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liament rushed through a vote
Ying Canada to the North Atlantic
Suicide) Pact, now known as

NATO, The vote was 149 for
ind 2 opposed. “Mark well the
thy,” the Pacific Tribune wrote at
at time, because “the people will
Ave good cause to regret this
Yote,””

Rhapsodizing on this particular
Vote the Toronto Daily Star said
"veryone seemed to be happy” be-
“use of the “congratulatory” hand-
Nakes between the leaders of all
Patties in the House: St. Laurent,
forge’ Drew, Solon Low and M.
Coldwell at the success of this
Wall Street-inspired ‘war pact vote.
For the people of Canada it has
fen a very costly decision.. For
Yer eight years approximately $242
billion dollars annually have gone
wn this NATO “defense” rat-
hole, Needed expenditures for

* our rich natural resources, the

pendence of our country — all
ave been sacrificed because of our
“Mmittments to the Dulles “brink-
Manship” policies. For the arma-
Ment manufacturer and the big
Monopolists it has been a happy
'tvest in profits. For the common
ople it has been a war of attri-
“h upon their substance, sover-
“gnty and security.

Now, happily, by a sequence of
Vents, we are being jolted back
0 a measure of sanity. It must
be Said however that in top gov-
“hment circles the evidence of this
Wht is stilt very slight!

» by some cosmic phenomena a
‘Snstellation of stars had formed
Lnuselves into a _ vast STOP,
ipOK, AND LISTEN sign, vis-

® to all on this planet, the effect
ould scarcely have exceeded the
wyract of Sputniks 1 and 2 on the

loking of mankind. It brought
| 4P with a jerk that socialist know-
‘is = applied to peaceful purposes:
|, “Perior to capitalist “know-how
“tleated to war.

a also reminded a lot of people
|, he Soviet Union and socialism
this world to stay, and that

hy

he f the so-called “free” West
| ay,

hak, an eleventh-hour choice to
De €: either to co-exist in one world
lng “fully, or face utter destruc-

Pec 8 rocket-delivery nuclear

Pacific Tribune

Phone: MArine 5288
Ass, editor — TOM McEWEN
“late Editor — HAL GRIFFIN
Subscription Rates:
One Year: $4.00
__ Six months: $2.25
R Published weekly at
Som 6 ‘— 426 Main Street
C Vancouver 4, B.C.
tounpeadian and Commonwealth
Ie Mies (except Australia): $4.00
ng Year. Australia, United States
all other countries: $5.00 one
year.

Bark well the ‘day’

sNONDay. March 28, 1949, par-

‘ducation, national health, old age
Ptsions, housing, the development

Pavel On ow ee Be

aaa

war, in which all humanity would
be the losers.

That is the meaning of Nikita
Khrushchev’s latest proposal for a
“summit” meeting of the big pow-
ers. ‘Better,’ he said, “to com-
pete with Sputniks than with lethal
weapons’!

Much better for everyone, up to
and including John Foster Dulles.
The NATO “brinkmanship” road
leads to a still greater wasteful
squandering of the people's re-
sources with certain destruction in
the end. The other road leads to
friendly competition in a world co-
existing for the advancement, peace
and happiness of mankind. Such
a choice should not be difficult!

Our politicians are beginning)
slowly it is true, to see the lights
of Sputnik. Also’ some of our big
newspapers, like the Vancouver Sun
in its editorials of November 4-14
are beginning (belatedly) to get
a glimmer of the suicidal policies
(for Canada) in the Dulles “brink-

manship” mania!

That is all to the good, but it is
the cominon people who, in the last
analysis, are the deciding force, for
Canadian - Soviet friendship, co-
operation and peace and an end
to the massive suicide that is NATO.

EDITORIAL PAGE «

Comment

The jobless crisis

ITH unemployment _ steadily
soaring and the politicos in
Victoria and Ottawa doing little
about it except talk, the timely ac-
tion of the Vancouver and District
Labor Council (CLC) to call a mass
rally for Friday, November 29 in

the Georgia Auditorium to tackle’

this grave problem, merits the full-
est support. of everyone concerned
with the wellbeing of our province
and country.

Labor leaders and other public
men and organizations have warned
for some time that because of spe-
cific factors in the nation’s U.S.-
dominated economy, unemployment
might reach three-quarters of a
million or more this coming winter.
At the moment there are some
195,000 able-bodied Canadians look-
ing for jobs. This does not include
those whose unemployment insur-
ance benefits have run out, nor the
thousands on part-time jobs.

