Page Four : THE ADVOCATE THE ADVOCATE y the Adv@Cate Publishing Association, Room 20, F eekly b ae Wrastines Street, VNCouver, B.C Phone TRinity 2019. 163 EDITOR - HAL GRirFiy $2.08 Three Month. Snr ae : Se 60c oi ee Single: Copy, 2 eS or Make All Cheques Payable to: The Advocate. eI, ea VANCOUVER, B©., FRIDAY, UNE 7, 1940 Gagging The People HILE the questiol of liberty in the abstract is dis- cussed at length by @ daily press which, as the recent oil dispute made tlear, iS concerned only with the liberty of big busmess 10 make 1ts profits, the real and funda- mental issue of the peoples liberties is deliberately obscured and distorted. ices : The Vancouver Proviie this week carried on a back page a single paragraph dispatch from Charles Bishop, its Ottawa correspondent, staiimg, pies miele cow tliat the House of Commons naileeumunya: Comiitice to review. tic “Defense of Canada regulations.” Bishop refers to the Sovernment’s pledge to consider modification of the regulations and cites as the reason to be advanced by the governulent for breaking this pledge the intensification of the war. The dispatch states that ‘‘since the war became more eritital it is believed here that the wide powers of the act are quite necessary.”’ Under the pressure of ihe people during the recent federal election campaign and faced with the necessity for concealing its anti-democratic policies, the King government sought io evade the issue of its attatks on ciyil liberties by promising to refer the Defense of Caiada regulations to a parliamentary committee for review. Now the plea is advan¢ed that because of the intensifica- tion of the war ‘‘the wide powers of the act are quite neces- sary. But this excuse will not stand criticism for one mo- . ment Was it not Prime Minister Mackenzie King himself who forecast a great spring offensive? And was not his pledge civen in the light of prior knowledge. A later announcement made by Prime Minister Kang in the House this week proves Bishop’s prognosis to haye been erroneous, but only partially so. For in stating that he in- tends to move for appomtMent of the committee next week the prime minister hinted that, far from modification of the regulations beme recommended, still more drastic powers may be conferred on the government. Now the government is readily availing itself of the pretext afforded by the hysterical campaign now beimg waged by a small but vociferous group to deprive the Canadian peo- ple of their heritage of democratic liberties. The voice of the great majority of the Canadian people has not been heard as it will be heard because of the din ereated by noisy individuals who raise the ‘popular demand’ for the government to act upon. These are the individuals who raise falsé issues in an effort to confuse and divide the work- ing class, who would deny civil rights to this minority group or party as they are denied in fascist countries, who would persecute aliens as the Nazis persecute the Jews, who, in short, would institute fascism in Canada under cover of a demagogic campaign to save democracy, This threat is real. The action of the government in outlawing several working class organizations. announced as we go to press. proves this. If can. it must be answered by the mass of the people determimed to make their voice heard, despite all gags, SYMBOL OF A NEW REPUBLIC OIVO ANTIKAINEN is free. Yesterday kept im solitary confinement in a Finnish prison, today he is a candidate for deputy to the Soviet of Nationalistics from the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic. A few days ago the whole Kar- elo-Finnish SSR heard Antikai- > nen address his constituents over the radio. In his speech, Antikainen said: “Ouly a few days have passed since I was snatched from a Fin- nish prison and arrived in Mos- cow to my comrades, “After a number of years of underground work I was arrested in Helsinki, According to law they could have sentenced me to eight years imprisonment, But this was not enough for the Fin- nish ruling class and the military clique. A false charge was then invented, a class court sentenced Ine to penal servitude for life. The corrupt judges and prosecut- ors Wanted more than anything else to have the death sentence passed On me, but a mighty move- Ment of working class solidarity rose up in my defense and my life was saved. _ “Not a single prisoner was kept in such solitary confinement as I _Was. The prison authorities evidently feared that I would con- vene a fparty congress behing Prison walls, or thought that if other prisoners were to come in contact with me I would become the prison. Superintendent, ‘The pret Jallor feared the words to) € Communist, ou the words of e@ a3 c¢ NLY ‘recently a sergeant entered my cell and order- ed me to collect my belongings. of which I had practically next to nothing—9 toothbrush ‘and a few notebooks. I then learned that I was not being transferred to another cell, but that I was being sent, on demand of ithe Soviet government, to another country,—to the country of free- dom and happiness “In Court, in my jast words. 