"May 17, 1940 =

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THE ADVOCATE

Page Five

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HOLLAND’S EASTERN EMPIRE

[[SEENSION of the war to Holland brings new threats to the
native Indonesians, the ancient peoples of Java, Sumatra,

; equatorial archipelago, are treated as pawns in this quarrel of empi Th i i
ESN, Gur hs cniae Sataetiinig no SIMs a ee pires. ese 60,000,000 Indonesians tap the rubber, dig the

be nothing without them.
Yet they are hardly considered
as human beings by the Ameri-
Can imperialists, who convert
their labor. They are lumped to-
gether with the rubber, the tin

and the oil as part of the loot

the Goodyears, the Firestones, the
Gugenheims and the MRockefel-

/ lers would keep from their rivals
‘in Japan.
4

The Dutch have ruled the an-

* cient “spice islands’ with an iron
‘red, since they seized them over

300 years ag0 as war booty from
the Portugese, who grabbed them

| originally.

(The Dutch rule this empire
with the backing of the British
navy and British capital, which
the US department of commerce
reported last month, holds the
key places in foreign investments
of over one billion dollars in In-
donesia_)

There is no ‘democracy in im-
perialist exploitation, no matter
how much Dutch and British de
magogues talk of ‘democracy.’

There is little to choose between
tthe oppression of the imperialist
‘democracies and Japanese op-
pression.

Both sets of imperialists de
prive the natives of civil rights
and work them for a few cents
a day in their mines and planta-
tions under the contracts labor
System and the lash.

IN INDONESIAN exile, who

edited the revolutionary daily
newspaper ‘Njala’ in Batavia for-
merly, was telling last week of
the suffering of his people under
the Dutch and their determina-
tion to fight for their national
independence against any for
eign masters who might try to
take over their homelands in the
War crisis.

“The Indonesian peoples have
had many uprisings for national
freedom. That’s why (m an ex-
ile, why many Indonesians are
exiled over the face of Asia, Eu-
repe and America,’ he told.

“They will never give up the
struggle for freedom.”

They had their own national
government for ages before the
imperialists came. They will
have their own governments
again. Their spirit ef indepen-
dence can not be crushed,” he
continued.

“The Indonesian people are a
National group bound together
by a national culture and a na-
tional Malayan language, the
mother of all their dialects.

“Nearly ail are Mohammedans,
though they don’t fight over re-

ligion. They are not religious fan-
atics. But they resent their en-
slavement in the name of Christ-
janity. Less than one per cent
are Christians in spite of three
hundred years of missionary
effort.”

Few Americans and Canadians
realize that the workers of Java,
the richest island of Indonesia
and the home of more than two-
thirds of its people, had power-
ful mass unions and a big Com-
Imunist party with two daily pap-
ers for several years after the
last imperialistic war.

“Today 1,400 Communists and
other militant workers are im-
prisoned in a horrible concen-
tration camp, ‘Boven Higoel,’ on
an island in the swamps of
New Guianea,” the former edi-
tor said, adding, “Guards and
crocodiles surround them Few
escape.”

“The Communist party is ac-
tive underground. It has been
underground since the decrees
of May i, 1926, punishing speak-
ers and writers who turn one
single person against the gov-
ernment with six years imprison-
ment and fines of 3,000 guilden.

“after leaders finish their sen-
tences they are sent to the con-
centration camps”

e

N NOVEMBER that year came
the great nationalist upris-
ing against Dutch rule in Java,
when some 7,000 natives and
4,000 members of the government
forces were killed in Batavia,
Bantam, Tangerang and other
centers. ;
There have been many. upris-
ings in the long period of Dutch

STALIN LEADS
OSEPH STALIN leads the

By ART

oppression. Qne of the last re-
volts was the mutiny if the Indo-
nesian and Dutch seamen on the
old battleship, the Seven Provin-
ces, in 1933. The mutineers, who
demanded more human  condi-
tions were bombed from the air.
Many perished and the survivors
Were sent to the concentration
camps,

Militant trade unions were vir-
tually outlawed 15 years ago after
the great Javenese railroad strike
of 40,000 workers. After the strike
was crushed, a Dutch decree im-
posed sentence of six years im-
prisonment and fines of 3000 euil-
den on persons calling strikes.

x AGES are lower in Indonesia
¥WWthan almost anywhere else
in the world,’ the former editor
went on. “The workers on the
rice, tea, sugar and coffee plan-
tations of Java were getting 71
guilden a month when TI lived
there. A guilden is about 40 cents.

“They got much less on some
Plantations. The sultan of Solo,
who rules part of the island un-
der the authority of the Dutch
goevernor-general, paid only three
guilden a month, or about $1.20,
on his immense estates.

“The Javanese people are land-
less. That’s why they are paid
less than other Indonesians.

“The city industries pay little
more.

“Plantation owners hire labor
under a there-year contract sys-
tem. - -

“On the rubber plantations in
Borneo and Sumatra, where most
of the rubber is grown, the plan-
tation worker is severely punish-
ed if he leaves before his contract
time expires,’ continued the In-
donesian leader. ;

“The white plantation owner
has him strapped to a wall or
tree and flogged with a rattan
stick. Sometimes men fall wun-
conscious from the beatings.
Heavy fines too, are inflicted.

“Dutch and British and Ameri-
can and some Japanese capitol
controls the rubber plantations.
Some American companies, like
United States Rubber, own plan-
tations outright.”

The Borneo and Sumatra bos-
ses have to pay somewhat higher
wages than in Java... 15 to 20
suilden a month, when the edi-
tor was there . . . because many
of the people live in their tribal
villages.

But 15 to 20 guilden is little,
and the Dutch seek to crush stan-
dards further by driving the
people from their villages with a
long series of excessive taxes, in-
eluding a levy of 48 days forced
labor on the roads every year.

Plantation workers are crowd-
ed together, a family to a room,
in the company houses. They get
their rice at a company commis-
sary.

Despite the fact that police are
ever on the watch, there have
been many revolts and brutal
bosses have been killed from
time to time.

NE-SEXTH of the world’s tin

is mined in Dutch Indonesia.

mostly on the islands of Billiton

and Bangka near Java, where

nickel and lead are also produc-
ed.

Goal mining is a Dutch convict
labor monoply, with several
thousand prisoners toiling under
guards in the mines of Sawah,
Loento and Ombilyn.

Contract labor is found in
the rich oil fields of the Royal
Dutch Shell company, a Brit-
ish dominated firm, which con-
trols most of the island’ heavy
output, rated as the fifth larg-
est in the world.

Everywhere labor is cheap and
the workers oppressed. The most
casual visitor can see this as he
watches the longshoremen at Bat-
avia and Surubaya eating their
Juncheons of rice out of their
hats. They can’t afford any other
dish.

Labor is cheap, but these an-
cient peoples, with their militant
background, will fight for their
freedom. A better day is near-

ng.

BEST SELLERS

best seller class among Soviet

readers with a total of 274,500,000 copies of his books sold
since the 1917 revolution, statistics published recently show.
Figures on other authors showed a total of 127,500,000 for
Lenin’s works. The leading foreign author was DeMaupassant,
with 3,000,000 copies of his works sold in the Soviet Union.

Victor Hugo, Henri Barbusse,

Charles Dickens and Romain

Rolland all run to more than 2,000,000 copies.
Total circulation of daily newspapers in the Soviet Union

was given as 38,000,000.

SHIELDS

60,000,000 Indonesian peoples of the Dutch East Indies. These
Borneo, the Celebes, New Guinea and the rest of the great

for the richest colonies of their size in the world. There would

REASON FOR FRENCH DECREES

pa FAURE, French Socialist leader, has already admitted

in a letter to leaders of the British Labor party that the
reasons for the violence of the decrees against the Communists
and similar working class organizations is precisely the great
strength of these organizations and the support for them ex-
isting in France, and particularly in Paris.

It is notable. that when The Week, some weeks ago, ex-
clusively reported on this aspect of the French situation, a
large number of people instantly denounced this report as
‘pro-Nazi’ and the South African and Australian censors sup-
pressed it. Now the facts are admitted by none other than
Faure himself.

—THE WEEK.

MEXICAN PEOPLE
FIGHT FASCIST TACTICS

By ALFRED MILLER

MEXICO CITY.
Rea against Representative Martin Dies and his
efforts to intervene in the affairs of this country for the
benefit of the oil companies and other Yankee imperialist in-
terests is rapidly growing in Mexico, this correspondent has
been told by Deputy General Gasca. Gasca declared that the
Mexican Chamber of Deputies will also speak up against the

Dies committee at its next meeting.

“Through its Dies committee,

“Yankee imperialism is trying to

bring about disorder and rebel-
lion in Mexico.”’ Porras Molinar,
general secretary of the Mexican
Confederation of Labor-affiliated
State Federation of Sinaloa,
charged. “It is towards this end
that the United States is inter-
fering in Mexican affairs.” ;

Sharply denouncing the ‘imper-
tinence’ of Dies, he asked:

“What right would a committee
of Mexican legislators or trade
union leaders have to carry on
an investigation in the US and
how far would it get? Believe
me, we really would like to in-
vestigate certain things up there.

“There are quite a few things
in the US that make an awful
smell and should be investigated,
and this Dies committee is not
‘the last.”

“Yes, certainly arms are being
smuggled from the US,” he said
when asked to comment on the
recent denunciations of Alma-
zanista (General Almazon is re-
action’s candidate in the forth-
coming presidential election) pre-
parations for a rebellion pub
lished by La Yoz, Communist
paper, “We know about the smug-
gling of arms in Sinaloa.”

“The extra issued by La Voz
is a warning to the people of
Mexico,” said Ildefonso Lara, re-
presenting the CTM State Federa-
tion of Sonora, “and it is our task
to develop mass action that will
accomplish expulsion of Dies
agents,

“The aims of the oil companies
and their Dies committee in Mex-
ico must be understood by the
people of the US, for it is abso-
lutely clear that the United States
is trying to involve Mexico and
all of atin-Ameriea in the war.
To block these efforts the organ-
ized labor movement of the
United States, the CTM of Mex-
ico, all of Latin-American labor
and all of the progressive forces
of this continent must work to-
gether. Then we shall defeat the
imperialists.”

AMON SOSA MONTES, of the

CTM State Federation of Hi-
dalgo, explained that he had
spoken to many workers about
the revelations made by La Voz.

“We recognize their value,” he
said. “The documentation is ex-
cellent Names are mentioned; the
places and the exact time of con-
spiratery meetings are given.
Wes, the workers took notice.
They couldn’t give the names of
all those generals if they had not
the goods on them.

“At the time of the Cedillo re-
bellion two years ago, it also
was the Communists who first
warned about the threatened
rebellion. Cedillo was smashed.
He was killed. Today again, the
Communists raise their voice
in warning. What they say is
true. The workers took not-
ice. And we are ready to smash
this rebellion, too.

“We realize, however, that this
Almazan affair is a much more
serious thing than the Cedillo
rising. Yankee imperialism is
helping this time. The interven-
tion of the Dies committee of the
oil companies has made this clear
to everyone of us. The Mexican
people need the help of the Amer-
ican workers. They must smash
every effort of Yankee imperial-
ism to intervene in our affairs.
Organized labor must stand to-
gether.”

HE declaration of the Com-
munist party of Mexico re-
vealing the nefarious workings of
the Dies committee in Mexico,

i

stating facts about the prepara-
tions for rebellion, the smug-
gling of arms with Hearst coop-
eration and giving an account of
Yankee imperialist interference
in this country, has produced the
effect of a bombshell.

The reactionary press is beating
a retreat while the progressive
forces are launching a furious at-
tack against Dies, imperialist in-
tervention and native reaction.

First to take a position when
the La Voz extra appeared on
the streets was the Committee for
Defense of Nationality end Strug-
gle Against Imperialism. Mit is-
sued a statement sharply de-
nouncing Dies and declaring that
“all Mexicans reject energetically
and categorically the interven-
tion of the sinister elements at
tthe service of foreign capitalism.”

ELEGATES to the meeting of
the national council of the
powerful Confederation of Mexi-
ean Workers (CIM) last week
struck at Dies and ‘his methods,’
unanimously approving the report
of the CIM’s national commit-
tee, which stated:

“Based upon the presence in
jour territory of traitors to their
own. country, there exists an in-
ternational plan to provoke dis-
order in Mexico. Fantastic de-
nunciations by the enemies of the
revolution and of our people are
sent to the Dies committee in
the US and under the pretext
that a ‘communist-fascist’ con-
spiracy is being organized to
overthrow the government and to
assure the victory of General
Manuel Avila Camacho, this com-
mittee intervenes in the affairs
of our country. The statements
of the Dies committee, which be-
cause of their absurdity and stu-
Pidity make many people laugh,
really constitute a threat to Mex-
ican sovereignty, a threat to Mex-
ican democracy, a threat to the
liberties of the people of Latin
America, if they are not a cover-
up for an outright criminal plan.

“What right has a political com-
mittee, composed of officials and
private persons of a foreign coun-
try, to intervene in the life of
Mexico? With what idea in mind
is this committee spreading pro-
paganda in a neighboring coun-
try, presenting our country as a
base of operations even for the
change of order in the US?

‘Tt is easy to answer these
questions. The Dies committee is
mixing in Mexican affairs with-
out any right whatever. And pre-
cisely because of this, because of
its attitude of provocation, of its
trampling upon international law
and the most elementary rules of
ethics, it is trying to fool the
opinion of its own country to jus-
tify all the criminal means which
it may employ within Mexico to
harm our country and our pro-
egress.

“The national council, now
meeting, must give its opinion on
this matter, to inform the Mexi-
can proletariat, that of the United
States and of Latin America
about this serious threat and this
systematic propaganda against
the interests of our country.”

Some 300 delegates of the CTM
national council, representing 1,-
000,000 organized workers of Mex-
ico, unanimously voted to accept

this report.: They instructed the”

resolution committee to embody
its condemnation of the MDies
committee and its methods into a
Statement to be presented for
their approval. And they told the
committee to make it strong.

SHORT
JABS

by OF Bill

Statesmen In Perspective

ees of the past few weeks have laid bare the guarantees which
constitutes the statesmanship at the helm of our far-flung empire.
it is a glorious spectacle. Here is a fleeting close-up of some of it.

Ex-Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (in the House of Commons
in 1935): “It would be the very midsummer of madness to continue
League pressure against Italian aggression.’

(During the week of Dec. 16, 1939, in the House, re Finland): “We
have always held that no member state ought to remain indifferent
to a clear case of aggression.”

(In his 1939 New Year's message): “No one would have dared to
prophesy, on the growing antagonisms and declining confidence of a
year ago, that the four great European nations would have advanced,
within twelve months, so far along the road to conciliation.”

Is it any wonder that the Italian fascist paper, Recto del Carlino,
published at Bologna, should write on May 8, 1940: “It is good for his
enemies that Ghamberlain remain in power up to the end of the war,
possibly up to the date of the inevitable British-French defeat.” (Van-
couver Province, May 8).

Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax (in the House of Lords, May 15,
1939, discussing seizure of Prague by the Nazis): “These events can=
not fail to be a cause of disturbance of the international situation.
They are bound to administer a shock to confidence, all the more re-
grettable since confidence was beginning to revive and to offer the
prospects of concrete measure which would be of general benefit.”
He now calls Hitler a ‘mad dog.’

Air Secretary Sir Samuel Hoare (on March 10, 1939) declared that
he could feel the coming of “a Golden Age, in which poverty could be
reduced to insigniffcance and the standard of living raised to heights
never before attained” if five men in Europe, the three dictators and
Chamberlain and Daladier, should work together. (Presumably, he
was including Stalin among the dictators).

Five days later, March 15, the Nazi jackboots were stamping along
the cobbled streets of Prague. It is impossible to blame the London
Mirror for referring to Hoare in one of its issues last week, as “one
of the weary architects of our present deficient air-power.”

Ex-Home Secretary Sir John Anderson. At the beginning of this
year there was a widespread demand that German servant girls should
not be allowed in the Aldershot military area as a measure against
spies. It was stated at the time that there were about fifty German
maid-servants working for army officers in the Aldershot camp,

Answering a question in the House of Commons, on Feb. 29, 1940,
Sir John replied, “A ring around military and air stations, excluding:
such foreigners, would not commend itself to public opinion.” Two-
and-a-half months later, on May 13, the same gentleman is engaged
in a round-up of male enemy aliens but nothing is said about the army
officers’ alien maid servants, It is a safe bet that the majority of those
rounded-up will be anti-Nazis.

And Their Press

HE: minds of these ‘statesmen’ is also reflected in their semi-official

press. Qn March 10, 1939, the London Times stated, “In general

the international situation seems now to give less cause for anxiety

than for some time past.” That was just five days before the Nazi
troops occupied Prague.

Another Tory organ, the Daily Telegraph, wrote editorially about
the Munich pact, in Sept. 1938, that Hitler was a fireman engaged,
with his friend Neville Chamberlain, in extinguishing the flames of
war in Europe. :

These fire-fighters must have been using gasoline to put the fire
out, so the Daily Telegraph, two weeks ago (May 6), says in another
editorial, “It is clear that the government now owes a duty to a be-
wildered and tolerant public ... what was the reason for the optimistic
speeches by various members of the government during the early
stages of the campaign” (in Norway).

These are some of the ‘statesmen’ who made the Nazi blitzkriee
possible. The difference between them and the Soviet statesmen is
clear when we compare the statements of both. Speaking at Birming-
ham on March 17, after the rape of Czechoslovakia, Chamberlain said,
“What may be the ultimate effects of this profound disturbance on
men’s minds cannot yet be foretold, but I am sure it must be far-
reaching in its results upon the future.”

On March 19, dealing with the same event, the Soviet government
told the German ambassador at Moscow, that:

“In the opinion of the Soviet government, the actions of the German
government, far from eliminating any danger to universal peace, have
on the contrary created and enhanced such danger, violated political
stability in central Europe and dealt a fresh blow to the feeling of
security of peoples.”

There speaks the voices of two classes, one betraying uncertainty
and defeat, the other understanding and confidence.

We Are Corroborated By NLRB

ee THIS column on April 12, there was published a paragraph deal-

ing with a circular letter sent out by William Green, president of the
American Federation of Labor, to national advertisers in the US, urging
them to advertise in Hearst's Chicago Herald-American, as that paper
was fair to the AKL and there was no strike in its plant.

Lest any reader should have doubted that story, here is a little
evidence in corroboration. The National Labor Relations Board has
been engaged in an investigation of the situation at the Herald-Am-
erican. Its published report says there is a CIO strike on at the plant
and brands Hearst as a law-breaker, finding him guilty of violating
the Wagner act. It found him guilty also of fostering a scab company
union, Newspaper Commercial Associates, invalidated the contract be-
tween Hearst and that fake union and ordered him to withhold recog-
nition to it, unless similar recognition is granted to the Newspaper
Guild. Hearst was further denounced for using labor spies.

The board’s decision was a victory for the striking Guild workers
and a slap in the face for William Green and the reactionary AFT,
leadership who made it possible for Hearst to have AFT, workers
walking through a Guild picket line to work with scab company
union members in a plant infested with stools and finks.

Everything the Greens, the Wolls; the Hutchesons do proves the
truth of the slogan which appears consistently in the monthly journals
of the AFL unions, “A good union man is one who has his dues paid
up—ahead.” That is the only function these leaders concede to the rank
and file members. If he raises any question in his own interest he is
an agitator, a red, a Communist, so ‘out with him,’ as it is put in the
Sun, the new organ of Vancouver Trades and Labor council's leadership.

But if he keeps his face shut and pays his dues on time, or ahead
of time, he is a good union man. : =

Explanation

467 HAVE no time for people who talk claptrap about an

imperialist war.’—Clement Atlee, British Labor party
leader, at the Labor party’s Bournemouth conference on
May 13.

“With Clement Atlee, the Labor leader, now lord privy
seal, sitting on one side of him, and his predecessor, Neville
Chamberlain, now lord president of the council, on the other
the prime minister was given an ovation.”—-Vancouver Proy-

ince in a report on proceedings in the British House of Com-
mons on May 13.

Comment

(oe people of Vancouver and British Columbia don’t

realize there is a war on. They know nothing of the
slaughter and bloodshed in Europe. Their lack of interest
is a disgrace.” —T. G. Norris, KC, commenting on the fact that
only 45 persons attended a Hotel Vancouver banquet in honor
of Dr, Fred W. Routley, national commissioner of the Canadian
Red Cross, when tables had been set for 500.

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