‘May 31, 1940

THE ADVOCATE

Page Three

‘Chinese
‘Congress

¥.

‘To Meet

b

f
:
i
3
“

Sixteen Hundred
Delegates To Map
New Constitution

, CHUNGEKING, China. — (By
‘Mail).— November 12, 1940,
twill be an historic day for
‘China. On that day 1681 dele-
igates will meet in a People’s
Congress to adopt a, permanent
constitution for the nation.

Delegates to the congress will be
chosen by five different methods.
The first 665 delegates are to be
elected on a regional basis. From
‘trades and professions will come
another 380 delegates. The national
government will appoint 240 dele-
Bates and 155 will be named by
special methods, a total of 1440. In
addition, all members and reserve
members of the Kuomintang central
executive and central supervisory
}committees will be ex-officio dele-
tgates. Since the latest Kuomintang
) directory lists 241 members of these
,committee members, the number of
delegates. entitied to attend the
congress will be 1681. Thus it will
be one of the largest representative
bodies in the world.

According to regulations govern-
ing organization of the People’s
Congress as revised by the legisla-
tive Yuan on April 31, 1937, its
competency is “to adopt a perman-
ent constitution and determine the
date of its enforcement.” The con-
stitution must be passed by more
than two-thirds of the delegates
present at a meeting having a
quorum of more than two-thirds of
the entire congress. For ordinary
sessions, only a majority quorum is
necessary and resolutions may be
carried by majority yotes.

All delegates will be required to
take an oath, pledging their ac-
ceptance of Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s be-
queathed teachings and their prom-
ise to discharge their duty accord-
ing to law and to abide by the or-
der and discipline imposed by the
People’s Congress itself.

The congress will sit from 10 to
20 days and its task will be con-
Sidered at an end when the meet-
ing adjourns. Delegates will not be
heid responsible outside the con-
eress for opinions they may express

and yotes they may cast during the

Session of the consress.
UNIVERSAL SUFFAGE

According to regulations govern-
ing election of delegates to the
congress, any Chinese citizen aged
25 years and over is eligible. Hlec-

| tien is _by universal, equal and dir-

| members of

}
1

ect suffrage and by secret ballot.
Each district, municipality or area
of an equivalent status, according
to stipulations in the second chap-
ter of the draft permanent consti-
tution is entitled to elect one dele-
fate, but in case its population ex-
‘ceeds 300,000 one additional dele-

| gate will be elected for every addi-
* tional 500,000 people.

Gandidates
will be nominated by village and
town chief officials in each district.

Delegates of the different profes-
Sions and trades will be elected by
these organizations,
each of which is to nominate three
times as many delegates as it is
entitled to send to the congress.
Such professional and trade groups
as qualify to elect their own dele-
gates are limited to those which
were founded before April 31, 1937.

The 155 delegates to be elected by
special methods, mostly by official
designation, are distributed as fol-
lows: 14 from Kianoning, 13 from
Kirin, 9 from Heilungkian and 9
from Jehol, 24 from Mongolia, 16

' from Tibet, 40 from overseas Chin-

ese communities, and 30 from the
nation’s land, nayal and aerial
forces and institutions of military
education.

Latest ruling is that the election
must be completed before the end
of June.

ESE Ee
WHO IS TO BLAME?

Democratic people have consist-
ently opposed Hitler and Mussolini
ever since the Fascist and Nazi
movements commenced. Through-
out the world it was the supporters
of democracy who organized pickets
against the showing of Nazi films
and against the propaganda tour of
the notorious Karlsruhe; it was the
champions of democracy who fought
against the Nazis and Fascists in
Spain and organized boycotts to
weaken the Nazis; it was the cham-
pions of peace and democracy who
evolved the policy of collective se-
curity, which could have scotched
all the ‘war plans of Hitler-

D. N. Pritt, KC, MP, in his latest
book “Must the War Spread” shows
that opposition of democratic peo-
mle to Hitlerism outside Germany
is duplicated by the struggles of
democratic people inside Germany,
which movement, as recently as
December, 1939, wrested big con-
cession from Hitler in the way of
hours of labor, overtime and night
work, etc., despite the Nazi terror.
206 pages Postpaid 23c

10¢c —‘CHINA TODAY ’— 10c

May Issue
Although China is crowded out

yof the headlines, it is good to read
¥ that the struggle of the :
*. Ghinese people against the iny3—

united

sion of Fascist Japan becomes more
effective daily.

Rew Age
Bookshop

Wote new address:
Room 14, 163 W. Hastings St.
Vancouver, B.C.

me

Chinese People Select Delegates To Determine Constitution

acting in that capacity for

seventeen locals suspended
Trades and Labor council.

to meet.

gess, Secretary of United

has named T. W. Garlick as

Refuses to Represent Unicn

Indicative of the attitude of labor officials to labor’s
needs was the refusal this week of Vancouver Trades and
labor council’s President E.
trator for Bakery and Confectionery Workers’ union while
Bakery Salesmen’s union in
the dispute between those unions and Rennie and Taylor
baking establishment in Victoria.

Bakery and Confectionery Workers’ union is one of

A. Jamieson to act as arbi-

last week from Vancouver

Alex Fordyce, Bricklayers’ and Stonemasons’ union,
has accepted nomination to represent the union when other
members of the three-man board are namd and set a date

In the dispute between Hotel and Restaurant Hm-
ployes® union and Rivers Ltd., restauranteurs, W. T. Bur-

Hisherman’s union, has been

named by the union as its arbitrator, while the company

its representative. Judge A.

M. Harper will act as board chairman.

Gan any reasonable person ar-
sue that these two men and the
many thousands of American work-
ers they represent consttute a men-
ace to our country? Does the pro-
eram of the T:WU and the DWA,
which insists on peace, the preserv-
ation arid extension of democracy
and the elimination of poverty and
unemployment, jeopardize the well
being of America?”

The paper also remarks the fact
that both unions “are now in the
process of trying to negotiate gains
from openly hostile employers.”

Analysing the question of fifth
column’ activities generally, the
New Dealer writes:

There well may be a ‘fifth col-
umn’ in the United States and if
one exists it will be found to be
identical in character and aims to
the ‘fifth columns’ of Germany,
Italy, Spain, Poland, Norway and
lastly, Holland. General Franco
made popular the phrase ‘fifth col-
umn’ when he boasted of having
one in Madrid. He was right. There
was a well-organized group of
traitors in the Spanish capital and
they knifed the Republic in the
back.

Let the American people take
heed of what has happened in oth-
er countries. It was not Commun-
ists, or labor leaders, or peace ad-
yocates, or the rank and file of the
army or the Norwegian people who
betrayed their country to Hitler.
The traitors were high ranking
naval and army officers and men
holding key positions in the Nor-
wWegian government. Were they
Gommiunists?

Indeed does anyone contend
that the Dutch royal family con-
tains Communists? Yet the facts
are that the husband of the
Dutch crown princess is an
avowed and open friend of Hitler
and Hitlerism The activities of a
‘Gfth column’ in Holland prob-
ably accounts for the victory of
the Nazi troops. But no one will
say that the Dutch people, union
members and their leaders had
anpthing to do with such treach-
ery.

CLIVEDEN SET.

Today in the French and British
cabinets are men who for years
lave been openly supporters of Hit-
ler. There is a ‘fifth column’ in
France but it is not made up of
Communists, labor leaders, peace
advocates or German refugees from
the Hitler terror, These persons are
in concentration camps. The ‘fifth
column’ in France is made up of
pro-Nazi army officers, cabinet
ministers and the fabulously
wealthy ‘200 families’ whose wealth
comes from imperialist exploitation.

