Page Six

THE

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THE ADVOCATE

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VANCOUVER, B.C., FRIDAY, MAY 3, 1940

Big Business Stages A
Shakedown Strike

6d E DOUBT that the people of this Dominion are ready
and willing to goosestep to the tune of a dictator... .

What is the use of fighting totalitarianism abroad if we are

going to permit it to rear up its ugly head in Canada?”

This is what the militant labor press has been saying for
the past eight months. For the expression of this conviction
members of the working class movement have felt the strang-
ling application of the War Measures Act. And now we find
the Toronto Globe and Mail, from which this quotation is
taken, saying the same thing, and its editorial headed ‘Dic-

tatorship on the Home Front’ reprinted in quarter-page ad-
vertisements by British Columbia daily press.

Can it be that the millionaire interests behind the Globe
and Mail have suffered a change of heart? Can it be that this
paper, which beat its collective editorial breast in horror when
Premier Aberhart of Alberta proposed in 1937 to license the
‘free press, now condemns the suppression of the labor press
as a threat to the democratic rights of the people? Can it be
that the Globe and Mail has now reversed its policy to cam-
paign in behalf of the scores of Canadians who have been
arrested, fined and imprisoned under the War Measures Act?

But the Globe and Mail does not consider the attack on the
people’s rights a threat to Canadian democracy. It has no
complaint against the War Measures Act so long as it is used
against the organizations of the working class. Not the threat
to the trade unions and the living standards of the people
called forth its indignant comments about ‘dictatorship on the
home froni, but the fact that the interests of the monopoly
oil companies, until Thursday engaged in a shakedown strike
in British Columbia, might suffer through an outraged public
forcing, the Pattullo government to drastic action.

The Globe and Mail, which has never written a word in

defense of the people’s rights, but rather has striven by dis-

tortion and innuendo to destroy those rights, demands ‘liberty

and justice’ so that the oil companies may continue to flout the
people. Not ‘hands off the people’s rights’ but ‘hands off the

oil companies’ profits’ is its ‘patriotic’ ery.

When 5000 seamen struck recently on the Great Lakes for
higher wages to counteract the effect of rising prices on their
living standards the federal government threatened to declare
the strike illegal. There was an outcry in the press because
ships on the Great Lakes were tied up by strike necessitated
by refusal of the shipping companies to negotiate. But when
big business goes on ‘strike’ and ties up the private transporta-
tion of a province to protect its protits, there is no talk of de-
claring the ‘strike’ illegal. The federal government says it is
purely a provincial affair.

The British Columbia people have been given a convincing
demonstration of the ‘patriotism’ of big business, which has
spent thousands of dollars in advertising during the past week
in an effort to convince the victims of its greed that if it com-
plies with the provincial sovernment’s price-fixing legislation,
upheld by the supreme court, it will be forced to sell below
cost. But the people also remember the revealing contents
of the Macdonald report and they know what millions of dollars
in profits the oil companies have made at their expense.

The fact that the provincial government in face of these
facts has now reached a compromise settlement with the oil
companies at the expense of retail station operators who must
take a one-cent cut will be received with no great satisfaction,
even though a reduced price of 25 cents a gallon is obtained.
The oil companies, by taking a one cent cut, have, as usual,
made the minimum sacrifice to protect their profits. The real
sacrifice is being made by the retailers under the blundgeoning
of the oil monopoly and with the government's complicity.

The government had the power and ample grounds to take

the matter resolutely into its own hands in the interests of the

people generally. Instead, it has chosen to capitulate before

big business. Once again it is a question of the interests of

profits before the interests of the people.

Relief Slashing Program
Must Be Fought

DECETS have soared since the war started. So have prices.
But the total number of Canada’s unemployed is being
reduced very slowly and it is obvious, all optimistic convictions
to the contrary, that even wartime expansion of industry will
not solve Canada’s unemployment problem.

Through dreary years of depression, which nevertheless
were not so depressed for big business that new millionaires
did not appear in Canada’s financial firmament, hundreds of
thousands of our citizens have lived on meager relief allow-
ances, grudgingly given after bitter struggles.