1 Said that I was not afraid of penal sentence, since it would only be a further stage in my path of struggle ates “I was in prison for more than Se ess That stage is finished. I continue to traverse My path in the country where our preat teacher Stalin lives and works, 3 “T have been only a few days in the Soviet Union. Doctors state that I must take a rest and undergo medical treatment. But the fact alone of living in a socialist country where I was met with such kindness fills me with joy and strength, and I am pre- pared this very minute -to start to. work for the happiness of the whole Karelo-Finnish people. S election day draws closer, a vast amount of work is peing done in the new union re- public where two kindred peo- ples—the Finns and the Karelians “are laying the foundation for a new Finnish culture, national in form and socialist in content, on fhe basis of a strong socialist economy and a close friendship of the peoples. The-Finnish language is being introduced in the Karelo-Finnish SSR as a State language of the Tepublic on an equal status with Russian. Greation of a literary Karelian language, carried out under the Soviet, was a profoundly mneces- sary stage in the rapproachment and close collaboration of the Karelian and Finninsh jpeoples now being realized. A Finnish-language paper already started publication and thousands of textbooks have been prepared and a university for Finnish speaking students is now being organized. One of the fundamental prob- lems of the national question is now being solved in a simple, vig- orous and permanent fashion. In- stead of compulsory “Finnization’ issification’ of the Karel- le, they are building their alist culture on the basis of complete equality with the Finns E the older, richer cainen, candidate for the EKarelo-Finnish Tom Symbol of this new fra- has - A SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS LIFE MUST GO ON By Mrs. DORISE NEILSEN, MP R. SPEAKER, m rising for the first time to speak im this House I wish to express my regrets that Rey. W. G. Brown is not sitting here beside me this evening, be- cause, having known him, I feel sure that his voice would have been raised through- out this session in the imterests of the people of Canada. I find myself in the unique position of being the only woman member of this House, and I deeply regret it. It is a sad reflection upon us as a nation when, while over fifty per- cent of our voters are women, we can have only one representative of our sex in this House. All through the ages we women unfortunately have been regarded more or less as the property of men. Because of that position we have been expected to be but the shadows of men, to reflect their ideas and to echo their sentiments. last few years that we haye become persons in our own rights. It is only within the And we have at last the courage to search our own hearts and to find there that we have ideas and ideals peculiar to ourselves. To fail to give expression to these ideas is to deny our womanhood. Today the’ one great question of war overshadows everything else; until now it has received more attention in this House 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. To me war means broken homes, widowhood, fatherless children, destruc- tion, agony and death. I would ask you, Mz. Speaker, what have women to do with death? Our purpose in this world is to give life and to protect it. At this time, particularly in this crisis, I feel that women of this nation 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, Through these last years two great calamities have reduced the people of the west, some of whom I have the honor to represent in this House, to the point of desti- tution. The ecenomic depression and drought have brought to our Seople in the west insecurity, fear of the future, heart-break and hopelessness. Possibly it has often been said in this House that the west has not received from this govern- ment the attention and the con- sideration that it should have re- ceived. I wish to stress that most emphatically. The farmers, if they had received a just and fair price for their products, would have been only too willing to struggle on to be self-supporting. The farmers of the west are wonderful people; they have vir- ility and vitality in the highest degree, yet today you find them despondent and hopeless, fearing to look into the future, because they dread the years ahead. This government, haying in the past failed to give our farmers a price which would enable them to be self-supporting, and failed to find employment for our youth, threw out relief as a sop to desperate people. AM not an advocate of relief; there has never been anything more demoralizing to our people in the west than relief, there has never been anything more calcu- lated to dsetroy their morale, take away their self-respect and sap their energy than this relief. Yet today and in the months ahead, ii the basic problem of agriculture is not tackled by this House so that these farmers of the west can be once again self-supporting, the relief must be continued and it must be increased if the people of the west are to survive. I feel myself yery much quali- fied to speak upon this question of relief, because for three years I have lived upon relief. I had to feed a family of five—listen care- fully—upon $11.25 a month. An Hon. Member: A dirty shame! Mrs. Neilson: And I have often wished I had the wisdom and the ability of the minister of finance (J. L. Ralston) to help me balance my budget. Indeed, it is a task. If this government in the days ahead cuts down the standard of living of the people in the