Review.

* EDITORIAL

Tom
McEwen

(Tom McEwen is in Toronto, This
week’s guest column is contributed by
George Morris, columnist for the San
Francisco Daily People’s World.)

yOU PROBABLY know more of
Dublin, Ireland, than of Dublin,
Georgia. But you should know a little
about the latter because there are
many such “Dublins” down below the
Mason-Dixon fine. In Dublin, Georgia,
the mayor and city council enacted an
ordinance that. requires union organiz-
ers to: : i

+ Reside in Dublin for five years in
order to qualify for a license to organ-
ize.

+. Pay a $2,500 license fee for the

privilege of organizing, with the mayor
and council the sole arbiters on the
issuance of such licenses.

+ Take an oath they do not favor
the overthrow of segregation laws.

+ Swear that the union for which
they are organizing will not spend any
money for causes that encourage viola-
tion of segregation laws or for what the
town’s elders class as “Communist
activities.”

Many towns, as in the case of Dublin,
are joining the parade of little dictator-

. ships that put an absolute ban on union

organization.

These are the towns that are float-
ing loans to build plants for runaway
operations. They advertise widely. to

‘jure industries from the, unionized

areas, promising insurance against
unions, high wages, desegregation —
anything an employer dislikes.
5o3 og BO

Shortly before the AFL-CIO merger,
the AFL published a booklet summar-
izing the work of its research staffon
the shop runaway. trend, titled Sub-
sidized Industrial Migration. It was
the basis for legislative recommenda-
tions to combat the evil (shelved in
Congress like other such proposals).

The booklet contains some interest-
ing photostatic samples of. letters ‘of
“development corporations” these towns
send to prospective customers.

The towns hardly trouble to conceal
their offer of publicly solicited bribes,
tax-free deals, “Christian” but non-
Catholic workers, docile labor. One
town even built a golf course to make
the area attractive to plant executives.
There is interesting data on North-
South wage differentials, the differen-

tials in unemployment insurance and

workmen’s compensation rates.

The study was a powerful argument

on the urgency of organizing the South

—and doing it now. ;

That was the principle that was ad-.

- vanced in the merger. But so far, more

the Post Office Department, Ottawa

.than five months after the merger con-
vention, there is nothing under way 1n

the way of organizing the unorganized,

_ North or South.

efe e
Pacific Tribune
Published weekly at
Room 6 — 426 Main Street
Vancouver 4, B.C.

Editor — TOM McEWEN
Associate Editor — HAL GRIFFIN
Business Manager — RITA WHYTE
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\

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4
“YOms ror WAY
ny ‘i

‘The real alternative

Deeds, not words
required from West now

ps getting so a body doesn’t |

know what to do to satisfy some
people.

Ever since the cold war began
ten years ago the Western powers
have met every Soviet offer to
negotiate with answers: “‘Give us
deeds, not words.’”’ Every time the
Soviet Union acted, it was brushed

_ off with: ““A propaganda stunt.”

So it was last October when the
Red Army was cut by 640,000
men. So it was with the last Soviet
budget which called for a substan-
tial reduction in arms spending.

And so it was last week when

‘Moscow made its most sensational

announcement that it was cutting
1,200,000 men from its armed

forces by May 1957, reducing its
naval strength and further cutting
its arms budget.

_ Why ? Because, said the Soviet
announcement: ““The main obstacle
to the further relaxation of inter-
national tension is the’ continued
arms race.”

*

In Ottawa, External, Affairs
Minister Lester B. Pearson said he
wasn't impressed. His department
used the words “‘propaganda’’ and
“Tabor shortage.”’

From Washington, President
Eisenhower ho-hummed that it
would have had more significance
had Moscow accepted the U: S. dis-
armament plan at the recent London

conference, including his aerial in-
spection proposal. ;

London felt it was done to force
a reduction in NATO strength,
especially West Germany, but
thought it might ease things.

If such a drastic arms reduction
is propaganda, we think ‘most
people would wish that the Western
powers indulged in more of it.

The Soviet announcement de-
clared what most working people
know: ‘“The present immeasurably
inflated military budgets of the
capitalist states mean high taxation
on the earnings and incomes of the
workers, the further increase of
prices of consumer goods, and de-
terioration of the living standards
of the people.’ The arms race “‘is
fraught with dangerous instability
and economic catastrophe.”