Now, at a time when rising prices have correspondingly
shrunken these relief allowances so that increased hardships
are worked on the unemployed, the government pursues its
threadbare policy of ‘equality of sacrifice’ by instituting a re-
lief slashing program.

In their fight against this callous disregard of their ele-
mentary needs the unemployed will have the full sympathy
and support of all decent Canadians. Parliament when it es
should be confronted with the fact that the Canadian people
will not tolerate a condition where thousands of citizens are
cut off relief to find work in a system which has no work to

offer them, or starve.

%

* oF

i i 1 i ing Ger-
i ning: “The Allies are prepared for lightning

art aris my ie Balkans or even upon Britain.”—Prime
Minister Neville Chamberlain in the House of Commons.

INSIDE GERMANY TODAY

ie NAZI GERMANY today anti-capitalist feeling is as strong as anti-war feeling. Opposition to the Nazi regime continues.
Although war has made underground work even more difficult and dangerous, the anti-Nazis have found ingenious ways
of bringing their message to the German people. These are my conclusions after an exciting ‘fact-finding mission’ which ©

took me on a four weeks’ trip through Germany.

The station at Basel, where in
the first days of February I board-
ed the train for Germany, is
unique in the world. It has a
Section where Swiss laws are
valid; a German section where
the Gestapo reigns; and a French
section where the Deuxieme Bu-
reau and the Surete Nationale
are in charge. You can still get
a hearty meal in the restaurant
on the Swiss side, but you will
have to pay about 50 percent more
than you used to before the war.

if you cross the barrier separat-
ing Switzerland from France you
will get no meat for three days
in the week. On the other days
you will be served a meal with but
a single main dish. And when you
pass the Gestapo control, as I did,
the first thing you are handed
after your passport has been ex-
amined is a sheaf of tourist ration
cards. Without them, I was told,
I would be unable to get food in
Germany. (Later I found out that
I could get food without ration
cards if I were willing to pay
enormous bootleg prices.)

Then the train rolls along the
Westwall for quite some time.
The blinds are lowered to keep
Passengers from seeing the front.
The mouths of passengers are
shut because, as the poster in
your compartment proclaims, ‘the
enemy is listening in.’

You will never discover whether
this middle-aged traveling sales-
man opposite you regards the
British or the Gestapo as the
enemy listening in. Nor will you
know if the pretty girl next to
the window, well-dressed and well-
bred, is for or aganist the war.
But as the train moves on and
finally a conversation gets under
way, you will immediately find
yourself in the midst of the prob-
lem which worries the majority
of the German people: Where
can one still buy something one
needs? That is the topic of con-
versation for hours on end. And
Since it is quite a trip from Basel
to Berlin you have time to re
flect on the absurdity of capital-
ism. Seven years ago Germany
had seven miilion unemployed.
They could not buy what they
needed because they did not have
the money. Now unemployment
has almost disappeared, but hey
still cannot buy—there aren’t
enough goods.

Meanwhile, in France and Bri-
tain, people are reminded every
day by speeches from cabinet
members that they eat too much,
that they had better cut down
expenditures and lend more to
their governments.

HEN I talked to workers in

Berlin, Munich, and Vienna,
the most striking fact next to
their hatred of the war was their
anti-capitalist sentiment. For the
third time since the first imper-
jalist war Germany is being swept
by a broad wave of sentiment
against capitalism.

In 1919 it was checked by the
terror and the social demagozgy of
the Social Democratic leaders who
plastered all Germany with giant
posters: ‘Socialism is on the
march and ‘Socialism is coming.’

The second powerful wave grew
in the years 1929 to 1933. Then
the ruling class of Germany hoist-
ed Hitler to power to save their
system. The Nazis utilized terror
and social demagogy to establish
their rule. Hitler forced German
economy into fervish rearmament
so that it was able to absorb
millions of unemployed. During
the first years of the Nazi re-
gime the anti-capitalist senti-
ment of the German masses par-
tially faded away—only to awaken
again in 1937 and the following
years, reaching great proportions
shortly before the war.

In August, 1939, the Nazi paper
from the Ruhr district, Ruhrar-
beiter, received thousands of neg-
ative answers to the question:
“Do we need bosses?” So strong
was the hatred expressed in the
workers’ letters against the
bosses that Dr. Goebbels instruct-
ed the press never to propound
such dangerous questions again.

INCE outbreak of war two
events in Germany have al-
most escaped the attention of
foreign observers. Yet they were
considered by the Nazis to be of
the great significance.

The first was the struggle
which German labor successful-
ly carried out from the early
part of Sept., 1939 to the end
of November against the ap-
paling labor decrees issued by
Hitler in the first days of the
war.

By these decrees workers’
wages were to be taxed an ad-
ditional 15 percent, special pay-
ment for overtime was to be abol-
ished, and the twelve-hour day
established. Under the influence
of Communists and trade-union-
ists, German labor began, very
reluctantly at first, to fight
against these decrees.

By the beginning of October
the first outbursts of public anger
exploded in factory meetings or-
ganized by ‘the WNazi-controlled
German Labor Front. Nazi
speakers were interrupted with
shouts: “How about pay for
overtime?” — “Why don’t you

ask Krupp to pay?” — “Longer
working hours, less to show for
them!” A slowdown in the tempo
of work made itself felt in Ger-
many’s armament factories.

By the end of October Dr. Ley,
leader ‘of the Labor Front, was
dispatched by Hitler on a speak-
ing tour to the most important
industrial centers. On his return
he recommended repeal of these
decrees. The shadow of the fam-
ous January 1919 strike—which,
by the way, was crushed with the
help of Ebert and Noske, Social
Democratic leaders of the Weimar
republic—haunted the Nazi lead-
ers. Hitler gave in. Under the
pressure of German labor the
hated decrees were rescinded.

Another shadow rose: that of
the pig-slaughteringe of 1916. As
a protest against the lack of ani-
mal fodder and the forced control
of agricultural produce, the Ger-
man farmers in 1916 killed millions
of swine. German food economy
during the last war never recoy-
ered from this blow.

By Dec., 1939, reports came
in from the Nazi agrarian or-
ganizations that the German
farmers were beginning to
Slaughter cattle on a larger
scale than that permitted by
the regulations. Again this was
a protest against the lack of
fodder and against the Nazi-
controlied organizations that
pay the farmer low prices for
his produce and then sell it
at fat profits to the city. Darre,
the minister of agriculture
tried in vain to stop this move-
ment. The slaughtering ceased
only after Goering brought the
full weight of his authority to
bear. In a recent broadcast he
granted higher prices for milk
and butter and other products.
But this is only a temporary
solution. The farmers are far
from satisfied by Goering’s
concessions; and their first
victory has given them con-
fidence.

Social demogogy rides high
again in Nazi Germany. Dr. Ley
has been put in charge of the
campaign. While T was in Berlin
he put forward in Der Angriff,
the newspaper of the German

Labor Front, the slogan: “Work-
ers of all lands, unite to smash
British and French capitalism!”
I was able immediately afterward
to gauge the effects of this cam-
paign in conversations with many
workers.

I can say that Dr. Ley met with
no success. As a worker of Sie-
mens (one of Germany's largest
factories), who has lone been ac-
tive in the underground move-
ment, told me: “How can you
make a worker believe that is so-
cialism, when his wife bellyaches
al] the time that she can’t get
anything decent to cook!” As a
Berlin metal worker put it: “What
the hell kind of socialism is that!
You get money and nothing to
buy with it. I call that a provoca-
tion.”

Dr. Ley got his answer in a
Communist leaflet then circu-
lated in Berlin: “Nice kind of
‘socialism.’ It puts to death or
in concentration camps the
bravest fighters for a real so-
cialist world. It keeps Ernst
Thaelmann in prison.”

Dr. Ley’s and Dr. Goebbels’
propagandists, touring the big
plants, were angrily heckled with
shouts: “Where does Goering get
his fat?” “No butter, no work!”
“Don't kid us, we know what your
ration cards are like!” The day I
left Germany I was shown a ljeaf-
let issued to the coal miners of

the Ruhr. It read:

“They say ‘German socialism’
— they mean the imperialist
merchants of death. There is
only one country in the world
where socialism rules: the Sov-
iet Union. There the workers
and farmers have talxen their
fate into their own hands.”

ee” Communist party is leading
a hard fight in the German
factories and in the trenches
against the war, its capitalist
instigators and its Nazi watch-
dogs. I felt the increased Com-
munist influence in the enhanced
respect which Social Democratic
and non-party workers have for
the Communists. The Gestapo,
realizing this, has intensified its
terror. Many cases are reported
weekly in the co-ordinated press
of people condemned to death for
‘criminal activities during g black-
out.’ Many of the ‘criminals’ are
heroic fighters against Nazism,
who use the blackout to pass out
leaflets or to paint slogans on the
walls. The Communist party has
paid a heavy toll for its devotion
to the cause of socialism. It lost
more than two-thirds of its func-
tionaries by assassination, execu-
tion, and imprisonment in concen-
tration camps. By 1938 a network
of Communist groups had been
woven throughout the country.
Mobilization and war ripped this
network, but within a few months
it was rewoven.

The reasons why Communist
influence is strong are many.
First the Communist party is the
only one not compromised in
Germany by collaboration with
the Nazis or with their capitalist
paymasters. Second, from the
first day of theswar the Commu-

nists in private discussions, in
leaflets, in stickers explained the
imperialist character of the war
and urged the German people to
oppose it. “Neither Hitler nor
Chamberlain! The German peo-
ple alone shall decide its own
fate.” Unknown, unseen hands
would write on factory walls, slip
leaflets into workers’ clothes, and
sometimes place them on their
workbenches. The leaflets said:

“This war is not our war. Why
should the German people die or
suffer for the profits of capitalist
War makers, and for the sake of
the Nazi leaders. German imper-
jalism jis as guilty of this war
as French and British imperial-
ism. The German, French, and
British people do not want this
War. But they alone can stop it!
German worker, do your share.”

This seed has borne fruit. Wor
a long time, the German people

feared that Hitler would lead
them into war, but it hoped
against hope that war would

somehow be averted. So in Sept-
ember its outbreak came as a
profound shock. There were no
celebrations, no parades, no en-
thusiastic demonstrations. The
men joined the colors with heavy
hearts — as if, as one German
business man told me, they were
going to a funeral.

A third reason for the growing
authority of the Communists is
this: When Hitler, because of
fear of the Soviet Union's
strength, signed the non-aggres-
sion pact ing Aug. 1939; he was
forced to divulge at least a por-
tion of the truth about conditions
in the USSR. His propagandists
tried to explain away the welfare
of the Soviet people by the na-
tural resources and the vast
area of the Soviet Union. But
the Communists explain that it
is Soviet economy and Soviet pol-
icy which has given the whole
people access to the natural
wealth of the country. They
wrote for example in a leaflet
in Vienna:

“Witler has told you that the
people in the Soviet Union are
starving. Now the party bosses
speak of the wealth of the Soy-
iet Union. So you see for your-
self that Hitler was lying. Now
Hitler tells that he is waging
this war for the sake of Leb-
ensraum and of German social-
ism. Again he is lying. This
war is being waged not for the
sake of the poor, but for the
sake of the rich. Your Lebens-
raum was taken away by Hit-
ler. Only if you take the same
road as the workers and farm-
ers in the Soviet Union can you
win the Lebensraum to live in
happiness.”

Another factor speaks in favor
of the Communists in the eyes of
the German people: the role play-
ed by Chamberlain and Daladier.
The German masses know that
it was the Soviet Union which
helped Spain, which is helping
China, and which offered help to
the Benes government in the fate-
ful hours of the Czechoslovakian
republic. They know too, that it
was Chamberlain and Daladier
who refused aid to Spain, who de-
livered over Czechoslovakia, and
who are courting the Japanese no
less than Hitler himself.