We hear little about the Cliveden
Set in England. These frends of
Hitler are not in custody. They are
not the object of repressive laws. No,
they are urging harsh laws against
those who would stop the war. They
occupy key position in the govern-
ment. They are England’s fifth
column.’

The American worker rightfully
resents the slander of disloyalty.
The people are the ones who look
ferward to the realization of the
promise of democracy. They would
be the last to destroy it.

Our ‘fifth column’ will be found
among those who are responsible
for slashing the social budget in
fayor of increased armaments;
who fight old age pensions; who
urge laws contrary to our bill of
rights and who carry on a deter-

| _
DENTIST

DR. W. J. CURRY

Ste. 301, Dominion Bank Bldg.
Cambie & Hastings
Victory Square

SEy. 3001

‘Fifth Column’ Thrives
In High Gov't Places,
Says New Deal Paper

SHATTLE, Wash—Commentine on current moyes to de-
port Harry Bridges and Harold Pritchett, CIO leaders, *‘on
the grounds that these outstanding labor leaders are part of a
sinister ‘fifth column’ which menaces the security of the US,**
the Washington New Dealer here
“Bridges and Pritchett head organizations which are fighting
entrance of our country mito the imperialist war,”

observes editorially that

and asks:
mined war against the right of
the worker, the farmer and the
small business man, to the fruits
of his toil.

The activities of our ‘fifth col-
umn’ are being directed by Amer-
iea’s Sixty Families and not from
trade union headquarters.

Continued

Cripps

tained by the British authorities
would form the best preliminary
condition for commencement of ne-
gotiations and conclusion of a trade
agreement,

BRITISH VIEWPOINT.

“3) On May 8, Halifax handed
Maisky a memorandum stating the
viewpoint of the British govern-
ment concerning the reply of the
Soviet government of April 29. In-
stead of concrete proposals regard-
ing trade negotiations, the British
sovermment raised in its memor-
andum a whole number of new
questions regarding trade relations
between the USSR and Germany,

The questions included: sub-
stance of trade agreements between
the USSR and Germany, amount
and terms of the delivery of goods
from the USSR to Germany, pos-
sibility of restriction and control
of the supply of war material by
the USSR to Germany and transit
Of goods to Germany via the USSR,
definition of methods of control
over use of goods imported from
Britain to the USSR, provision of
the USSR with a market for Soviet
goods exported to Germany, etc.

“With regard to detention by
British authorities of the two
Soviet steamers Selenga and Maya-
kovsky with cargoes destined for
consumption in the USSR, the
British government, instead of re-
plying, in essence confined itself to
a formal reference to the fact that
these vessels were handed over to
the French government and pro-
posed that the Soviet government
conclude an agreement on contra-
band control, In the memorandum
Halifax reiterated the desire of the
British government to subordinate
trade relations between British and
the USSR to the aims of the war
waged by Britain.

TEXT OF STATEMENT.

“4 Qn May 20, People’s Com-
missar for Foreign Affairs Vyache-
slay Molotov sent the reply of the
Soviet! government to MHalifax’s
memorandum of May 8. In its reply
the Soviet government emphasiz-
ed that it cannot subordinate the
trade policy of the USSR to the
war aims of any foreign state. Be-
ing a sovereign state, the Soviet
Union will carry on its foreign
trade with both belligerents and
neutrals on the basis of the prin-
ciples of complete equality of the
parties and reciprocity of obliga-
tions.

“The new questions concerning
trade of the USSR with Germany
contained in Halifax’s memorand-
um of May 8 fall wholly and com-
pletely under the competence of
the Soviet government and cannot
form the subject of negotiations.
As regards imports from Britain,
the Soviet government has already
stated in April that it intends to
import good from Britain for its
own requirements and not for re-
export. The explanations of the
British government concerning the
detention of the Soviet steamers
Selenga and Mayakovsky cannot
be regarded as convincing and the
Soviet government considers that
the British government is respons-
ible for detention of the said ships.

