discredit.

public opinion. Following

rendered to the
reactionaries. There has

change in attitude on Bill

to.gather dust and Wismer’s
_ empty words.

AST week a number of
things happened which vit- :
aly affect world peace and
security. Let us check a few
of these far-reaching events.
Washington warmongers, pok-
ing through their extensive anti-
Soviet bag of tricks, “discover-
ed” a “secret document,” to wit,
the Soviet-German Non-Agres-
sion Pact of 1939. Despite the
fact that all the terms of this
pact—and the historic reasons
for its» being—were public pro-
perty almost as soon as it was
consummated, the monopoly-
controlled press and radio of
the Marshal! planners hailed it
as a “new discovery"—and a
new “proof” of Russian perfidy!
_ The whole sorry story was blown
up to alarming proportions to
convey the impression that Rus-
sia, far from being a valiant and
trusted ally in the war, was a
_ base traitor, fighting, not for the
_ high ideals of the Atlantic Chart-
er, but for world domination.
Hard on the heels of this re-
_ markable “discovery” of Soviet
“aims” came an equally remark-
able coincidence. A couple of
days following Washington’s pub-
lication of this “secret ‘docu-
ment,” Ernest Bevin, British
foreign secretary, made an “im-
portant diplomatic speech” in the
British House of Commons. The
burden of Bevin’s blast was to
the effect that the Marshall Plan
was God’s final gift to suffering
é - .. that the Russians |
were the sole cause of all the
turmoil and dire consequences
resultant upon looking this di-
vine gift-horse in the mouth,
and that as a result of all this
bolshevik stubbornness, “war
- Was inevitable.” :

_ Washington, feigning a fine
“surprise” at the strong langu-
age context of the British foreign
_ secretary’s speech, announced its
“full agreement.”
well-groomed Anthony Eden,
Conservative former foreign sec-

Coalition betrays labor

Bees organized labor is becoming
second nature for the Coalition government.
One year ago the Coalition government brought
down Bill 39 without consultation with the
_umions, despite promises that they would be
given an opportunity to discuss the new labor
bill before it was placed before the legislature.
Now the Coalition has another betrayal to its

Some months ago the Liberal Party’s B.C.
executive adopted a resolution which condemned
Bill 39 as “undemocratic” and out of line with

Labor Minister Gordon Wismer publicly prom-
ised major changes. In a speech before the In-
ternational Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers’ an-
nual meeting he outlined the main points that
were to be amended, proposed amendments in
line with what organized labor wanted.

Since then the Coalition has completely sur-
pressure of the big business
been a

Party executive’s resolution has been filed away

Two recent events indicate the Coalition’s

Labor

that _resolution,

complete ~

39. The Liberal

promises are now

retary,

confer on his Labor successor the
fulsome praise of British tory

rose in the House to

reaction. Churchill,
outdone, opined

not to be
that “all he had
said at Fulton”
had been vindi-
cated by Bevin’s
“ statesmanlike ”
declaration?
Even Mackenzie
King, with the
anti-Soviet tun-
ing forks of
Washington and
London hum-
ming in his
sensitive  politi-
cal ear, declared
Tom McEwen with much
throat-clearing that “totalitarian
communism is as great a men-
ace to democracy as totalitarian
fascism.” Astute politician that
he is, our aged Prime Minister
is well aware that a well-timed
spot of red-baiting is as good a
cover up for pressing domestic
issues as it is in the concoct-
ing of international intrigue.

The resurrection of the Soviet-
German Non-Aggression Pact,
presented in the forged setting
adopted by the Washington war-
mongers, and timed as a back-
drop for the imperialist pan-
handling Bevin war chant is a
double-barelled. warning which
we in Canada would do well to
heed. ‘

It is not the first time a

has openly
called for war on the Soviet
Union amid the plaudits of
tory reaction . . . but it is the
first time that a social-demo-
cratic in

E devaluation of the French
franc has shot a few holes
in the calculations of the Mar-
shall planners. “Not that I loved

By

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6,

1948

Published Weekly at 650 Howe Street
THE TRIBUNE PUBLISHING COMPANY LTD.
Telephones: Editorial, MA. 5857; Business, MA. 5288
Tom McEwen ...... Saas
| Subscription Rates: 1 Year, $2.50; 6 Months, $1.35,

‘Printed by Union Printers Ltd. 650 Howe

Editor

EP WS pte 4h Go 8 wb So

Street, Vancouver, B.C,

mail by the post-office department, Ottawa

Relations

anti-labor views.

“small local of the

turnabout. The first is that the Tory leader,
Herbert Anscomb, has become the government’s
spokesman on labor policy. Using the Saanich
byelection as a sounding board, he made the
startling statement that “if there’s anything
wrong with Bill 39, it will stay wrong.” He
thereby served notice on the people that the
‘calition has no intention of correcting injustic’
to labor embodied in Bill 39 as it stands.

The second is the personnel named to the
Board. The employers
well represented by an official of the BCElectric
and a Tory ex-MLA who is notorious for his
The unions are being rep-
resented by a “labor” man from Victoria who is
a member of the Chamber of Commerce, and
well known for his pro-employer views. The sec-
ond labor member on the board is a man vir-
tually unknown in labor circles, a member of a
Canadian Brotherhood of
Railway Employees, a union which doesn’t even
come under provincial labor legislation. Chair-
man of the board is a lawyer who is widely re-
ported as being the author of Bill 39.

