AT DO YOU THINK? BSSCERUXSRGPIEDRESSROUESDSURTTATESSSRS SPURS sws Herald, + the head- Stalemate” sperate at- , democratic and Mr. real demo- 5 brought ‘Jotov, Rus- t ~ democracy 5, but does Sour. His jaffairs in “ns proved -1t labour, Le sir. Byrnes t big bus- ‘un the In- . The men (ody, inside ountry, to m of ex- ie of “free ; (i proof of ‘Id read a ck page of > 12 News : : : sts that - ictatorship As a mat- : in no un- j ‘ se when he a commis- like-mind- / Officer in “perhaps, in and Mr. of bulldoz- nity of the- | Mr. Bevin -> did and 5 sithout any ing dictators who are trying=to hide behind a smoke screen called democracy. When McArthurs dynamite smoke has cleared away Mr. Bevin and Mr. Byrnes will stand exposed for what they are, namely: enemies of demo- - ¢racy at home and abroad. G. BOGERD |, Canadian Seamen’s Union. Unfair Sir: Hallowe’en is the Children’s Night to ‘Howl’ and because of the candy shortage the de- mand for popping corn will be great. . However, there may be very little on sale, although popped corn in smal] quantities will sell at 10c a 1 oz. bag. It is my belief that the chil- dren like to “pop” their own, however certain facts have arisen that may well discour- age the farmer to sell his “‘pop- ping corn”! z The government has set a ceiling price for the farmer at 11%e¢ a pound. This is not enough. It wouldn’t even pay. him to pick it. You, the consumer, may think this is high, but do you realize that you pay.$1.60 a pound for popped corm from the retailer. In other words, the govern- ment is as usual protecting the Business Man’s interests and “kicking” the “Farmer” and the Consumer. JEANNE TEATHER R.R. 8, Kelowna B.C. Colonial People Sir: The growing unrest among the people of the small nations of the Pacific and Southern Asia, which has already burst into open revolt in French In- do-China and the Dutch East Undies, indicates that the co- lonial peoples of. Asia have learned many lessons from this war, and will use the lessons’ REUEXBERECUSERECHUPT AROSE PTTRERODDAGR REAL TTR DET. 4ofthis war to throw off the chaims of colonial enslavement which have enmeshed them for many years. The Easti Indies have long been some of the richest plums in the colonial baskets of Duteh, French, and British imperialism. The rubber, sugar and other tropical commodi- ties have created new fortunes for absentee owners of rich mines and plantations in the imperial homelands. The nat- ives, enslaved through the pow- er of battleships and bayonets, have had little but patriotism and religion rammed down. their throats. in ‘payment for the wealth wrested from their toil. There . were those trusting souls who felt that the decline of British and Dutch imperial- ism due to the war, and the advent of a “labor” govern- ment in Britain would usher _in a new day for the colonial people. But the British labor fakers in government have in- dicated, by the alacrity with which British arms have been used to crush the colonial peo- ple’s yearnings for freedom, that “labor”? will no more pre- side over the disintegration of the ‘Empiah’ than would Chur- ehill. There are no lessons as rea- listically -driven home as the lessons of history. Their is no more indelible ink with which to record history than the blood of freedom-loving people who die to attain that free- dom. The lesson of British So- cial Democracy’s sell-out of eolonial people is imscribed forever on the pages of history in the blood of those who have already fallen to British mili- tary might in the East Indies. Britain’s social democrat La- bor government will some day see its doom inscribed on his- tory’s pages. Freedom is a hard bought thing, but it-is being bought by the blood of colonial people yearning for escape from imperialist bondage. MORGAN FRANKS. OUNNY'S PALS CAME MARCHING HOME! HONEST-MISTER-) WAS JUST PUTTING THH/S IN HIS POCKET! A Change of ‘Heart’ ATE — PAGE 5 Short Jabs ty or sin pupae BOSOURREDOEORCEORRSERORECADSOEESEPDOBDDERORRERLAUAEEEE. Vote-catchers! O YOU THINK the CCF leaders have a genuine interest in the trade union movement? Many trade unionists do and they are_ sincere in their belief. If they knew the attitude of these leaders to their unions they might have another opinion. The letter of Angus MacInnis in another part of this paper on the Ford workers and their leaders—a gratuitous insult if ever there was one to the trade unionists of this °country—should help to rid them of such a mistaken idea. : And Angus MacInnis is not the only one! The workers of British Columbia who have been active in the trade union movement during the last 25 years, know that one of the hardest nuts to crack was the Blaylock company union se-up known as the “cooperative.” Blaylock’s company union was the model in Canada for every anti-union exploiter. No organizer who had the interests of the workers at heart would be guilty of leading, coaxing or forcing any of them into such a “anion” or any