“The Soviet government notes
that the very fact that the British
government raised for discussion
questions falling solely under the
competence of the Soviet govern-
ment does not testify to a desire
of the British government to con-
duct trade negotiations with the
USSR.”

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People Must
Live, Says
Mrs. Neilson

Women Member
Pleads Cause of
Working People

OTTAWA, Ont—‘‘We have
been told that the Defense of
Canada regulations are to be
enforced to defend the Cana-
dian people from subversive
elements. The people of the
west are beginning to realize
that there is one subversive
element in Canada for which
those regulations do not pro-
vide. They know it to be the
ereatest of all subversive in-
fluences. It is poverty, and it
has been at work among them
for many years. Realizing these
thines the people of the west
are beginning to question many
things in their own minds,’’
declared Mrs. Dorise Neilson,
MP for North Battleford and
parliament’s only woman mem-
ber, im her maiden speech to
the House of Commons last
week.

In the course or a speech which
contrasted yividly with the speeches
jade by sOMe members, Mrs. Neil-
}son declared that today the great
j|question of war overshadowed
everything else and, until then, it
had received more attention from
parliament than anything else.

“From a woman’s point of view
I should like to say this, that war
does not always mean the same
things to women as it does to
men,’ she said. “To me war means
broken homes, widowhood, father-
less children,’ destruction, agony
and death.

“I would ask you, Mr. Speaker,
what have women to do with
death? Our purpose in the world
is tO give life and to protect it. At
this time, particularly in this Crisis,
I feel that the women of this na-
tion must keep a sane and level
outlook, and they must remember
that in a time of crisis their great
duty is to guard and to protect
life.”

INSECURITY, FEAR

Referring to the fact that
“though these last years two great
Calamities have reduced the peo-
ple of the west, some of whom TI
have the honor to represent in this
House, to the point of destitution,
and that the economic depression
and drought have brought to our
people in the west insecurity, fear
of the future, heartbreak and hope-
lessness,”’ Mrs. Neilson stated:

“This is undoubtedly a time of
great crisis. Already the people of
the west have realized that during
this period they are going to be
asked to make sacrifices, and they
are beginning; to ask themselves
how they, who are so near the
edge of destitution, can make yet
another sacrifice.

“Jn their minds they are be-
ginning to doubt many things;
suspicions are beginning to arise.
They believe, and I think right-
ly, that the last government
failed to give them economic
freedom; today they are begin-
ning to realize that they no
longer have civil liberties or
freedom, and, as I say, this is
Yaising great doubt in their
minds,’’

“In times of crisis, Mr. Speaker,
as at all times, life must go on.
Life is greater than death; it pre-
Vails and goes on into the future.
Every day children are born. Every
day people must eat. Every spring
the seed must be sown, and every
fall the harvest must be gathered
in.’

Pretense Of ‘Socialism’

Abandomed

As Labor

Leaders Join Cabinet

By PHILIP

BOLSOVER

LONDON, England.—Coincident with the opening of a
new, ultra-ruthless phase in the war a government has been
formed here which will undoubtedly form the most reactionary

this country has known in generations.

And participating in

it will be the Labor leaders, all their pretense of ‘socialism’

abandoned.

What grounds are there for stat-
ing that this will be a reactionary
government? The statement is
founded on the records of the cab=
inet members and their actions and
statements even in the short time
Since the government was an-
nounced.

Winston Ghurchill is the new
prime minister. He is the man who,
as long ago as 1910 when he was
home secretary, sent troops against
the South Wales miners on strike
at Tonypandy. The following year
he used troops as strikebreakers in
the railway strike and against
dockers in Liverpool.

During the last war he was Te-
sponsible for the disaster of Gal-
lipoli. After the war he organized
intervention against the Soviet
union. During the 1926 general
strike, he filled the streets of Lon-
don with soldiers, tanks and arm-
ored cars, and organized an official
news-sheet, the British Gazette,
which was filled with slanders
against the working class.

