a, : ‘
S€ race on Baker Street in Nelson in 1898, when the
estern Federation of Miners was organising
in the Kootenays

the In the 189g provincial election, -the hard-rock miners of
te E cnays, newly organised into the Socialist-led Western
figh¢ aon of Miners, used the campaign to advance their
Which a the eight-hour day. Backed by the Rossland World,
lectin e€ WFEM had acquired, their vote was decisive in
ltion © Candidates pledged to support eight-hour day legis-
Sem a en the new government of Premier Charles A.
8neral Passed a bill, introduced by Joseph Martin, its attorney-
the;, .? ©Stablishing the eight-hour day in hard-rock mines,
MPaign appeared to have been won.

ion Ut the mine owners launched their own counter-cam-
Ned... Prevent the law from being enforced, They organ-
bo, 4Ssociation among themselves, each posting a $2,500
than e, 0 forfeited: if he recognised a union or paid more
mand Or eight hours or- $3.50 for ten, The miners
thei, ten hours’ pay for the eight-hour day and won
Uefea “mand after a long strike in which they successfully
; ae the mine owners’ attempts to operate the mines

<eDreakers,

hig at ane politi¢al gyrations over a four-year period and
Ven le Pts to obtain labor support for his political ambitions
the Dy to the trade unions winning a major concession from
; smuir Conservative government.

a} ome aa the Semlin government forced his resignation as
he eq SeNeral in 1898, Martin went into opposition and

. © accomplish the ‘government’s downfall. In face of
Yor. Whelmin

agai ngly hostile legislature—the want of confidence
_ ost him was 28 to 1—he undertook to form a gov-

BRy marking
TISH COLUMBIA'S CENTENNIAL YEAR

‘day, June 15-8 p.m.

{ AJESTIC THEATRE — Carrall and Hastings

e SING Variety Program
ING © DANCING ® MUSIC
Featuring the Doukhobor Youth
| ate invitations available at Russian Hall,
*mMpbell Ave., or People’s Co-op Bookstore,

307 West Pender

ernment, which lasted only three and a half months, precipi-
tating a constitutional crisis that led to recall of Lieut. Goy-
ernor T. R. McInnes.

Despite his strong appeal for labor support, Martin’s
government was defeated in the 1900 election. Then, after
the Dunsmuir government had held office for a year, he
formed an alliance with it, still sitting as leader of the official
opposition but consistently voting with it, while the actual
opposition was led by Richard McBride. The province was
confronted with the spectacle of a Conservative government
supported by Liberals and opposed by other Conservatives,

In 1902 Martin introduced in the legislature “An ‘Act to
Amend the law relating to Trade Unions.’ Some 1,000 miners
employed by the Le Roi Company at Rossland had been on
strike for higher wages and recognition of the WFM from
July to November, 1901. In October, after the miners had
persuaded strikebreakers brought in by the company to quit,
the company sued the union for damages and subsequently
was awarded $12,500 and costs,

Martin’s bill, which preceded the famous Taff Vale
decision in Britain by four years, exempted any trade union
from damage suits arising out of any wrongful act in a labor
dispute unless it could be shown that such actions were
authorised and concurred in by the union’s officers and mem-
bers acting within their powers under the union’s constitution.

At the same session J. H. Hawthornthwaite succeeded in
placing a Workmen’s Compensation law on the statute books.

og % %

In April 1902, at Kamloops, the major sections of the
labor movement in the province came together for the first
time in a united political convention.

The Western Federation of Miners was organising among
the hard-rock miners and had 18 locals in the province. It was
also organising among the coal miners in the Fernie district,
where it won a strike for higher wages and union recognition
in 1902. The United Mine Workers too, had begun organising
among the coal miners in the Fernie district.

On the Fraser River in 1900-01, the fishermen, whites,
Native Indians and Japanese, had conducted long strike strug-
gles over fish prices, led by two local unions in Vancouver
and New Westminster organised by Vancouver Trades and
Labor Council.