All this is conclusive confirmation of the fact
that labor cannot rely on the promises of the
Coalition. What is needed is joint action by
ail trade unions on the political front to sweep
the Tory-Liberal government out of office in
the next provincial elections.

As we

By Tom McEwen

Caesar less, but that I loved
Rome more,” said Brutus in. a
lame excuse for knifing Caesar.

Shumann loves the exquisite
bouquet of Marshall Plan dollars,
but the exigencies of French
economy are present and press-
ing. Chopping the franc to half
its purchasing power hits a hard
blow at the take-home-pay of the
French worker. Goods on the
shelf, en route to the working
man’s table, cannot be “devalu-
ated” with the speed of a gov-
ernment decree on currency

values. The French worker takes

the first big shock of the “de-
valuating” process in a mutilated
pay-envelope.

The Marshall planners are all
in favour of cutting wages by
a half or more—but not quite
after the fashion of Shumann.
Marshall-plan “economists” have
computed their Marshall-plan
dollars to “save” France, Italy,
Greece, Turkey, Chiang Kai-
shek’s China and similar “demo-
cratic” states on a certain ratio,
and if that ratio is to be altered,
they and not the. “beneficiaries”
insist on doing the altering.
Next to saving the world from
communism, they aim to make it
safe for dollar domination.
Hence the conflicting comments
coming from Washington, Lon-
Jon and Ottawa. :

Then the turning of France
into a country for the “free”
marketing of gold—that is dyna-
mite for the Marshall planners.
Here they had it all fixed—at $35
a fine ounce. Now, as the Com-
munist deputy Jacques Duclos
said in the Chamber of Depu-
ties, the measure “will turn
France into a paradise for specu-
lators”—a paradise which up un-
til now has been the sole mono-
Poly of Wall Street!

The “devaluation” of the franc
will compel the Marshall plan-
ners to “cushion” their atomic
dollars against the danger of
exchange fluctuations and black-
market trading. This they will
do by getting in on the ground
floor of this new “paradise’—
and tightening the screws on the
economic standards of the French
workers. Meanwhile the French
workers are learning that it
costs a lot to “save” a govern-
ment of the Deladier-Blum-Shu-
mann vintage. :

The full effects of the franc
devaluation will be seen when
the Shumann government next
comes, hat in hand, to Wall
Street for a new loan.

Your signature needed

Gece one of the million people whose sig-
natures are required on the petition for res-
toration of price controls at 1946 levels now going
around every city and village throughout the
country.

You’ve seen the price of milk, bread, meat:
vegetables, the clothes you wear and the house-
hold articles you use every day go up—and
they’re still going up. The official cost of living
index is now 148.3, the highest in history.

are

So are the profits of the big monopolies. But
you don’t get those. Your wages, your farm
earnings, go down as the monopolies’ costs.
before profits. Whatever they were in the
‘thirties, when prices were low, they couldn’t
buy enough of the things you needed. And now,
in the forties, they’re higher, but they buy less
and less of what you need.

You’re the one who needs to get busy, you
and and a million like you. Your signature on
the petition is a declaration of your determina-
tion to fight for your standard of living

SRE

N
Se RARER, 9S ENE

Wy age yp aypyprs
a7 ZZ

“And whenever he sees a picket line he walks right
through:?)) ~

10 years ago

From the files of the People’s Advocate, February 4, 1938.

Leo Sweeney, wooden-barrelmaker in a world of steel, past, presi-
dent of Kiwanis, and voluntary advisor-in-chief on social legislation to
Premiers Patullo and King, wasn’t quite sure why he accepted the —
invitation of Vancouver Trades and Labor Council to expla his recent
pro-Nazi utterances because, as he informed union delegates, Tuesday,
“E have nothing to retract, but I never run away from a fight.”

First he introduced himself as a two-fisted rugby football player
who had worked his way up from selling papers until he now controls
the pay cheques of 100 workers. Then he hinted of juicy real estate
deals and told hew he had a lot of fun but no money, finally quieting
a restless audience, by getting “to the point I want to get over” by
comparing happy, healthy, well-built youth in Nazi Germany with
young Canadian unemployed, who he repeatedly termed “misfits.”

‘Ym all for high wages for skilled labor, mind you,” he informed
the largely skilled labor delegates present, “but if we can learn from
Germany how to solve unemployment, we should do So.” Sweeney

advocated regimentation of Canada’s unemployed youth at this junc-

~

Street Railway delegate, who extracted the
that he did not know until recently that

unions in Germany and had killed or
imprisoned the leadership, sade

Even then it seemed inconseq
by saying that “at any rate there
and Freemasons

uential to Sweeney, who countered

was no favoritism when Catholics
all came under the hammer also.”

While Sweeney tried to convey the impression that he meant si
harm in his boost for Nazism, the delegates showed in unmistakable

manner how they felt about th whole
‘straint was maintained, © whole business, although great. re.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 4