i

@ Around the
Slipways

By Charles Saunders

‘' the signing of supplementary agreements covering
‘onditions for working the seven-day continuous pro-
| plan, the Richards Commission has completed its

iitever else is said, I believe there is one thing that all
representatives of labor and management will agree
0 percent, namely, that Justice Richards as chairman
ponference has fulfilled a very difficult task with the
i@ | tairness. He has steered the conference through the
_iind shallows with an expert hand and I believe should
ily commended for his part in ironing out what threat-
} become a dangerous situation.

far Can Say that it has established a precedent in the
toast shipyards in the course of these negotiations.
Sreks holiday with pay, a concession granted in the
of the negotiations which, along with wage adjust-
vill be written into the basic agreements, represents a
* gain for organized labor, and although the conditions
‘ng could stand modification, it generally represents
forward. If labor and management can get together
%eame spirit to deal with other problems, including pro-
aH me success of the plan will justify the time and

en. é

(

“Wj' week I commented on the women working in the
ipyards. I said that these women were serious-minded
Ui who fully realized why they were taking the places
# on the job and urged they be treated on a basis of
4 gality, without a lot of pettifogging regulations. I be-
i@ie following verse written by Ruth Kremen, an Elec-
‘@ Helper at the Associated Shipyards in Seattle has
seaught the spirit of women who are taking the place
on production lines.

You can see her in the shipyard
Before the break of day,
“= But her heart is in North Africa
_ Ten thousand miles away.
The workers call her “Arkie”;
She comes from Arkansas;
@ Toa pair of Yankee soldiers :
q Her name is simply ‘Ma’.
She'd like to fight beside them—
x Her husband and her son;
2§ ‘She'd like to march through desert sands
And help them man the guns.
The faith that’s ever with them
___ Is the pledge upon her lips,
4 Yd a-crawled here on my hands and knees
: To help to build these ships.
|  There’s no work that’s too dirty
a Gr too hard for me to do—
3, If I can’t fight beside them,
By God, Pll see them through.”

(22y are fully aware of the fate of women under fascism,
)sradation of the Nazi system that would condemn them
e of household drudgery, and many of them are aware
€ move from the kitchen to the production line is a
estep in their emancipation. ;

omen have come to stay in industry and cannot be re-
i as only temporary or wartime workers. They have
fa they can do a good and efficient job in most cases.

|Z of the things that help to discourage the men on the
ob occurred in one of the yards last week. A ship was
filed to be taken to have boilers put in. All work was
tinued and all hoses disconnected, but it was 22 hours
sefore the ship was moved. Somebody blundered and
snsequence hundreds of valuable man-hours were lost.
uggestion of most of the men is that ships should be

! during the afternoon shift, when least dislocation of
would occur.

Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin,
who reaffirmed last week the
Soviet desire for a “strong

and independent Poland”
after the war, thus reaffirm-
ing the Soviet position as em-
bodied in the treaties of July
and December 1941, which
the Polish government-in-
exile has since violated.

MOVIES

Journey for Margaret: Picturi-
zation of William LL. White’s
book, this could be more force-
ful in its message. It’s not-enough
to tear our hearts with pictures

. Of little kiddies suffering psy-

chological maladjustments as a
result of their experiences during
the London blitz. That's only
torment.

The -journalist in this film
(Robert Young) seems to know
pretty well what caused the
downfall of Spain, the sellout
at Munich, and we find Him cyn-
ical, blase almost at times. His
wife complains of his writing
gbding stale. (Journey for Mar-
garet, autobiographical, suffers
from that same helplessness and
loss of direction). The child Mar-
garet O’Brien in her scenes comes
through so intensely, so dynami-
cally that she steals the last
moment of the show, and Young’s
assurance that “the lights will
0 on again, all over the world,
some day,’ falls limply on our
ears.

l

What Price Andalusian Goat Hides?

Living Costs vs Bonus

By MEL COLBY
In The Canadian Tribune
HERES no doubt that someone in the audience will con-
sider us a low creature for having brought this up, but
we think that it is about time that the cost-of-living bonus
sneaked up on the cost of living as shown by the govern-

ment index.

By now we should be harden-
ed to those news stories with
the Ottawa date lines which
tell us that the cost of living
has gone up one point—but not
enough to increase the cost-of-
living bonus.

e

HE next time the cost of

living goes up one point we
hope that War Information
Board will take a firm stand
and vefuise to sic one of those
radio commentators on the air
to explain what it’s all about.
The last one we heard whistled
through his nose like a coyote
with the heayes and didn’t
explain anything to us except
that the cost-of-living bonus
was stuck on a piece of gum
and was refusing to get off .

We aren’t blaming the cost-
of-living bonus. It never really
had a break. Every time it has
sneaked down an alley and
tried to catch up to the in-
ereased Cost of living, it has
been waylayed by some pirate
belonging to the Canadian
Manufacturers’ Association and
slugged into submission. .

@
i WISH: the villain of the
piece, the cost of living,
was as coy as the bonus. The
eost of living is one of the most
boorish creatures to come out
of this war. After what it has
done to meat, it should be
ashamed to look a steer in the
face, let alone carry on its
curent campaign of sneering at
fresh vegetables,

Qne can hardly blame the
cost-of-living bonus from look-
ing on the cost-of-living index
with a jaundiced eye. The in-
dex has been the favorite prob-
lem child of the government
experts for some time now. It
has been pampered and spoiled
In much the same manner as a
Park Avenue demutante, the
only difference being that the
deb makes the headlines when
she gets into trouble, while the
index is sheltered on the back
page lest it become too popular
with the public.

being sold these days, and that

discouraging to know that a

EF SOME man in a black slouch
hat were to walk up to us
on the street and thrust Alad-
din’s lamp into our hands, we’d
immediately command the de
mon that goes with such an
outfit to ask the government to’
stop basing the spread in the
cost of living on the number of
dyed Andalusian goat hides
that were sold in Aurora this
spring. A dyed Andalusian goat
hide is undoubtedly a noble
piece of art, but as yet we have
failed to discover anyone who
will guarantee it to add addi-
tional flavor to a pot roast, And
its what goes into a pot roast
that is blitzing the cost of liv-
ing.
e
E ALSO feel that the spread
in the cost of hand-carved
pump handles “sShouldn’t be
taken too much to heart by
those experts whose task it is
to index the spread in the cast
of living. We know a fellow
who bought one during the de-
pression (he used to swing it
idly in his hand when the land-
lord called around at the end of
the month) and he says that
there are very few of them

he is only holding on to his for
sentimental reasons,
@

T THE risk of being consider-
ed narrow-minded we'd like
to see the experts base the eost
of living on what the necessities
of ‘life are taking out of the
pocketbook of that majority
group who are in the low-wage
earning class. This would of
course mean that the cost of
living bonus would have to be
dragged from out of hiding and
given a transfusion to stand it
on its feet.
e
T MIGHT also mean that the
price of vegetables would
have to be looked sternly in the
eye. After all, it gets a little

cabbage is a better man than
you are.

Letters

rom Our Readers

se s <
Whistile-Jumping
McHugh S$. Carnie, shipyard
worker at Prince Rupert, writes:
I would like to say something
about the practice of whistle-
jumping which is so prevalent in
Prince Rupert shipyards. I do
not blame all the men for the
practise—most of the workers are
very conscientious about their
work, but it is having a bad ef-
fect on the majority who are
losing faith in their work. It is
not a good thing when labor is
striving for a full war effort.
Of course, there is lots of room
for improvements in ‘working
conditions here: But in my estim-
ation there is a slackness in the
leadership somewhere. Men come
and go so fast at this yard that
they claim it is hard to get any-
thing accomplished, but they
should also remember the men
who have stayed with the job
for a considerable time. These
men would be glad te help
straighten things out. Russia,
which lots of these same whistle-

jumpers praise, would not have
been where she is today if Soviet
workers had gone in for whistle-
jumping on the scale practiced
bere in Prince Rupert. I would
like to see some of the men wake
up to this fact in the shipyards
in this area.

=

Some Questions

Alex Eyton, RR 3, Cloverdale,
writes:

As one who actively supported
the CCE candidate in my con-
stituency during the last provin-
cial campaign, I would like to
express some sentiments regard-
ing the recent campaigns to “de
fend” the two Polish spies, Hein-
rich Ehrlich and Victor Alter. To
these people I would like to pose
the following questions:

1. Do they believe (as stated
in the Constitution of the USSR)
that in the Soviet Union all pow-
er belongs to the working people
of town and country as repre-
sented by the Soviets of Working
People’s Deputies?

2. Do they believe the courts
of the USSR allow a person to
be charged with an offense
against the state a just and fair
trial?

3. At the time these “defend-
ers’”’ of Alter and Ehriich
launched their campaign of
slander against the Soviet Union,
did they request information re-
garding the two spies from the
government of the USSR?

In closing I wish to say that

owing to the fact that these

points were not brought out by
the “defenders” of Alter and
Ehrlich, it can only leave a very
bad impression regarding the ad-
ministration of “justice in the
country of our great ally. Fur-
ther, if the tenor of the attacks
on the Soviet is fully indicative
of the state of mind of these
people, then they no doubt also
condemn the Soviet Government
for the alleged “murdering” of
10,000 Polish officers, and accept
the word of Goebbels rather than
that of the Soviet Government.