At Vancouver and Nanaimo and in the Kootenays several
weekly papers had been founded to champion labor’s cause.
George Bartley, a pioneer unionist in the printing trades, was
publishing The Independent, supported by Vancouver Trades
and Labor Council, Harry Buckle was editing The Clarion as
a Socialist Labor paper in Nanaimo. R. Parm Pettipiece, pub-
lisher of the Lardeau Eagle, and George Wrigley, publisher
of Citizen and Country in Toronto, were preparing to amalga-
mate their papers and launch a new paper in Vancouver,
the Canadian Socialist. (The Canadian Socialist merged with
The Clarion’ in 1903 to become the Western Clarion.) {The
hard-rock miners had two papers to voice their demands, the
Rossland World and the Sandon Paystreak, published by its
printer-editor, William McAdam.

The Kamloops convention, called on the initiative of
the Western Federation of Miners, brought together 51
organisations. In addition to the 18 miners’ locals, five Soci-
alist parties and two Socialist leagues, three labor parties,
seven trades and labor councils, 15 unions and one single tax
association were represented.,

The outcome was formation of the Provincial Progressive
party, with Christopher Foley of Rossland as its president and
J. D. McNiven of Victoria as its secretary.

The new party, in its lengthy platform, demanded pro-
portional representation, votes for women, abolition of cash
deposits in provincial elections and of property qualifications
in municipal elections. It proposed a minimum wage of not
less than $2 a day and reduction of the working week to 48
hours for all trades. Education, it held, should be free, secular
and compulsory up to age 16, with textbooks, meals and
clothing to be supplied when necessary. It also sought free
medical attention for all needing it,

In the field of public ownership it called for govern-
ment ownership of railways and communications and govern-
ment establishment and operation of smelters and refineries.
By comparison, the Conservative platform in 1902 called for
government ownership of railways “wherever possible” and
government ownership of the telephone system, and the
Liberal platform for government ownership of public services
and utilities—paper promises that neither Conservative nor
Liberal governments. made any attempt to redeem until the
Pacific Great Eastern scandal in 1916-17 forced a Liberal
government to assume ownership of a bankrupt railway.
~ Formation of the Provincial Progressive party was a
hopeful beginning. but the hope was destined to be short-lived.

(NEXT WEEK: THE SOCIALIST TRADITION—
Continued)

BOOKS”

Balzac’s novels
living history

HEN novelists of genius

live shortly after some
great event, and have heard
their elders talking of their
experiences, human documents
of great historic value can
result.

Honore de Balzac, born in
France in 1799, often reveals
in his great novels what people
who lived through the French
Revolution said and thought
about it—providing a kind of
documentation not found in
the history books.

In The Gondreville Mystery
translated by Gerard Hopkins,
Balzac. writes of a royalist
plot to overthrow the republic,
in 1803 and the years follow-
ing, and a republican plot to
bar the way to Napoleon.

He brings on to the stage
four kinds of counter-revolu-
tionaries under the republic.

There were those aristocrats
and their followers who Qp-
posed the republic at all times
as openly as they dared; those
who aquiesced in the new re-
gime, but were willing to sup-
port a revolt should an oppor-
tunity occur; those who pre-
tended to support the republic
and insinuated themselves into
responsible posts in order to
do damage; and—by far the
most dangerous — those who
strongly supported the repub-
lic while it was on the up-
grade, but were ready to
change sides when they
thought it was on the way out.

Balzac wrote after the res-
toration of the monarchy—and
he makes clear in another
novel, Le Cabinet des Antiques,
that the counter-revolution was
only partially successful.

A nobleman who has re-
turned to his chateau from
abroad is told by his lawyer
that he is about to have an
illegitimate grandchild by a
girl in the village.

“Have the girl imprisoned,”
he says, and the lawyer has to
explain to him that although
the kings have returned to
France such things can no lon-
ger be done.

The French Revolution had
broken the power of the great
landlords for ever.

But The Gondreville Mys-
tery is far more than an his-
torical document. It is one of
the great novels of the world.

Some of Balzac’s best short
stories are well translated by
M. A. Crawford in Domestie
Peace and Other Stories (ob-
tainable here at the People’s
Co-op Bookstore, 307 West
Pender Street, price 70 cents).
ERIC SCOTT

June 6, 1958 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 9