a a ee ee ge ee ae ti ~ Review TOM McEWEN, Editor — HAL GRIFFIN, Associate Editor — RITA WHYTE, Business Manager. EDITORIAL PAGE Published weekly by the Tribune Publishing Company Ltd. at Room 6, 426 Main Street, Vancouver 4, B.C. — MArine 5288 Canada and British Commonwealih countries (except Australia), 1 year $3.00, 6 months $1.60. Australia, U.S., and all other countries, 1 year $4.00, 6 months $2.50. Printed by Union Printers Ltd., 550 Powell Street, Vancouver 4, B.C. Authorized as second class mai), Post Office Department, Ottawa Tom McEwen DUCATION is a great asset. None of us can have too much of it, especially Where it touches on those basic things which contribute to an enlightened Society. Some few weeks ago the Yankee educationalists”). who are now in pro- cess of wrecking a good union in Van- Couver, Local 213 of the International Brotherhood of Hlectrical Workers, got local president John Waplington to mail out a pamphlet to all IBEW members. With this anti-Communist dime thriller Went a covering letter from Waplington declaring that he would “appreciate ach member reading and studying this Pamphlet” and adding his own approval to its lying and slanderous contents. This pamplet recommended to IBEW Members for “reading and study” is , Entitled The Death of a Union, ghost- “titten for the ex-Communist renegade and stoolpigeon, T. G. McManus, onetime ader of the now defunct Canadian amen’s Union. This pamphlet, ac- Cording to Waplington, is the “true” Story of how Communists “dominated” ‘he CSU (before “wrecking it.” History, of course, shows something: entirely different. The real wreckers of the OSU were the King-St. Laurent gov- ernment, the Trades and Labor Con- Stess hierarchy and a gangster-con- trolled seaman’s “union” imported from the United States. .t is doubtful if, in his search for Education,’ Waplington or his US. S0ons ever heard of the stoolpigeon Mc- Manus, Let us introduce Waplington to one did know McManus, his wife, Mrs. Annette McManus, who did not get the Same javish spread from McLean's ‘4gazine her rengade husband did! S is what Mrs. McManus wrote Publicly: : “T had hoped that my husband, T. G. McManus, would have had the decency Rot to bring me and the children into the stories which he is now writing. How- €ver, since he has chosen to bring us into it, I feel I must speak out against _ ™y husband’s incredible hypocrisy.” he In his article in McLean’s Magazine, actions for a long time. Without regard — T us he neglected his family for drink Personal excesses. He had become Untrustworthy and given to making up aha to explain his behavior to a point thane’ we could no longer believe any- ung he said. , + am not a Communist, and I know Nand Well he is not acting from any of : é Motives which the boasts. His actions ~-m from no other motive than his eae for money to carry on the shame- Wl kind of life he has been living for fe ‘Ong time now, to the neglect of his amily, “In the Jast few months | was wor- ed that he was becoming mentally un- aalanced. He stopped living at: home, nd refused to accept responsibility for oe family. On several occasions last tied I spoke to the officers of his union ' asked them to be careful of how ‘y let him handle funds. I was afraid © Might involve us all in trouble. ae: hatever he does now is his own our cS: ‘but let him Jeave his family fe Of it. I am sending this to you, sir, the hope that we may be spared fur- €r unpleasant publicity.” ducation is indeed a great thing, ae fully rounded out. Sometimes, child from a deserted mother and her ren we can get a better study course lington and his Yankee managers. nN that projected by Brother Wap- Table it now, Premier Bennett J ew silence maintained by the Bennett government on its deal with the U.S-front West coast Transmission Company and other U.S. interests for a B.C. na- tural gas pipeline, is suspicious, to say the least. If this ‘‘gentlemen’s agreement’”’ the government has concluded fully safeguards the interests of British Columbia in the develop ment and disposal of our natural gas ,then the government has no- thing to fear. If it doesn’t, then the people are entitled to know the whys and the wherefores. And whether the deal provides or omits the essential safe- \ guards for the use of our natural gas, the legislature is entitled to know what is being done. The Socred government's deal with the Yankee trusts for our natural gas must be tabled now. The Columbia River deal with the Kaiser Aluminum interests and the handling of forest management licenses have done nothing to as- sure the people that their heritage of natural resources is being safe- guarded. On the contrary, they “make it all the more imperative — that the natural gas agreement be reviewed by the legislature now. Lay it on the table, Premier Bennett! What’s so mysterious ? T HE daily press has had a field day trying to interpret the resignation of Malenkov as Soviet premier in the light of its own il lusions' and prejudices. Indeed, some papers have contrived to ~ Jeave the*impression that they pre- dicted, if not actually organised, the change. Some of the daily press experts’ suggest that the Soviet Union is now abandoning the policy of negotiations. They reached this conclusion, obviously, by quoting only those sections of Molotov’s speech which served their purpose. The full text of Molotov’s speech, which no B.C. daily print ed, makes it perfectly clear that the Soviet Union is ready to negoti- ate on free elections and unification of Germany, as an alternative ta the policy of rebuilding German militarism which Ganada, the U.S. and Britain are so insanely pursu- ing. ‘Another school of experts proves to its own satisfaction that the change means a ‘‘guns, not but- ter’ policy. Yet at a meeting of the central committee of the Com- munist Party of the Soviet Union on anuary 31 an important resolu- tion on methods of increasing the supply of meat, milk and butter was adopted after a major speech by N. S. Khrushchev. Still other poientciors think ° that the change means a victory of those who want to be tough with the West as against those who want to be soft. ) The. division is meaningless. Months ago the Soviet Union has made it abundantly clear that it will take adequate counter-meas- ures if the Germans are rearmed. To.increase the supply of con sumer goods is not in contradiction with the policy of ensuring that heavy industry goes ahead at a greater tempo than consumer goods industries. It is precisely this development of heavy industry that is the guar- antee of a steady improvement in the production of consumer goods and the guarantee that the world of socialism will be defended against all aggressors. But whoever wants to talk peace and make peaceful agreements will find the Soviet Union ready. So the fight to stop the revival of German militarism and for peace- ful negotiations must go on in the certainty that it will be victorious. Hal Griffin b isos may have seen them at a peace rally, an election meeting or any of the innumerable affairs of Vancouver’s great labor movement, and wondered who they were. They are not a couple you readily forget.. You are struck at once by their devotion to one another — she a wisp of a woman, dainty as a piece of old Dresden china, he a still powerful man, his lower lip perpetually outthrust in his strong broad face. Age has taken its toll of their energies but it has not dimmed their interest. At 80 years of age, Captain John Henry Bingham and his wife, Emily, still look eagerly to the future, not for themselves but for everything they have lived for. There are those who strive to construe every people’s movement as alien to the soil from which it springs. So the Re- formers and Patriots were condemned in 1837 and so the Communists are de- nounced today. Before the story of a worker’s life, as Captain Bingham told his story to me the other day in his modest South Van- ecuver home, even the most persistent of such slanderers must be reduced to ~ silence. For men like Bingham are the real patriots, their patriotism demon- strated in a lifetime devoted to fighting for their fellow men, their generation the link between the Canadian nation struggling. to be born yesterday and struggling for survival against U.S. do- mination today. Bingham’s grandfather was killed fighting at the side of William Lyon Mackenzie and the Reformers in 1837. His father, orphaned at the age of three, received no schooling until he was 18 and then went on to become a school- teacher. ‘ x * x Bingham himself wanted to be a doc- tor. Instead he had to leave school when he was 13 and go to work on a farm in North Norwich Township, On- tario, where he was born in 1875. From Ontario he drifted west; to Mani- toba and then to B.C. “I was 18 when I came there,” he said. “I went fishing, and one way and another I’ve followed the sea ever since.” -Bingham’s first home was a shack on False Creek that had belonged to a ship’s captain. The captain had left his books ‘behind and from them Bingham acquired the education that enabled him to get his mate’s and then his mas- ter’s ticket for tugboats and coastwise freighters. Among his proudest posses- sions today is a life membership in the Canadian Merchant Service Guild “as a token of esteem and in appreciation of services to this association.” He was a member of the first fisher- men’s union in Vancouver. “It was or- ganized by Frank Rogers and Will Mc- _ Clain,” he said. “In 1900 we went on strike for 25 cents for sockeye. We had such public support that the canners had to make us an offer — 20 cents and union recognition. I argued for accept- ance, but the union. executive decided to hold out. Then the militia was called in and the strike was broken.” Three years later Rogers was shot down by CPR gunmen in a railroad strike and Bingham was~one of 1500 - people who marched behind his coffin along Cordova street. In the thirties Bingham took part in the struggles of the unemployed — he lost his berth when the shipping com- pany failed and he was considered too old for another. Today he and his wife are still active in ratepayers’ organiza- tions. And, as they'll tell you, “That’s what keeps us young.” PACIFIC TRIBUNE — FEBRUARY 18, 1955 — PAGE 5