near or distant relative of it. But vote-catchers might; in fact vote-catchers did. The Inter- national Union of Mine, Mill and Smé€lter Workers in 1989 was a very small organization, nothing like what it is today. Some of the men who determined to make it a 100 pereent union met in the Holden Building late in that year to discuss plans for the organization of the whole hardrock industry. : : Harold Winch, leader of the CCF in the Legislature, was present as a guest. He had been horning-in on the unionizing of the miners and millmen and just previous to the meeting had been up in the Sridge River country. During the discussion, Winch’s “unionizinge’”’ was questioned, and it developed that he had participated in the formation of a ‘“‘coopera- tive,” a straight out and-out company union set-up, serviceable only to men of the stripe of Austin Taylor. When he was challenged on the question, as he was, he attempted to crawl from under, but eventually admitted it was true and tried to excuee himself by saying that he thought it was better than no union at all. - That is tantamount to. giving a thirsty man a drink of prussic acid on the basis that it is better than no drink at all, or giving a sick man who needs fresh air, a whiff of carbon monoxide laden with air, the excuse that it is better than no air at all. Among the men who were present at the meeting were Slim Evans, unfortunately, no longer able to bear witness to the truth of this state- ment, Gordon Martin, at present a candidate of the LPP in South Vancouver in the-present provincial elections, John McPeake and George Price, the secretary of the Union. Winch, it is plain, was not interested in organizing the workers into a trade or industrial union. He was, beyond doubt, organizing votes for the political party of which he is the rather noisy leading mouthpiece. The interest of these CCF leaders is clearly one of lining up the masses of the organized. workers as votes, pure and simple, not in helping them* toward a better standard of life, increased wages, shorter working hours or improved working conditions. And the workers have sensed this, since union after union of the CCL has disavowed the national program of the CCL, which would link them to the wheels of the CCF machine, purely as a solid vote on election day. Angus MacInnis, head of their national trade union committee at Ottawa, practically admits that that is the sole interest of the CCF in the Canadian workers in a statement he made in the Town Meeting of the Air in Vancouver, speaking of the outcome of the Grey North election last spring. He said: “The fact that the CCF got 19 percent of the vote is the only thing in the by-election that has any significance to Canadians.” But what more could one look for from a man whose only out- standing contributions to civic welfare while he was an alderman in Vancouver, were the endorsement of the clubbing of the unemployed by the police and voting in favor of the B.C. Collectric raising the street ear fares from six cents to seven cents at the time of the amalgamation of Vancouver, South Vancouver and Point Grey. Ships and Red Carpets THeke is a class of people who have short memories, shorter even than the average, which is no length at all. Among them appears to be that section of the petit bourgeoisie which imagines it is some thing great in the conduct of the affairs of the state. It does not make pronouncements, it snivels. Dressed in a little brief authority, it earns the contempt of the honest worker since it puffs itself up like the frog in the story who would be a bull. We heard. of a case of this type last week when two seamen were being charged in a police court with mutiny. The Dogberry in the mighty seat, in finding them guilty, bewailed, “I don’t know what sea- men want these days. Pretty soon they will be demanding red carpets up the alleyways.” Well, suppose they do demand red carpets (which they won’t), who has a better right to red carpets, or blue carpets or any other color carpets that will help to make their lives comfortable, for a seaman’s life is a dog’s life at best. Only a few short months ago merchant seamen were sailing the ships ofthe Allied Nations through the sub-infested waters of the world. Théy took their lives into their own hands every time their ships headed into the sea lanes of commerce. With little, or no de- fence, they faced death from under the ocean, from the surface and from above it. They stood up to their natural enemy, the sea itself and to the bestial human enemy, without flinching, so that the Dog- berrys could sit on plush-bottomed seats and insult them—and they never asked for red carpets. . But they have a right to ask that they do not go down to the sea in coffin ships—and maybe that judge could tell us the number of our merchant seamen who never came back from the sea during the waz. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1945 eae: