this province for the last thirteen
years. And, always the champion
of the Pro-Rec organization, the
Shipyard General Workers’ Fed-
®ration is establishing an inter-
esting precedent by donating the
use of the beautiful, mural-decor-
ated hall free of charge for week-
ly classes. :

: Organized in. the depression
i years .to. provide free recreation
for. underprivil- .

eged men,. wom-
en and children,
and to turn the
energies of un-
émployed young:
meén and women
“away from the

Poolrooms . and
Street’ - corner
gangs,” toward

something. more
wholesome, Pro-
Ree has proved
& healthy’ baby
that has thrived

Cynthia Wilmot

remarkably throughout the years.
Hampered during the war by lack
of trained personnel, Pro-Rec in-

stituted government - sponsored
training classes. Maintaining that
Pro-Ree principles meant “keeping
everything within the reach of
i the low income groups,” ambi-
tious recreational directors-to-be
were required only to pay a two-
dollar registration fee for the en-
tire six-week course. Similarly,
Pro-Rec fees have been kept
down to a token “registration fee”
of one dollar per year, despite ris-
ing hall rents, rising payrates, and
rising equipment costs.

Now a ‘healthy organization of
Close to one hundred thousand
Members, Pro-Rec has government
Maintained centers in all parts of
the province. And under the spir-
ited leadership of Mrs. Hilda Keat-
ley, director of women’s activity,
thousands of young housewives
and mothers troop to Pro-Ree cen-
ters every night in the week for

Pro-Rec opens center
Pender Auditorium

By CYNTHIA WILMOT

With the. opening of a Pro-Rec center in the labor move-
ment’s own Pender Auditorium in Vancouver, attention was
focussed this week once again on the movement which has

\ provided recreation and physical training for the people of

a healthful three hours of funda-
mental gymnastics, modern dance,
folk dancing and games. Men’s
centers specialize in fundamental
gymnastics, ,, tumbling, weight lift-
ing, and organized sports. Junior
classes are modified versions of
adult routines, with the emphasis
on fun and games.

The new group at Pender Audi-
torium, which meets every Thurs-
day ‘evening at eight, is under
sponsorship of the Workers Edu-
cational. Association, and is open
to the general public.

Finnish paper
marks birthday

SUDBURY—One of Canada’s
oldest and most progressive news-
papers —‘“Vapaus’— celebrated its
30th birthday last week, and when
the special anniversary issue came
off the press it was crowded to
the seams with hundreds , of
goodwill messages from both Fin-
nish and non-Finish admirers.

Founded November 6, 1917, the
paper has served a steadily grow-
ing Finnish-Canadian community
and now numbers its circulation
in the thousands. Progressive and
hard-hitting in policy,
ing defence of democratic rights
and traditions is steadily increas-
ing the paper’s number of readers
and supporters.

Published three times weekly, it
has earned the esteem and re-
spect of all sections of this com-
munity, its home base; but birth-
day celebrations in honor of the
30th anniversary will not be con-
fined to Sudbury. Finnish-Cana-
dians all over Canada will gather
to pay tribute to this fighting,

democratic newspaper.

Soviet Arctic regions, at least,
the dream is coming true.

This coming Monday, Novem-
-ber 17, when Stefansson speaks
at Pender Auditorium here, he
will be able to tell his audience
. Of what the Soviets have ac
complished in transforming
vast areas neglected under the
Tsarist regime into thriving
‘industrial centres maintained
by agricultural developments
Specially adapted to northern
Conditions.

“In 1940, the largest villages.
North of the Arctic Circle, in
North America, were each

Stefansson to speak
in Pender Auditorium

A quarter of a century ago, :
Stefansson first predicted development of the Arctic to
Support populous cities, factor
_air, he was dismissed as a VIS

under 300 persons,” he writes.
“As against our top figure of
300 in a village, there were,
“in 1940, a'number of cities in
the Soviet Arctic which had
frown in a decade from &
handful of inhabitants to 5,000,
10,000 and 15,000 each.

opment, we can no longer re-

as mere visionary theory. Sak
haps, in the future of our grea!

eventually become a true front-
ler of peace.”

The meeting in Vancouver,
originally arranged for Ex-
hibition Gardens, has been
transferred to Pender Audi-
torium because of the street
railway strike. The committee
.8ponsoring the noted explorer’s
‘visit here felt that the change

‘In the light of Soviet devel- |

gard the concept of polenta

land, our northern frontier will| §

in 1922, when Vilhjalmur

ries and farms linked by
ionary. Today, in the

to a downtown hall would better
enable the many people wishing
to hear Stefansson to attend

the meeting.
Reserved tickets at one dollar

VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON

are obtainable at Kelly’s, West
Georgia Street, and unreserved
tickets at 75 cents are on sale
at the Pacific Tribune offices,
650 Howe Street.

_ Frmay, NOVEMBER 14, 1947

its fight-’

«
Lots of parking---no gas
Cleared bomb sites serve as parking lots for cars in London’s
financial district. The famous Market Buildings, damaged during
the blitz, were recently re-opened after repairs. Now London
motorists are on a rigid gas ration as a result of U.S. ‘dollar
crisis’ squeeze, While Britishers must, automobiles just won’t

run on ‘austerity.’

VLC to seek Congress
aid on immigration -

Disturbed by the haphazard methods of immigration be-
ing pursued by the King and Drew governments and private
individuals, where British workers are being enticed to emi-
grate to Canada without adequate provision of either jobs

ae
‘International

. ® f
for nazi “exiles

By JOHANNES STEEL

LAKE SUCCESS—The lobbies of
the United Nations have become
infested with fascist politicians
who have been exiled from their
own countries. These include ac-
tive Croat Ustachi terrorists. En-
couraged by the direct assistance
given by the state department,
they are preparing to set up a
“fascist exiles’ international.”

Meanwhile, a meeting of exiled
leaders of eastern Europe’s so-
called peasant parties is sched-
uled to take place in London.
They are former politicians from
Yugoslavia, Hungary, Bulgaria,
Romania and Poland, many of
them condemned to death for trea-
son in their homelands. They will
“discuss their attitude to the for-
mation of the Communist Infor-
mation Bureau in Belgrade,” a
semi-official British source has
announced.

The Romanian ex-Foreign Minis-
ter Gregor Gefencu went to the
London meeting from Geneva. He
is a close associate of Grigore
Niculescu who, with other exiles
in New York, recently demanded
UN intervention against the exist-
ing governments in their home
countries.

Pro-fascist Poles, in touch with
the remnants of the old Polish
London government, are establish-
ing new headquarters in Stock-
holm. The Polish paper Wiadom-
osci Polskie, which is published
in Stockholm for Polish refugees,
recently contained an appeal to
privates and non-commissioned
officers in the “peasant battalions”
urging them to “organize in new
formations which can continue
the fight for Poland under new
and different forms.”

(Mikolajezyk has
this crew.—Ed.)

It is obvious that the Polish
refugees in Sweden intend to pro-
mote _ their illegal conspira-
cies against Poland from Stock-
holm.

now joined

or homes, the Vancouver Labor
Council at its recent meeting de-
cided to act jointly with the CCL
towards getting in touch with the
British Trade Union Congress on
the issue.

Sharp criticism was leveiled
against certain union officials who
in recent months have busied
themselves with immigration pro-
jects, and which are believed not
to be in the best interests of labor.
While VLC delegates voiced ap-
proval of a carefully planned
selective immigration policy, such
a policy must have regard to the
ability of Canada to absorb im-
migrants’ in keeping with local
conditions and the maintenance
of Canadian standards.

The Council voted $50.00 to the
Street Railwaymen’s strike, and
an additional $100.00 to the steel
workers who are still on strike.

The questions of BCFL repre-
sentation on the proposed Labor-
Relations Board came up for dis-
cussion. While the BCFL had
submitted the names of Harold
Pritchett, IWA District president,
Harvey Murphy, Western repre-
sentative IUMM&SW and Alex
McKenzie, as possible selectees for
membership on: the new Board,
a letter from the CCL executive

questioned the sole right of the
BCFL to name a slate, and pro-
posed that all CCL unions not
affiliated with the BCFL could
submit names for appointment.
These would be forwarded to the
Congress executive and submitted
to the Minister of Labor by that
body. The Mosher-Conroy letter
pointed out that any CCL union
satisfied with the BCFL choice
need not submit other names.
The VCL decided to accept the
report of the delegates to the re-
cent CCL convention ‘as is’ with-
out further debate. Only .point
at issue will be the Congress con-
vention anti-Soviet resolution
which is slated for debate at the
next VCL meeting, and on which
it is contended the Congress con-
vention exceeded its rights in the
passage of such a resolution.

° e

Profits hit new peak

OTTAWA — Canadian corpora-
tions made a net profit of $61
out of every man, woman and
child in the country during 1946,
compared with $31 per capita for
1938, the Dominion’s Bureau of

Statistics revealed here. The «1947
total is expected to be even higher.

The profit figure, taking a total
of investment and gross corporate
profits, “was actually  $3,059,000,-
one-third of the national income
in a country of 12 million people.

The other side of the picture
showed that real wages of work-
ers, farmers and salaried people

“|had dropped by 8 percent since

1938. Consumers. took a_ beating
by being able to buy only 66 .per-
cent of goods and services pro-
duced, compared to 72 percent in
1938. This drop. is, more glaring
because output zoomed during the
eight years. :

Other official Ottawa releases
said that prices would continue
to rise for at least another 18
months.

Textile workers strike

QUEBEC CITY—Five thousand
eight hundred workers at four
plants of the Dominion Textile in
Montmorency, Drummonyille, Sher-
brooke and Magog, went on strike
today according to an announce-
ment by the Catholic syndicate
here. ‘

The labor organization said that
the workers went on strike be-
cause the company refused to ac-
cept the majority decision of an
arbitration tribunal.

It was understood that repre-
sentatives of the union and the
Dominion Textile Company were
meeting with provincial labor min-
ister Antonio Barrette in Montreal
in an effort to settle the dispute.

It is up to Canada

TORONTO — “Surely the publi-
cation in the notorious ‘espionage’
Teport of completely unsubstan-
tiated statements regarding Soviet
diplomats, has done more to dam-
age Soviet-Canadian relations than
anything published in the Soviet
Union,” Frank Park, director of
the Canadian-Soviet . Friendship-
Council said last week, ecomment-
ing on Mr. J. L. Usley’s address
to the UN on the war-mongering
resolution,

“As for free travel in the Soviet
Union, one can scarcely expect
that a country devastated by war
could at this stage permit it.
It is our information that tour-
ist travel in Russia wili soon be-
come available again, once trans-
Sherpa facilities have been re-
uilt.” ‘

The general didn’t say

VICTORIA—Interviewed by-CCL
unionists Tom Fanthorps and Alex
Mitchell on the question of sup-
porting price control, rent con-
tro! and housing legislation at
the forthcoming session of Par-
lament, General Pearkes, tory
MP for Nanaimo, replied that
“something definitely must be done
for those on fixed incomes and

Pensions,” but declined to specify
what.

The Victoria Centre LPP Club in
an interview with the City Coun-
cil has demanded legislatién from
Ottawa to curb profiteering by
prohibiting any further price in-
creases, re-establishing controls,
restoring government subsidies on
essential consumer goods, and the
prosecution of profiteers.

The LPP committee presented
a brief citing local price increases
and observed that “the Corpora-
tion of the City of Victoria is
itself a consumer and in the same
jackpot with all other consum-

ers.”
PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 4