The Tory Diefenbaker govern-
ment, more intent upon a new elec-
tion window-dressing than grappling
with the growing menace of unem-
ployment, juggles with figures to
“prove” (to itself) that Canada’s
labor force has grown, the growth
of unemployment is therefore “nor-
mal” and is “not alarming.”

There is no lack of proposals
from organized labor on what

should be done. The Canadian
Labor Congress and the B.C. Fed-
eration of Labor have already plac-
ed many constructive proposals be-
fore federal and provincial govern-
ments. Increased and extended
unemployment insurance benefits;
large scale provincial and federal
works programs; release of federal
monies for housing, slum clearance,
school, university, hospital and
other needed construction. The lack
is not in constructive proposals from
labor, but in the inability of farti-
san, hide-bound politicians to face
realities.

One important item which this’

mass rally should determinedly ex-
press itself upon is that of markets
for Canada’s surplus products. Ex-
tended markets with the Common-
wealth countries’ on the basis of
sterling; the opening of diplomatic
and trade relations with the Peo-
ple’s Republic of China, and a final
end to our economic strangulation
by the dollar-diplomacy of Dulles
“brinkmanship.” The potential of
China’s market alone would go a
long way towards ending the pres-
ent threat of mass unemployment,
with its consequent suffering and
want.

Tom
McEwen

WENTY-SIX years ago this
Tee eight Communist lead-
ers stood in the dock before the
Supreme Court of Ontario, charg-
ed with “conspiring to overthrow
the government by force and vio-
lence.”

One year before this judicial
farce was staged, the Tories had
elected R. B. (Iron Heel) Ben-

not exactly the word. Fact is
Bennett bought the Tory leader-
ship much as the habitue of a
brothel buys the services of these
institutions of capitalism.

“Blect me to power,’ boomed
Bennett to his purchased par-
venues, “and I. will cure unem-
ployment in thirty days.”

Bennett’s “cure” was a simple
one; herd all the unemployed
into “relief’ camps in remote
areas and give them a meagre
prison fare menu plus 20 cents
a day. “Nothing like hard work,”
said the great man, “for keeping
our people fit.”

There was one major obstacle
to Bennett’s “cure.” The Com-
munists. They put forward such

nett to leadershin. “Elected” is

“subversive” ideas as full relief
benefits to all jobless workers.
“Useful work and decent wages,”
they said, and organized the un-
employed around these “unlaw-
ful” demands.

Such “lawlessness” could not

be tolerated. if the Bennett “cure”
was to apply. Something had to
be done!

Twelve years earlier another
Tory prime minister, the saturn-
ine Arthur Meighan, had insert-
ed a new section in the Criminal
Code by order-in-council to
break the Winnipeg general strike
and send thé tate James S.
Woodsworth and several of his
colleagues who led the historic
strike, to prison. Section 98 of
the Criminal Code.

“Excellent,” said the great Tory
doctor Bennett. “This will get
rid of the Communists and allow
my cure for unemployment to
work unhindered.”

One of the finer features about
this Section 98 brainchild of a
Tory “statesman” was its rever-
sal of British» concepts of legal
precedent. Under Section 98 the
prisoner at the bar wasn’t pre-
sumed to be innocent until found
guilty but on the contrary, pre-
sumed to be very guilty, with
the onus of “proving” his inno-
cence upon himself.

“I have a place for you,”
screamed a _ beet-faced Bennett
when this writer headed the firs’

all-Canada delegation of jobless
workers to interview him in his
Ottawa lair and press the need
of statutory unemployment insur-
ance. “Never,” he shouted, “will
I put our people on the dole, or
put a premium on idleness.”

Section 98 ground vut its course
and took its prison toll of scores
of workers, Communist and non-
Communist alike, but it didn’t
cure unemployment. Nor did it
“cure” workers from striking
when the Tory Meighan gave
birth to it a decade or more earl-
ier any more than it could today.

Section 98 was officially bur-
ied by parliament expressing the
mass will of the Canadian people
in 1936. Three years later the
Tory witch-doctor Bennett who
sought to apply it as a “cure” for
the breakdown of a social sys-
tem he himself personified, also
cashed in his checks. There were
no mourners in~ attendance at
either event.

The importance of this anni_
versary of 26 years ago is not
that eight Comunis: leaders were
hustled off to the penitentiary
via a “legal” backdoor, but that
workingmen, then as now, wheth-
er employed or jobless, have
no future in Tory “cures,” prom-
ises, or noisy demagogy. That
much these past 26 years, illum-
inated by the victories of social-
ism in other lands, have made
very clear!

November 22, 1957 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 5