Neville Chamberlain is now sec-
ond in command. There is no need
for elaborate details. His record is
known.

Sir John Simon from the first
days of the war has declared that
the living standards of the working
class must be reduced.

i. S. Amery is secretary for In-
dia. He has long been known as an
advocate of the iron hand in the
colonies. He was secretary for col-
onies in 1928, when British planes
bombed Yemenite Arabs and the
natives of the African Sudan,

PRAISED FASCISM

Lord Lloyd is colonial secretary.
He is also known as an advocate
of oppressive measures for the
colonies. He was forced to resign
his post as high commissioner of
Egypt during the first Labor gov-
ernment.

At the beginning of the war he
wrote a pamphlet on Britain’s case,
published here and in America, in
which he praised the fascist dicta-
torships of MTtaly, Portugal and
Spain, and fiercely attacked the
Soviet Union,

Alfred Duff-Cooper is minister of
information. He is a hard-bitten
imperialist. He was one of the first
to disown the pretense of the war
being fought only against Nazism.
In a speech on April 24, he said in
reference to the Germans: “This
series of crimes, which have made
a horror of Europe, are not the
crimes of one man nor of a small
band of criminals. They are the
crimes of a whole people.”

There is no need to review the
records of all members of the goy-
ernment. But it is with men of this
caliber that labor leaders C. R.
Attlee, Herbert Morrison, Ernest
Bevin, Arthur Greenwood and the
rest have thrown in their lot.

Rising in a packed House of
Commons to make his first speech
as prime minister, Churchill said—
and his words will be remembered
by generations to come—‘I say to
the House, as I said to the min-
isters who joined the Government,
that I have nothing to offer but
blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

These words—a fitting watch-
word of a dying capitalist system—
must have been echoed with ilum-
inating clarity through thousands
of working class homes.

before his legislative council

interest.’

his decision.

Jamaica Labor Brands
Proposed Law Fascist

KINGSTON, Jamaica.—Deseribed by Jamaican labor
leaders as designed after the Nazi pattern to outlaw the
island’s powerful labor organizations, a repressive bill to
prohibit importation of books and other printed matter
has been drafted by the governor of Jamaica and placed

The bill, as published and denounced by Public Opin-
ion, progressive weekly journal here, would ban all ‘*writ-
ten or printed matter and everything, whether of a nature
similar to written or printed matter or not, containing any
visible representation, or by its form or shape or in any
matter capable of suggesting words or ideas,” and would
vest the governor with autocratic power to bar importa-
tion of any book or publication deemed contrary to “public

Penalties under the proposed law would be ‘‘summary
conviction to imprisonment with or without hard labor for
a term not exceeding 12 months or to a fine not exceeding
£100 or to both such imprisonment and fine.”’

The governor would have ‘absolute discretion’ in en-
forcing the law, and there would be no right of appeal from

Jamaican labor leaders haye denounced the bill as de-
signed to suppress all opposition of the island’s exploited
negroes and crush labor organizations.

The mere ract that the Gabor
Jeaders haye been called in shows
that the last political ditch has
been reached. The function of the
Labor leaders in this government
will inevitably be to smother the
discontent of the working class.
And their first task will be to use
their still remaining prestige and
authority for the purpose of win-
ning the working people for the
government policies, regardless of
the sacrifices of standards of all
kinds.

The most difficult jobs have fall-
en to Ernest Bevin, minister of la-
bor, and Herbert Morrison, minister
of supply. Their immediate problem
will be to organize a great speed-up
in factories throughout the coun-
try, with longer hours, loosened
factory regulations and a general
lowering of the workers’ standards.
The first indications have already
been given by Bevin in his opening
speech as labor minister.

Bevin, who is secretary of the
powerful Transport and General
Workers union, with a membership
of 600,000, said, “If trade union
conditions have to be relaxed, we
shall take steps to see everything
restored at the end.”

