Review

This is Port Radium on Great Bear Lake, a uranium mining centre.

EDITORIAL PAGE x

Canada’s birthday

Nex week on July 1 Canada

celebrates her 92nd birthday.
Ninety-two years since Confedera-
tion. and the birth of a united and
virile bi-national state. To record
the progress and development of
these 92 years of epic growth would
require a volume. They are many
and varied, and Canadians have
every right to be justly proud of
these achievements. ,

There are some things however,
which, on our natal day it is well
to remember, but are not matters
invoking pride.

The surrender by successive Lib-
eral and Tory governments of our
national sovereignty, independence,
economy and peace, to the dictates
and interests of predatory U.S.
imperialism! .

The subordination of our econ-
omy, our markets, and even the
international friendships we as a
‘nation may seek to cultivate, to
the atomic war-minded conspirators
in Washington!

The surrender of our territory
for missile-launching sites, our skies
and our so-called “defense” to the
atomic-trigger men of the Pentagon,
who regard Canada and Canadians

’ as “expendable” in their nuclear
wat conspiricies against the lands

of Socialism!

And. corresponding with this

shameful betrayal of Canada’s in-
terests and peace, a steadily mount-
ing attack against labor and the
people by powerful monopolies and
cartels, backed by Liberal, Tory

—
p e . s
acific Tribune
Phone MUtual 5-5288
Editor — TOM. McEWEN
Managing Editor — BERT WHYTE
., - Published weekly at
_.. Room 6 — 426 Main Street
Vancouver 4, B.C.
Subscription Rates:
One Year: $4.00
Six Months: $2.25
Canadian and Commonwealth

untries (except Australia): $4.00.

“one year. Australia, United States
and all other countries: $5.00 one
year.

and Socred governments alike.
Attacks which have as their prime
aim. the destruction of all the basic
economic and legislative gains labor
has made since Confederation; the
weakening of our vast labor and
productive forces, in order to fac-
ilitate an easier and greater degree
of exploitation—already evident by
a permanent and growing army of
jobless -workers.

These are only a few of the
things it is well to remember on
Canada’s birthday, and the urgent
reed for labor-farmer-people’s unity
to end this betrayal of our nation’s
birthright, independence, prosperity
and peace.

TTORNEY - GENERAL Robert

Bonner may not be very fast on
the “draw” when it comes to dealing
with Socred ministerial and police
chief grafters, but he’s sure johnny-
on-the spot when the need to echo
the bosses’ war-cry for a “‘hold-the-
line” on wages arises.

This week in an address to the
Vancouver Board of Trade, Bonner
sees “prosperity” ending in B.C.
forthwith, unless the IWA meekly
accepts what the profit - glutted
lumber operators are willing to
grant. According to Bonner our in-
dustry just cannot “compete” in
world markets if it fails to “hold-
the-line on costs” (read wages).
That “market” gag is an old one,
but Bonner, who seems to think
the workingman’s dollar is made
of rubber, should take another look
at the profit balance sheets of the
timber monopolies for whom he
shows such touching concern.

This week, too, Socred Minister
of Labor Lyle Wicks sounded off
in, similar vein. Wicks painted a
doleful picture of all the “losses”

the province’s economy would suf-.

fer, should 26,000 IWA men be
compelled to hit the bricks to win
their justifiable wage demands.

The prime aim of both Bonner.

and Wick’s “hold-the-line” dirge
is directed against the IWA strike

Bonner and the | WA

Comment

vote which averaged well ovet 90
percent of its entire mem!
in favor, and. will undoubtedly t |
cord a like sentiment in
ernment-supervised strike vot
for June 26.

Accompanied by their oft. ep
ed jargon of “pricing ourselves‘
of the world market,” the lumber
operators through the medi
a majority conciliation “award”
poses a 12-cent increase COV
a two-year contract. The IW!
demanded a 20 percent wage
which is modest in view 0
rocketting living costs and th
that the union got nothing 1
1958 contract, plus the addit tone
fact that the operators’ profits have
zoomed over the past two
a point which both Bonner.
Wicks obscure in their pinch-hi :
for the lumber trust.

The economic “forecasts” of
Socred bigwigs simply go to”
firm what every lumber and othe
worker already knows; viz,
any and all issues involving capt
and labor, the Socreds, like
Liberals and Tories, are alwa)
ready to play “Charley Mc
for big business!

Who says “Fish - and -
Smallwood of Newfoundland h
any monopoly on anti-union

aganda and strike-breaking?

Tom
McEwen)

HE daily press carried a news
T item last week to the effect
that an -automobile driver in
Moscow Who (presumably) had
“one too many for the road” and
was involved in a fatal accident,
has been sentenced to death,

While traffic safety regulations
governing car drivers are much
more strict in the USSR than
heré, they are not quite as drastic
as this little bit of cold war touch-
ing up in the commercial press
would have us. believe.

Perhaps this particular press
item was “slanted” to convey the
idea that here in the “free” West
drunken or irresponsible car
drivers can maim or kill at will,

without fear of anything worse :

than a monetary fine or tempor-
ary suspension of driving license!

Some two weéks ago.a Toronto
tragedy brought this truth home
to us with renewed impact: Mrs.
Annabelle Fulford, daughter of
A. A. and Virginia MacLeod, was

killed by a driver who had just
emerged from one of those whoo-
pee parties some three hundred
yards away, and slammed into
the first car that came within his
vision; a car containing a young
32-year-old mother of three child-
ren.

While thousands in B.C. and
across Canada, who know “A, A.”
personally, express their deepest
sorrow with him and his family
in their tragic bereavement, the
menace of drunken and irrespon-
sible car drivers remains, re-
corded weekly in a rising total
of hapless victims.

Last week I attended the funeral
of an old Yukon friend and com-
rade, Alex “Dutchy” Levin.
“Dutchy” was run over and kill-
ed between a big work truck and
power shovel. I was informed by
some of “Dutchy’s” workmates «
that his body was so badly broken
up that it had-to be put in the
coffin in pieces.

Be that as it may, “Dutchy,”
a native of Holland, having no -
relatives in this country, is un-.
doubtedly considered a good
“break” for the company, and
lets them out of. compensation
or other costs arising from gross
negligence. So with poor “Dut-_
chy” the prime problem was. not
that he was killed, -but who

- parking meters) than in combin

if that doesn’t work, cancel their ™
_ -driver’s license—for keeps...» “<*
_ - Here,:.
- weighed :

would hiterahice the funeral
costs?

-In Vancouver and throughout —
B.C. there is scarcely a week
passes without a new victim of
the careless or drunken driver
being added to the grim tally,
in many cases aged pensioners
who are not so nimble as they —
were twenty years ago, or little
children, innocent of the fact that
maniacs are permitted to use
mobile lethal weapons in our
“free way of: life.” Innocent of
the fact too that law enforce- —
ment agencies seem ito put much
greater emphasis upon revenues
that can be extracted from a
motoring public (top priority to

out an irresponsible minority of
drivers who. are a menace to
every citizen, old and. young,
when at the wheel of a-car:

In the USSR they don’t execute ~
careless or-drunken drivers. The f
simply put-them on a “good: be- 5
haviour” probationary period, an¢

where everything is
in terms -of:. profit, ©
“revenue”. takes top priority in’
the results of “one (too on
for the. road’”—with . the haple:

citizen, providing the “fatal cetas ° ;
tistics. Se Se

June 26, 1959 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE|