orld Events

Vil}

Wa) £ the development
4}re can be divided
aitting power, and
¥cy the Welsh long-
a the knights in

WG aored. Period — Last-
time of Crecy until
= tambrai in 1917 when
% combustion engine
© ¥™* again onto the bat-
tes form of the tank.

lintjsed Period — Tasted
Stig to 1943, a quarter of

lem, who fought in
s had much to do
Mmation of MBritain’s
army, makes no at-
fide the history of
“watertight” com-
the above division
| @:. He uses it merely
(Wend to pose the ques-
ank on the decline?”
rer to that question
it must be decided
vital period of the
wy war.
owo years now, since
# iet counterblow of
ped aly and August, 1941,
¥. — tank, motorized
Peg dive bomber — has
&@s invincible potency.
of the team has
Tia st its own adversary.
drome up against anti-
ut motorized infantry
My and attack planes,
‘ber against fighter
i@it infantry and anti-
GH and the morale of
T@ fuse to be panicked
, screaming thunder-
© the dive bomber.
the tank has under-
te change with the
anti-tank weapons.

zi
ief

2
Z

1G;

§2r in the North
#sion across the

These include static weapons, such
as obstacles on the field and mine-
fields, and dynamic weapons Such
as artillery, anti-tank rifles or
hand grenades.

Most of the anti-tank suns have
how attained such a degree of
mechanical perfection that they
can be aimed at a fast-moving
tank almost like a rifle or pistol.
Their muzzle velocity has been

greatly increased which in turn.

has greatly increased their armor-
piercing abilities. On the other
hand, mechanical limitations pre-
vent putting heavier armor on
tanks without making them lose
their mobility. Thus for the pres-
ent at least, anti-tank artillery
has overtaken the tank.

The pocket and hand artillery
used against tanks has developed
tremendous efficiency, especially
in the Red Army where the so-
called “armor-busters” consti-
tute an elite corps.

The weapons .of the “armor-
busters” are: the anti-tank rifle,
served by two men but actually
fired by one from the Shoulder;
the anti-tank grenade, and the
bottle of combustible liquid (stu-

Pidly named the ‘Molotov cock-
tail” over here). *In addition there
is the famous Soviet “IL” tank-
busting armored attack plane
(really a flying tank).

Where are the happy days of the
tank when it deployed from Sedan
to Abbeville, rumbled into Paris
and almost reached the WNile?
Those days are gone forever. As
far as the Eastern Front is con-
cerned, the last purely tank break-
through was effected by Guderian’s
Tank Army in the fall of 1941
along the Briansk-Tula line.

These considerations are not of
& purely academic interest, observ-
ers believe. If it is true that the
tank has at last found its master,
or at least its equal in artillery,
then the Wehrmacht and WNazi
Germany in general has had its
main weapon blunted. There is no
contention that the tank has de-
clined. But many believe it has
been relegated to the role of a
dominant, but not decisive, weapon
of warfare, and it is doubted if
future battles will be featured by
great, independent tank operations,
such as occurred during the ton-
quest of France.

Latin America

Democracy Gains Headway

Long a source of pro-Axis propaganda and a weak link in
the democracies’ fight against fascism, many of the Latin Ameri-

€an countries have in recent

toward pro-democratic policies.
Vice-President Henry A. Waliace’s
recent trip to South America did
much to encourage the democratic
forces working within their own
countries for a changed policy to-
ward labor and suppression of Hit-
ler and FEranco agencies. This
change is reflected in recent de-
velopments in three of the repub-
lics of the South.

In Cuba, the Chamber of Depu-
ties by a rising vote, adopted a

resolution urging the United States

Congress to speed independence of
Cuba’s sister island, Puerto Rico,
and at the same time called for the
freeing of Pedro Albizo Campos;
Puerto Rican nationalist leader
now in prison in Atlanta Peniten-
jiary. The action came after both
houses of the Puerto Rican legis-
lature had unanimously petitioned
the US for the island’s immediate
independence.

in Brazil the government of Get-
ulio Vargas has released a number
of anti-fascists from jail, includ-
ing several Brazilian Communists,
and has granted a pardon to Flores
da Cunha, who had been exiled
from the country. These develop-
ments permit the assumption that
the Vargas government is taking
progressive steps that will lead to
a closer union between the Brazil-
ian government and the people.

In Argentina, long one of the
trouble spots and where pro-Axis
President Ramon Castillo had been

months shown a steady swing

jailing labor leaders, Communist
editors and progressives generally,
the formation of a “democratic
union” is reported. This coalition,
which will probably take in all
pro-democratie parties, will oppose
Castillo in the forthcoming elec-
tions.

That labor in the other Latin
American countries realize the
extreme significance of defeating
the Castillo fascists was seen this
week in the action of Vicente
Lombardo Toledano, president of
the Conféderation of Latin Ameri-
can Workers, who wired GTAT
affiliates in fourteen Latin Ameri-—
Can nations, urging them “to call
on the trade unions of all Latin
America and United States” to
express their solidarity with the
pro-democratic people of Argen-
tina on May 25, the Argentina na-
tional holiday.

Declared Toledano: “This date
Should be made the occasion for
great public demonstrations and
special editions of labor papers,
supporting the labor and national
unity movement of the Argentin-
lans persecuted by the pro-fascist
clique of President Castillo. Thus
the national holiday of Argentina
wil be converted into a demonstra-
tion of continental solidarity with
the great people of our sister re
public to the south, and will con-
tribute to the unity of the anti-
fascist struggle on the whole
American continent.”

Food

Front

Land Army Situation Serious

According to news reaching Vancouver daily from other
parts of the province, this city is the center of one of the na-
tion’s biggest bottlenecks as far as the war effort is concerned.

The bottleneck, which threatens
not only BC but all of Canada, and
not only all of Canada but most
of the United Nations, has been
caused by farm labor shortages
and the government’s apparent in-
ability to remedy the situation.

An appeal to VYaneouver teach-
Summer Fholidays on farms as
ers and students to spend their
members of the Volunteer Field

Fighters has been made by offi-
cials ar Emergency Farm Service,
after their first efforts to recruit
farm help through the opening of
labor offices in Vancouver and
Victoria have brought results
which, to quote employees in
charge, are “disappointing.”
Farmcrs throughout the proy-
ince are certain that the students,
no less patriotic than the Russian

students who answered their coun-
try’s call for crop commandos, and
the teachers, who recently showed
their solidarity with other working
people of Canada by deciding to af-
filiate their Teacher's Federation
with trade union organizations,
will respond to the call: Farmers
organizations, too, haye made it
plain that people who have spent
their winters in desk jobs won't
be expected to hoe or pick a row
as fast or as efficiently as ex-
perienced farm help.

However, there are still many
dark clouds in the food production
Sky, say farmers, and there are
many problems that must be
solved, and immediately, if Can-
adians and those who depend in
part of Canada’s food supply, are
going to eat this winter. For in-
stance:

Beceiuse of labor shortages which
last year left fields of berries and
small vegetables rotting on the
ground, and the added fact that
no help seemed to be forthcoming
from the government until long
after seeding and planting time
this year, some farmers have de-
creased their acreage by as much
as 75 percent. This makes it even
more important, obviously, that all
available food produce be harvest-
ed.

Althouch the farm service em-
ployment offices have been open
for some time, only about 150 men
and women have applied for work.
(Reasons for this, say recruiting
officials, are that nobody is exact-
ly sure yet just where recruits will
be sen*. how they will live, where
they wil! live, and—most import-
ant of all, from the recruits point
of view—how much the wages will
be. With the harvesting season
about one month away, people in
charge cf a government survey to
find out how much help farmers
will need admit that questionnaires

=0O2 OWl-OCD

sent out several weeks ago have
not yet been returned.

Latest word on the wage ques-
tion came this week from W. Mac-
Gillivary, who is in charge of
Emergency Farm Service. Wages
for picking berries, he told The
People, would be “slightly higher’
than Jast year. (Last year aver-
age price for jam berries was two
and a nalf cents per pound. Ru-
mors hove it that this year’s price
will be about one cent higher, al-
though no official statement has
been made) The average picker,
at this rate, figures MacGillivary,

-.can Make about $3.50 a day, al-

though Some pickers have picked
a slow as 25 pounds a day, which
would bring them the magnificent
stipend of 85 cents for a day’s work.

And cit of that, of course, the
“soldier” in the Field Fighters
must pay a board bill which will
also be, accordine to Farm Serv-
ice officials, “slightly higher than
last year.”

While all this haggling is going
on, farmers organizations, which
as far hack as last fall appealed
to the government for some form
of assistance, and were told then
that berries—one of the biz west
coast crovs, sent by the shipload
to England in the form af jams
and je'lies—were ‘not an essential
food,” are trying to do something
on their own hook to clear up the
erisis which is approaching nation-
wide proportions. Farmer clubs, in-
stitutes and unions are forming
commando brigades of their own.

At tne same time, they appeal to
British Columbia citizens to give
full suport to the government’s
somewhet haphazard plans.

Tf labor isn’t avaialable, they
reasonably pont out, the crops
won't be harvested. If crops aren’t
harvested we, and everybody who
depends on our food supply, will
go pretty hungry this winter.

Conferenee On Food Problems

“No hindrances, whether of international trade, of transpor-
tation or of internal distribution, must be permitted to keep the
people of the world from receiving the food necessary to health

- society must meet in full its
obligation to make available to all
its members at least the minimum
adequate nutrition.”

So stated President Roosevelt
in a message at the opening session
of th United Nations. Food Con-
ference in Hot Springs, Virginia,
where delegates from 43 govern-
ments, a French representative and
the Danish minister to the United
lems of food in the postwar world.

Roosevelt told the assembled
statesmen that the purpose of the
conference was to discover how
States are meeting to discuss prob-
best to further the policies laid
down in the Atlantic Charter,” in-
sofar as those policies concern
the production, consumption and
distribution of food and agricul-
tural products in the postwar
world.” Freedom from fear, em-
phasized the president, was closely
connected with freedom from want.

“te