west by reducing their relief, it con- demns them to slow and agoniz- ing death, both physical and mental. It has already been agreed by those who are best qualified to Study these problems that even before the coming of drought and depression the farmers of the west were not having a square deal or getting a decent living. Professor Britnell of Saskatchewan univers- ity has stated in one of his books that the people of the west have through these last years suffered unduly. I should like to quote from his book as follows: “Direct relief became mneces- sary if starvation was to be averted, though the standard was often actually lower for the very large marginal group that managed to avoid relief, or for those who were just to be pushed on to relief, than for the actual relief recipients, though relief schedules have not been extray- agent.” Indeed I, who have had to live upon relief, know that they were in no way extravagant. I would say to you, my friends—and Tf call you my friends because I cannot believe that honorable members on the government benches are men of stone: you are men of fiesh and blood; you are made of the same texture as these people who are struggling in the west to earn for themselves a livelihood, to provide a home for their chil- dren; you are made of the same stuff as they — I cannot believe that you have not in your hearts that human compassion for your fellow men in times of such dis- tress. G [Bee is another kind of hun- ger. Robert Service, the poet of the north, calls it “hunger which is not of the belly kind” I speak of that need which the peo- ple of the west have for culture which is their natural right as citizens of this great country. They are living today under con- ditions which make it impossible for them to avail themselves of those things which they should haye. Again I quote from Professor Britnell. He said: “There's no music, no books, no contact with the cultured, leisured world. One can’t even window-shop. Dirty, tawdry lit- tle village stores—and even they are miles away. There is only an aching, bewildered body whose strength wanes and waxes and wanes again. Above all, beyond all, there is the lone- liness. It is an everpresent, all- pervading thing that both agon- izes and numbs the soul, Or have farm women souls? Gor- geous sunrises flare and flame, painting the eastern sky with their glow, reflected in the west. We glance at it numbly as we stumble out. It means the be- ginning of—another day.” I will not tell you any more about these things. Possibly you have heard them expressed many, many times. This is not hunger for food, but hunger of the mind. WISH I could take you to our little schools. In the children of the west we have a vast reser- voir of genius which as a nation we should be training and devel- oping for the benefit of the world in the future. What as a nation are we dong for those children? Today some of our little schools are even closed because we can- not afford to put teachers in them. Among those children of the west we may have girls and boys with the fingers of® surgeons or the minds of scientists, who, if they were trained, might give of their knowledge to the benefit of the whole world, and who might help make the name of Canada famous among the nations of the world. Today, however, if their moth- ers and fathers are unable to buy their textbooks and send them to high schools, those girls and boys go to work scrubbing floors and picking stones in the fields. Frus- tration is everything. I want to bring these things to you, my friends, and once again advisedly I call you my friends because you cannot be insensible; you cannot be unaware of the need for us as a nation to guard MEMBERS of the Chinese territory where much of the located. youth organizations volunteer their services to a new road-building project in mountainous mineral wealth of China is our youth and all the virility that is theirs. There is also another matter in the west which affects us aS a nation. WING to lower standards of living during these last Tew years another problem is coming to the front: that is, the question of the health of our people. In the west we have isolated districts in some of which the people may have to go 20 to 30 miles to get a doctor. In my travels through that north country I have come upon jmstances which may appear to you almost unbelievable. I have known cases where a father or mother, with a desperately sick child at home, has had to travel 20 miles or more in sub-zero weather, not to | fetch a doctor put like a whipped dog to beg of a relief officer in an endeavor to obtain a permit to get a doctor te look after that child. These things are a reflection upon us as a nation. I have said many times that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and as a nation we are only as great and as fine as the most humble oi our people. When some of our people are living under such con- ditions as I have mentioned, then we definitely are not a great na- tion. INGE I haye been in this city I have admired the great memorial to the soldiers who gave their lives in the last war. From an artistic point of view it is a wonderful monument, which has impressed me greatly. It is a monument of stone, a monument to commemorate death and the dead. In Saskatchewan we have living monuments to the last war. There I have seen