Around the Slipways By Charles Saunders [EERE has been a tendency recently in all Vancouver shipyards to cut down the number of men employed on cond and third shifts. This procedure, whatever its objec- re, can only result in considerable confusion and speculation to reason. It was made very plain in the hearings before the Richards jmmsision that all-out production in the shipyards would scessitate not only workings the yards seven days a week 1 the continuous production plan but also building up the st two shitts. The ratio suggested and recommended by the chards Commission was a ratio of five, three, two. If there any attempt on the part of the Shipbuilding Federation cut down on the number of men employed on the night adits to avoid the extra bonus payments allowable for these ufts then they must not be allowed to get away with it. Seven-day continuous production demands certain sacri- ses from the workers. The objective is to keep the yards id the machinery running a hundred and sixty-eight hours week. Cutting down the number of men employed on the cond and third shifts can only hinder this objective. e & = NE reason offered by those who did not expect the Red Army to stand up for six months against the German ar machine was a criticism of their transportation system. 1 regard to this it is interesting to note that J. H. Potts, tmer president of the British Union of Railwaymen, speak- g recently over the BBC expressed amazement at the ef ciency of the Soviet Railways. Stating that he had toured by train from Moscow to Si- sria for 48 days, he said the Soviet railway system was up ) the high standard of the British railways. The latest locomotives can draw up to 3,000 tons at 50 Jometers (31 miles) per hour and are fitted with con- snsers for travelling through country where there is no ater. He arrived in a convoy loaded with tanks, other war juipment and food. The Seviet dockers worked a twenty- ur hour day whilst the ships were in dock, turning the ships ‘ound in record time of four days. With the enormous strain on the Russian transport sys- m called upon to deliver supplies from distant ports to the shting fronts I imagine they do not waste time or trans- wrtation space in carrying scrap steel and ore thousands of iles to be fabricated and then hauled back again to where 1 finished product is to be used. e@ HE; 10,500-ton U.S. cargo ship Robert E. Peary was launched four days after the laying of the keel and ready r delivery two days after. _— A worker in the Kaiser shipyards commenting on this markable feat poimts out that this ship was 61 percent pre- ibricated, and that the average construction time is 40.6 ays. Although, he says, the laying of the keel represented in ct the beginning of the end, nevertheless the rapidity with hich this hull was put together was incredible. Within two hours after work began on Sunday morning ie entire bottom shell, 50 by 500 feet, was welded into place. ix hours later they had put in all the amidships, inner bot- m sections and the entire engine assembly. By the end of ie day the hull was shaped and half of its 2900 tons of steel sections were in place. By the end of the second day the pper deck was completed. On the third day huge “whirly” cranes set the deck ouses, masts and windlasts in place. The rudder and the ati-aircraft guns were also put in place. On the fourth and st day all the welding, rivetting, electric wiring and paint- is was finished. And when the ship went down the skids, all 440 was complete with life belts, electrie clocks, coat angers, desks, ink wells and signs in all the toilets saying, Water unfit for drinking.” As the worker commented, they alf expected to see a prefabricated captain pacing the bridge. Very few of the seventy thousand workers employed had ly previous experience in shipbuilding which perhaps ex- ains the ready adaptation to the unorthodox methods used _ Kaiser yards. Hundreds of suggestions from workers ere used in the building of this ship, ranging from gigantic gs that saved weeks in construction cf inner bottoms to tle clamps that hold girders firm while they are being elded. e IN REVIEW - VICTORY—AND AFTER—By Earl Browder—Introduction by Tim Buck—Progress Books; Paper Cover, 50c; De Luxe, $2.00. Grey, my young friend, is all theory, And green alone Life’s golden tree. wt édhis apt quotation Earl Browder closes his inspiring and thought-provoking book. It is his method of empha- sizing that the viewpoint of which he is himself the foremost exponent on the American continent—the theory of Marx and Lenin—has as its outstanding characteristic the perpetual ad- aptation of thought to action and of both to the development of events, afforded by life. And life itself is ever fresher and greener than the theory we develop to help us understand it and to forsee the predictable outlines of the future. That is the essence of creative Marxism; that is why Marxism correctly understood, can never be more “orthodox” than life itself, save by becoming a lfe- less dogma, as useless for practical purposes as an incantation, no matter how fulsomely or frequently repeated. e e e ROWDER’S book falls naturally into five main parts. In the first part he analyses the character of the war. He writes: “The char- acter of the war is not determined by the proclamations of statesmen. ... This war on the Axis side is the continuation of the Hitler policy of universal enslavement. Qn the side of the United Nations it is a People’s War of National Liberation. We do not say that it is purely of this character; like all modern wars it sprang from the widest mixture of causes, mo- tives, policies. It has this char- acter predominantly, decisively, be- cause victory for the United Na- tions saves the preconditions for human progress while victory for the Axis destroys those precondi- tions.” : Browder outlines policies required to bring about the earliest possible victory; policies in general form under two main heads: Hirst, the utmost internal unity of each na- tion fighting the Axis and the fullest utilization by each of all its available means for conducting war; second, the closest and most firm unity between all the coun- tries composing the alliance of the United Wations, and the winning of every possible new ally, the calling up of all possible reserves in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America that can help to bring victory most speedily. In the second part of His book, Earl Browder proceeds to analyze the possibilities of achieving and the obstacles preventing internal national unity. He pulls no punches at hitting at those groups who oppose unity to defeat the Axis. He proves by quoting chapter and verse from official documents that miany are confessed and deliberate participants of Hitler’s fifth col- umn and that those who are more innocent are not therefore less harmful. Yet he does not gloss over the difficulties involved and resolutely rejects the empty rhet- orice of those who point to the Soviet Union as the model whereby a eapitalist country can conduct a war unitedly. He writes: “National unity in the United States is above all a problem of adjusting class inter- ests without the severe struggles by which this has usually been accomplished, and since such class interests do not exist in the Soviet Union, we cannot find in their practice any guide for us in the United States. “In the United States, national unity can be achieved only through compromise between the conflicting interests, demands, and aspirations of various class groupings (prim- arily between those usually spoken of as capital and labor), a compro- mise which agrees to reach at least putes through arbitration. The mo- tive power behind such compromise can only be something which all parties hold in common—that is, patriotism, the common determina- tion to win the war in order that the nation may survive, that the American people may determine their own destiny and not become slaves of the Axis.” e e e TN THIS section of his book, Earl Browder is concerned with the problem of * national unity as it exists in the USA. But his anal- ysis is no less valuable for Cana- dian readers because of this. In the first place his general ap- proach to the problem is fully applicable to Canada because “the Canadian way of life’ does not to- day differ in a single fundamental from “the American way.” Secondly, Canadian readers will derive much of value from his brill- iant analysis of changing political lines within and without the two main old-line parties in the United States, Republican and Democratic. Browder will help you to under- stand the American political parties better than ever before, and you will find it both a fascinating and a useful mental occupation to draw Canadian analogies and contrasts as you read his descriptions of the American scene. Some readers will perhaps find the third part of the book treating of ways and means of keeping the Allied Nations united till victory— and after—the section of greatest interest. Browder starts from a simple premise: “The United Na- tions must find its unity through agreement among equals in which the only coercion is that exercised by the common recognition of com- mon necessity.” “Greater patriotism hath no man than that he lay down his preju- dices for his country,” he remarks and then proceeds to review in turn collaboration with the Soviet Union, American relations with Great Britain, China's part on the world scene, the unsolved problem of India, Africa as a factor in the war, and the contribution that may be obtained from Latin America if correct policies are pursued. ro) © e HE section of his book in which Browder treats of the ‘“eco- nomics of war’ is all too brief, but it packs into small compass a wealth of original thought. It might be helpful if it were made required reading for all cabinet ,ministers and the growing host of economic administrators and con- trollers at Ottawa and throughout the country. - “Maximum war production re- quires a central administration which will plan, direct, guide and control the entire economy of the nation.” The refreshing candor that distinguishes the whole work is particularly marked in this sec- tion. Browedr agrees that ration- ing should start with the funda- mentals of production, with ma- terials, machinery and labor, that a primary essential is the alloca- tion of a production task to every available man and machine. The threat of inflation he sees jas “the registration of the break- 'down of an economy in which the market has disappeared as the a provisional settlement of all dis-|regulating medium, and admini- stration has not been set up to take its place.”’ Individual “dollar-a- year’ men are not the main cause of break-downs, because even the most honest and patriotic among them cannot get results under the existing system of a multitude of eontrols without a unifying, direct- ing plan of production behind them. The experience of Elliott M. Little provides a Canadian illustration of the validity of this viewpoint. If it be objected “that such a central administration would re- quire a great new body of officials, Browder replies that on the con- trary it would require less than the enormous numbers we have already. The army of officials we now have is growing to the point where in some places they are stepping on each others toes, but instead of solving the shortages they are set up to administer, they ereate but another shortage of housing for officials. In contrast, both to those who indignantly oppose such centralized economy as socialism, and to others who falsely parade it as a socialist solution, Browder insists on calling a spade a spade. Such a centralized economy would be under present conditions a form of state capital- ism, or in other words, capitalism adjusted to the requirements of all- out war. Within this framework he examines the way in which labor and trade unions should contribute to the national war effort. OME readers may feel disap- pointed that the shortest sec- tion of Browder’s book, dealing with the post-war world, consists of only a single chapter. That is because Browder’s main concern is to help win the war, not to win an election which might never be held if vic- tory is not.gained. But even in the few pages that Browder devotes to this theme he concentrates more illumination, more food for both thought and action than in all the weighy tomes and detailed “re- construction” schemes that are flooding the bookstores. The following quotations give the flavor of his thought: “Many persons and organizations are -busily preparing blueprints in anticipation of that day. It is a pastime in which I cannot join. I have no blue-prints for a post-war world. The central problem of this post-war world will be that of whether or not the collaboration set up for this war, in the United Wations, can be continued and ex- tended after the war to deal col- lectively with the problems of eco- nomic and political reconstruction of the world. Upon the answer to this question depends all further determination of the character of the post-war world. . . . If this is achieved it will be an unprece- dented step forward in history. And it is clear that the unprecedented eannot be achieved by following old doctrines based upon prece- dent: <2. “If nothing happened except according to precedent there would be no history at all .. - The kind of peace that will fol- low the war depends upon what lind of war we make.” “Victory—and After’ is a great contribution to the cause for which we fight. The introduction by Tim Buck contributes towards making it an indispensible book for every serious-minded person. Only be- cause the publishers must have been certain of its selling in the tens of thousands could they have taken the step of circulating it at a price of fifty cents, thus making it readily accessible to all. The merits of the book are more than justified —W.R. “Victory—and After’ will short- ly be on sale at The People Boolk- store. :