The same promise about the res-
toration of rights was made in the
last war and Tabor leaders com-
plained ever since that the promise
Was not kept. Entry of the Labor
leaders into the government cries
aloud of the events of the last war
and those events are not forgotten
by the Labor party membership.

BLUM BOOED

There is a danger of widespread
disillusion of members of the Labor
party and a weakening of the move-
ment—which would be welcomed as
a by-product by the Tory leaders,
It was announced at the Labor
party conference just concluded
that membership has dropped 20,000
while the fact that the number of
membership cards sent out this year
is 100,000 fewer than last year in-
dicates that a further drop may be
expected.

Participation of the Labor lead-
ers in the government received
nevertheless—by careful stage-man-
aging and use of the huge block
votes of the trade unions—an over-
whelming yote of approval. But it
Was noticeable that the local Labor
parties—the most politically active
units of the party — were sharply
divided and many voted against.

Leon Blum, the French ‘Socialist’
chief, put up to minimize the French
attacks against the trade unions
and political liberties in France,
had a mixed reception. Many dele-
gates booed and shouted disap-
proyal. One asked, “Is it in order
to hear a man who is cooperating
with the Cagoulards?”

One day the Labor membership
will begin to ask, “Is it in order to
hear men who are cooperating with
Churchill and Chamberlain?”

JOHN STANTON

Barrister, Solicitor, Notary

503 Holden Building
16 E. Hastings St. TRin. 4464

GARFIELD A. KING

BARRISTER, ETC.
553 Granville Street

ABBOTT and HASTINGS
VANCOUVER

Jugoslavia,
USSR Sign
Trade Pact

Soviet Agency
Refutes Foreign
Press Assertions

MOSCOW, USSR. — A trade

and maritime pact providing for
commercial representation in both
countries has been signed be-
tween the Soviet Union and Jugo-
slavia, In return for farm mach-
imery and oil Jugoslavia will ship
lead, zine, copper to the USSR.
: MOSCOW, USSR.—Declar-
ing that “‘m the opinion of
responsible Soviet quarters,
pan-slavism in general and in
the sphere of foreign policy in
particular, is a thoroughly re-
actionary trend absolutely in-
compatible with the policy of
the Soviet state,’? Tass, Soviet
news agency, in a recent state-
ment answered claims made by
the press in a number of coun-
tries.

Said the statement:

“The British newspaper Daily
Express alleges that ‘Sweden is
taking part in secret talks with
Moscow that may remove Swedish ©
fear of German invasion, that the
USSR, Finland and Swedish are
participating in talks and that it is
suggested that these two sole sur-
viving Scandinavian states may con-
clude mutual-assistance pacts sim-
ilar to those concluded between the
Soviet Union and the three Bal-
tic states last year’

“Lass is authorized to state that
this whole report does not corre-
spond to the truth and is a fabrica-
tion from beginning to end.

“The British and French press is
busy circulating rumors to the ef-
fect that Soviet foreign policy al-
lesedly has adopted the path of
pan-slavism and, proceeding from
this, states The Daily Express, ‘the
Soviet Union is encouraging Ru-
mania to help Yugoslavia if the lat-
ter is attacked by Italy,’

“Tass is authorized to state that
all these reports are not only incor-
tect but ridiculous, since, in the
opinion of responsible Soviet quar-
ters, pan-slayism is general and in
the sphere of foreign policy in par-
ticular, is a thoroughly reactionary.
trend absolutely incompatible with
the policy of the Soviet state.”

Prohibit Paper

: LONDON, Eng:-—The ministry of
information has forbidden mailing
abroad of the Daily- Worker, Brit-

ish Communist paper, on the ground

that it would “create in the minds
of neutrals misapprehensions about
British policy.”

DENTIST

Dr. R. Llewellyn

Douglas

SEymour 5577
Corner Richards and Hastings

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