returned men who, like driftwood cast up after the whirlwind and the whirlpool of the last war subsided, are now left on those desolate homesteads, un- cared for and unnoticed. Since fi have been in this city I have thought that 2 should like to bring some of those men here, in all their rags and tatters, and stand them around your great monument, to form a living testi- mony to the ingratitude of Can- ada. This is undoubtedly a time of preat crisis. Already the people of the west have realized that dur- ing this period they are going to be asked to make sacrifices, and they are beginning to ask them- selves how they, who are so near the edge of destitution, can make yet another sacrifice. In their minds they are begin- ning to doubt many things; sus- picions are beginning to arise. They believe, and I think rightly, that the last government failed to give them economic freedom; to- day they are beginning to realize that they no longer have civil liberties or freedom, and, as I say, this is raising great doubt in their minds. We have been told that the De- fence of Canada regulations are to be enforced to defend the Can- adian people from subversive ele- ments. The people of the west are beginning to realize that there is one subversive element in Canada for which those regulations do not provide. They know it to be the greatest of all subversive in- fluences. It is poverty, and it has been at work among them for many years. Realizing these things the people of the west are begin- ning to question many things in their own minds. r TIMES of crisis, Mr. Speak- er, as at all times, life must ¢o on. Life is greater than death; it prevails 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. In a time of crisis such as this we are sometimes prone to forget that life continues and must con- tinue, else there is nothing in the future toward which we may look. I would say most emphatically that the time to consider the life —of the people. of Canada is not when the war is finished but now. Life must be protected now in this country. Although death Stalks throughout the world and knocks at the door of every na- tion, life goes on. In this time of crisis I feel that as a woman, and particularly as the only woman in this House, even though mine is the only voice raised—and I sincerely hope it will not be—yet I must raise it in defence of and for the protec- tion of life, the life of the Can- adian people, because the people of Canada must have life and they must have it more abund- antly. re SHORT JABS OY OF JE Workers’ Press A Necessity your space, on behalf of the under-dog, to take exception to a state. — °, re HE following letter was sent to the Vancouver Province on May | 24. At the time of writing it has not been published in that paper {| It is self-explanatory. wa “To the Editor, Vancouver Province—May I have a few inches of ment attributed to John D. Bilton of Duncan, in the readers’ forum | of May 23. ; “The extract from his letter says, ‘If the nazis and fascists are ta | be interned, don’t forget the communists and watch them sharply.” H “I don’t blame this man Bilton for his predudiced statement; he |: probably does not know any better. If he used the medium of grey |; matter nature provided him with he would know how foolish his as- serton is. Pity rather than contempt is his mead. ’ “But I think the editor of the Province is deserving of censure fo: |; printing such a statement even though the paper is disassociated fron | the writer. Province. “Lumping communists with nazis and fascists is a favorite tricl} of reactionaries who have geese of their own to cook. Martin Dies OF the un-American committee of the U S. Gongress has used it timt and time again, but without success. is aware that Dies real object is the progressive social legislation bon™ of the New Deal program. What reactionary faction Bilton represents I don’t know. “This I do know. ing so? The Communists. France. as Bilton’s letter is published, at the outset of their drive.” “The Communists were anti-fascist and anti-Nazi before sonie ¢ these suddenly awakened democrats knew are just as solidly anti-fascist and anti-nazi today. of any Sfth column. C) * * {ee pages of the Province, from the editorials to the readers? cor tributions, are well-larded these days with hysterical effusion. As far as the owners are concerned, the truth of these effusions beside the point and baseless assertions are allowed to pass even whi their falsity is obvious. And the Province is not diferent from oth¢ Capitalist papers. If for no other reason, the workers must support their own wey f a press in which there is no juggling with facts to bolster ulteri | motives, and that support must be financial as Well as moral. ; Internationalists AX ENQUIRER asks me if the Sir Alexander MacKenzie who w in Vancouver about a month ago is the same sagalie tyee who w. tangled up with Sir Donald Mann in the Ganadian Northern steal. Ni ; that was Sir William MacKenzie, another of the same tribe.- These ornaments of Canadian life are a special type. Their for: dathers were chased out of Scotland to make way for sheep or de and the progeny suffered by their early life on an Ontario farm and | | smattering of law training at an Eastern university. : worthwhile humanity of the Scot was squeezed out of them and the grey into ruthless financiers. But that does not prevent then from becoming real, genuine inte nationalists. For instance, Sir Alexander MacKenzie. KBE, a pillar the holy city of Toronto, lives off the sweat of South American worl ers. He is a director of Brazilian Traction, Light and Power; Sao Pauw Traction, Light, Heat and Power; and San Paulo Electric Compan jf, His office is in London, England. He is a, member of the Brooks ar York clubs or Toronto and his home is in a palace called Beni Vie ‘ in Florence, Italy. Mussolini has no terrors for him! THE FORUM {| PEOPLE D (Pedder are invited to send in letters for publicatia under this heading. Letters may be written on any sul ject, but they must be concise because of space limitation Views expressed are not necessarily those of the Advocai. OF THE An Example From Canada’s History To the Editor—I am not surprised that your courageor Stand has evoked threats from that small but exceeding] vociferous group which seeminely believes that Canada shoul have storm troopers to round out fascist lesislation. In this regard the following quotation from The Makers of Canada, Vol. XI on William Lyon Mackenzie by Charles Lindsay () 127), should be interesting to your readers: .Mackenzie’s enemies were fur- ious. He had stung them to the quick; but he had dealt with mat- ters to which it would not be desirable to give additional noto- riety by making them subjects of prosecution. Truth might, legally Speaking, be a libel, but there are unpleasant truths, which, though it be illegal to tell, cannot well be made a group of action. Juries might be obstinate and refuse to convict a writer who, after un- bearable provocation, had beer stung into telling unpleasant facts, a little dressed: up or exag- erated though they may haye CANDOR IN THE SENATE Hon. James Murdock: May I say, though, that my honorable’ frien} who has just sat down is surely not going to try to convince any of ut : that the Nova Scotia Steel and Coal Company did such wonderfiu things during the last war at their own expense. ¥ Hon. Mr. Pope: Yes. Hon. Mr. Murdock: He knows that we Know better. He knows thay® we know that they were substantially paid for all they did in getting ready to conduct the business of making war supplies. I am surtej therefore, my honorable friend would not want to ‘kid’ either of us or the people outside into the belief that the Nova Scotia Steel andy Coal Company were so magnanimous, or so desirous of extending Gan- ada’s war effort, that they made enormous outlays at their owt cx-# pense. It is incitement to action to the prejudiced and Spreadi'}; confusion in the minds of sincere and honest people who read thi 4 The Communists and the Gommunist press haye been figfihting fascism and nazism since 1921. i consul in Vancouver, Mahler, was organizing a Hitler fifth column iy) 3 C, and blackmailing German settlers into contributing to Hitler): War-chest, via the “Winterhilfe” who exposed him? German consulate on Seymour street and were thrown into jail for do. 3 Bleven of them were arrested in Nov. -193}' at the request of the fifth column organizer. “When the German consul in Toronto, G. G. Kropp, organizer meetings of the German Labor Front right in Toronto, lining-up hi |. particular part of the fifth column, who exposed him? The Communists Who camped on the trail of Erich Windels, German Consul-general iz Canada, of consul Dannenberg at Montreal, of consul Rohde at Win t nipeg, and exposed their fifth column activities? The Gommunist. Whi i made public the espionage role of the Nazi propaganda agent, Were Haag, masquerading here as an executive of the German state rail Ways and who was connected with Canadian reactionaries? The Com munists. And who, by the hundreds, beat their way from CGanada ¢ Spain to fight both German and Italian fascism? The Communists. ._ By all means defeat the fifth column. But make sure it is th], fifth column. In France over 3,000 leaders of the Gommunist party ar}, in prison, yet Premier Reynaud is reported in the Province as Sayin; that someone is going to be punished for leaving the bridges over th Meuse for the Nazis to cross. It could not have been the Communist who are in jail — but there are lots of fifth columnist traitors i And tonight there is a story by William Stoneman on th front page of the Province about British society leaders who will b shot for being mixed up in a Nazi fifth column plot. “One of them should be the man who gave the Nazis the Czecha! slovak tanks, which Cummings says in the Province on the Same da “gave the Germans so great an advantage . Everybody who knows anythin), When the German Who picketed thi: Where was Bilton then| anything about it and the } { They are not pai # W. BENNETT. |! = = All the goo }- been to give effect to the narration. It was clear that Mac kenzie could not be banished fc sedition. He could not even §E tried under the Sedition act, hay ing been some years in the prov|{ ince; and he had neither spoke nor published anything of a sed/ tious nature. What then remain) ed? The sole resort of violence and violence was used: the offic). of the Advocate was destroyed h 4 a mob consisting of persons wh 4 bore suspiciously close relation to the government,.’? J fT am not endeavoring to dra’ a parallel, but offer the aboy) quotation as a pertinent historic} example of the methods used is F reaction. ¢ Victoria, B C- S22)