@
HERE is another very im-
portant point that worries

many Hitler foes. The German
Social Democratic, Catholic and

CONTRADICTIONS GF US POLICY

iN Ea) S during the week watched one of its admirals
do some typical quarter-deck shadow-boxing at the ex-
pense of the nation. Rear Admiral Joseph K. Taussig told the
senate naval committee that “we must fight an eventual wark
with Japan to protect our interests.” The ‘interests’ the ad-
miral referred to consist of some $100,000,000 which American
financiers have invested in the Orient.
While this sum represents a comfortable amount to ar
individual, it would not be sufficient to finance a first class war

liberal democratic leaders in exile —
have jumped on the band-wagon
in London and Paris. They are
Supporting; governments whose
unofficial representatives now
Speak openly of the necessity of
crushing the German people and
dismembering Germany.

Despite
among leaders of their various”
€roups in exile, in Germany th

Social Democratic party has kept ;

a certain hold on a large section |

of its former adherents. it seems ~
to Me that this influence is rapid- —
ly waning, although Social Demo- —
cratic ideas are still quite strong —

among Many German ‘workers,
Former Socialists still meet to

drink beer, but they no longer
2 i

talk politics, I was told. ‘The
most active among them look i>
the Communist party for leader
Ship.

Im general, however, the war
has politically activized the Ger
Man labor movement Since the
first success — the repeal of Hit-
ler’s war decrees against labor—

the feeling is growing that the ©

fight against the Nazi dictator.
Ship is not hopeless. The Con
munists with whom I spoke cop
firmed the fact that they
finding greater response;

cs

touch leaflets are now reading |

them; that formerly active anti
Wazis who during the last years
had retired from politics are re
turning; that recognition of the
imperialist nature of the war is
spreading. Of course, they have
no illusions,

It really is a war of nerves
which the German anti-Nazis are
waging against Hitler. Those
leaflets, those wall stickers, the
icy silence of the workers or the
angry shouts at... Nazi speakers
in metings, the attitude of the

Geramn people toward the war— |

all] this is a heayy strain on the
nerves of the Nazi machine. Time
and again Hitler attempts to
break this circle of deadly si-
lence which the majority of the
German people toward the war—
labor movement, have built
around thmseives. But he has not
yet succeeded,

A Military writer of the Nazis
has called foreign propaganda
‘bombs on the German soul,’ and
Hitler is worrying about whether
the German sour is bombprocf
As a matter of fact, as far 3s
Allied propaganda is concerned,
it seems to Le bombproof. While
in Germany i saw every indica-
tion that an overwhelming major-
ity of the German people does
not believe in Chamberlain’s
‘fight for democracy,’ But it is
also true that the German soul
has proved more bombproof.
against Nazi ideology than for
eign observers suspect.

The war is hated in Germany—
and so is capitalism. Thousands
of small but compact groups of
Communists are working relent
lessly to bring to an end both this
War and capitalism. They face

heavy odds, and as I have said, |

they have no illusions about their
task But they feel that the pre-
spects of their success are bet

ter than they have been in many |

years.

Hitler can strengthen the ter-
ror against German labor. He
can never win it. This is the
conviction I brought home
from my ‘fact-findine mission”

factional differences —

people who for years would not

;

+
|
a

i}
at

meri

even for a day. Admiral Taussig may be as potty or as indis-
ereet as some government officials would have us believe
It is interesting that Japan could be seriously considered =
potential enemy of the US by a high-ranking naval officer
while at the same time we continue to supply her with vitally
necessary war materials. If Japan is a threat, then it is only
because the US has sold her the metal, oil and machinery she
needs for the role. The WCF has always warned that some
of that scrap we sold might be sent back in the form of bombs
So if the administration is serious about Japan as a potentia
enemy or in stopping Japanese aggression in China, it could du
something practical, and without firmg a shot, by simply
passing the Schwellenbach measure calling for an embarg<

on war supplies to that nation.
—WASHINGTON NEW DEALER:

‘FIFTH COLUMN’ |

A& ONE Tory member of parliament remarked this week.
“If we arrested all the people who admired and supportet
fascism, we would disrupt the government and the bankin’

system entirely.”
—THE WEEK, London}