The peoples of the world, includ-
ing Canada, want the crippling bur-

den of arms spending lifted off their

backs, '
NATO in seven years has spent
$312 billion on arms! That money
could have ended poverty and star-
vation for millions of people in
underdeveloped countries! It could
have raised immeasurably the stan-
dard of living for the people ofsthe
countries — also including Canada

—which paid out that astronomical

sum from taxes.

If Ottawa tomorrow were to
make a proportional cut in our arms
spending, the problems of health
insurance, higher old-age pensions
and the municipal school crisis
could be quickly solved.

_ The time has certainly come to
say to the West: deeds, not words,

please.

Griffin

British Columbia, roads and rail-
roads have been at the heart of its
politics. res : :

Back,in the sixties the feat of the
Royal Engineers in building the

than it costs now to reconstruct a
mile of it) helped to save British
Columbia for Canada. In the eighties
completion of the Canadian Pacific
Railway brought the province phy-
sically into Confederation as it al-
ready was in name.

: Half a century after Confederation
the scandal of the Pacific Great
Eastern Railway ended 14 years of
Conservative government and

the first time. And four years ago
roads were a big factor in bringing
down the defunct Liberal-Conserva-
tive Coalition. and placing another
new party, Social Credit, in power at
Victoria. ; "
Whenever Premier W. A. C. Ben-
nett calls an election, whether this
fall as he has hinted or next spring
if it serves his purpose - better, he
will rely on the road policy of his
effervescent, self-promoting minis-

Hal

ROM THE very beginning of

original Cariboo Highway (for less —

brought the Liberals to power for

ter of highways, Philip A. Gaglardi, ©
to return his government to office.
Ge ts
Last weekend I took advantage
of the holiday to make a 700-mile
trip into the Interior, up to Lillooet

_ and the Bridge River, over to Ash-

croft and back down the Fraser Can-
yon, and up the north side of the
river to Hatzic. I went, not to make
speeches (I got the impression that
very few people were left at home
to make speeches to), but to talk to
people and to listen. Mostly they
talked about roads.

The old Coalition government had
a traditional road policy handed
down over 50 years by successive
Conservative and Liberal govern-
ments. Its concern was less with
the state of the roads than with
the political allegiance of the road
_foremen.

. Years ago, when I lived at Lillooet,
the road’ foreman changed when the
government changed — and that was
all that changed.

The highway that wound south
along the Fraser to Lytton remained
as it had been for decades, a narrow
washboard road that frequently was
cut by slides in winter and spring
. and smothered the cars with flour-
soft white dust in summer. Yet
everyone living in the Bridge River
and Lillooet. had to travel that road
to get to Vancouver.

Its not hard to see why Social\ ~

Credit carried Lillooet in the by-
election last year. For several miles
out of Lytton at one end and several
miles out of Lillooet at the other the
road has been widened and paved.
And along the remaining miles are

_ ity throughout the Lower Mainland.

Gaglardi’s familiar signs apologiz-
ing for an inconvenience that may
last for years. :

Bennett has substituted a new
political road policy for the tra-
ditional policy the Coalition follow-
ed too long. Where the Coalition
built a political machine and left
the roads to.look after themselves,
Social Credit is rebuilding roads
throughout the province, spreading
the work out over most constituen-
cies and letting the roads win the
voters.

& % Ee

It’s a shrewd policy, but Bennett
should not be too surprised if some
of the voters weary of following each
other’s tail-lights over roads unable
to accomodate the traffic. Even
Gaglardi’s polite signs became irrit-
ating if you have to sit looking at
them too long.

The fact is that the Coalition’s
road policy collapsed under the
pressure of modern traffic needs
and Social Credit’s policy is still in-
adequate to meet them. Far more
urgent than all the political paving
in the Okanagan is completion of the
stretch from Ruby Creek to Haig to
provide a second highway through
the Fraser Valley. And even that
won't relieve the traffic congestion
in the Canyon unless a highway is
built northward out of Vancouver.

Bennett may be counting on the
up-country constituencies to re-
elect his government. But this only
accentuates the fact that the worst
road I. know is the one I live
on in Burnaby — and there are
hundreds as bad in every municipal-

May 25, 1956 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 5