our own time.

SHORT
JABS

by OF Bill

Fooling the Peonle All the Time

N THE front page of the Vancouver Province on April 12, there were

two separate pictures. One was a photo of a fleet of passenger ships
and a snow-capped shoreline. The other was an inset photo of British
planes, some in the air, some on the ground. The caption read, “British
army activities pictured on two widely separated fronts. Below, the
Empress of Australia is shown leading a line of British troop transports
into an unidentified Norwegian fjord. Inset is shown a flight of Royal
Air Force Bristol Blenheims leaving the nest in France for a recon-
naissance in German sikies.”

On the same,day, on the front page of the Vancouver Sun, there
was one picture. It was captioned, ‘British Wings and Arms Over
Worway.” The ships, the sea and the mountains were the same as in
the first Province picture. The clouds were the same, too, and part of
the planes, as in the second Province picture. The Province said they
were headed for German skies, but somehow or other they had landed
in Norwegian skies in the Sun picture, at least some of them, for those
on the ground were missing,

The picture had been ‘composed,’ the two pictures had been made
into one, and the caption read: “London—The Lion spreads his wings
as British and Allied troops are rushed to aid Norway in her resistance
to the Nazi invaders. The Royal Air Worce Bristol Blenheim reconnais-
Sance machines shown above are winging their way through WNor-
wegian skies. The €PR liner Empress of Australia (center below)
leads a line of troop transports (left background) into an unidentified
Norwegian fjord. At right, anti-aircraft guns on ship from which the
picture was made. ... This is a composite picture of air and sea.”

The picture was not made from any ship. It was made in a photo-
engraving plant and is a glaring example of the unscrupulous and un-
principled newsfaking characteristic of capitalist news presentation.
The distortion of fact is not abated one jot by the deceitful sentence,
“This is a composite picture of air and sea.”

Such bare-faced, unvarnished misstatements, propaganda in its
worst form, will never find their way into the pages of the Advocate.
The naked, unadulterated truth is good enough for our press.

That is only one of the reasons why every honest worker should be
bending every effort to make the present press drive a huge success:
How about doing your bit for this column’s quota of $305.02?

2 —

Shakedown Strike tn BC
SS HENRY DETERDING was an enthusiastic supporter of Hitler.

He moved his home to Berlin in his later years to be near his
fuehrer. Until his timely death a couple of years ago, he was the big
noise in the British oil industry, the petrol king. On one occasion, he
cut off the oil supply of the British navy for three days until the
British government signed on the dotted line on his terms. He was a
great patriot.

The lecal Deterdings are, at this writing, following his example.
They have stopped the supply of gasoline to the publie. And gasoline
is one of the necessities of life in a modern community. But they are
undoubtedly of the same mind as President Cleveland, author of the
famous slogan, “The public be damned!’ i

' According to the Vancouver papers, all of which, by the way, includ-
ing the red-baiting Financial News, endorse the criminal action of the
oil barons, Premier Pattullo has laid an information as demanded by
the Combines Investigation Act.

This procedure is the bunk. The gasoline is needed NOW. But
investigations under the Combines Act are like Tennyson’s brook —
they go on for ever. It is now 21 months since Godfrey Isaacs raised
the question of a combine in the OQkanagan fruit industry, and al-
though the case has been proved conclusively, no one is yet in jail.
What is needed is quick action.

The executives of the Pioneer Miners’ Union are not like the oil
companies’ executives. Pearson did not debate with them for 21
months. They were clapped into jail, pronto. The same government
turned out police, mounted and foot, with guns and tear-gas, to smash
the longshoremen who were striking against the Shipping MWederation
friends of the oil nabobs. 3

How To Deal With This Strike

ie PATTULLO desires the people of BC to get all the sas they need
in their business, the first thing to do is to clap the executives of the
law-breaking oil companies, into jail. Hold them without bail, The joint
statement issued by them last Hriday is prima facie evidence of con-
Spiracy. But even that is not enough; too many loopholes. Charge them
with creating a public mischief. Send them to jail for 60 days; and if
the oil is not flowing by then, send them back on the same charge
for another 60 days and keep doing so until there is gas in every pump-

Do the same to their representatives, like Pigeon, who is reported
in the press to have said that the BC gasoline crisis demands a quick
settlement and is convinced that this is possible if “the right parties
in the government will deal with the industry.” ;

Before Scotland and England became united, the Scottish border
town of Jedburgh had a particular kind of law enforcement. It was
known as ‘Jeddart justice.” It was the practice to hang the accused,
mostly English cattle thieves, first, and try them after. If they were
found to be innocent—well, it was just too bad for them. A little
Jeddart justice would not be out of place with these ‘oil men,’ for they
are of even less social worth than cattle thieves.

Whatever happens, the people of BG must prevent the government
from making any compromise with these law-breakers which will
enable them to make their workers saddle what they call their ‘losses’
or allow them to squeeze the independents out of business and further
thir monopoly control, which is obviously part of their program.

Eighth Route Army Coneert

Te NEWS from China is good. Every report since the beginning of
the year tells of a victory of the Chinese armies against the Japa-
nese aggressors. One of the’ reasons for this is that all the armies
of Chang Kai-shek have adopted the: strategy and tactics of the 8th
Route Army.

There are 43 divisions of Japanese troops in China, about the size
of the €zechoslovak army that was presented to Hitler at Munich.
Fourteen of these, about 250,000 soldiers, are in North China opposing
the 8th Route army whose strength is limited by the Chinese govern-
ment to 45,000 men.

The 4th Route army, which is an offshoot of the 8th army, operates
behind the enemy lines on both banks of the Yanegtse river. It is
much smaller, numbering only about 13,000 guerrilla fighters.

The last report of the commanders of these armies showed that
they had fought 3219 engagements between Sept, 1937, and May, 1939.
They inflicted 87,460 casualties on the Japanese invaders and captured
11,254 prisoners.

They regained from the enemy 100,000 square kilometers of territory
with a population of 12,000,000 inhabitants. They are the smallest armies
in China numerically, but they accounted for one-ninth of the enemy
losses. In facing these 14 out of 43 Japanese divisions, the 8th Route
army is doing the work of one-third of the Chinese military forces.
In doing so they have lost more than their total strength (at May, 1939)
having suffered 56,000 losses in killed and wounded.

They need help, our help. If you take in the concert at the Croatian
hall this coming Sunday night you will be helping them, because the
proceeds are going for that purpose. It will be a good concert, too, you
will get your money’s worth even though John Barberolli and Marian
Anderson will not be on the program.

INTERNATIONAL CONCERT

MEDICAL AID FOR CHINA

3
e¢
8th Route Army :
3
i

Sunday, May Sth Croatian Hall
8:

00 P.M. 600 Campbell Ave.

Auspices Chung Kung Ass'n. Speaker—A. M. Stephen

0999999900 090009090696 §

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