Review

PRIME Minister Louis St. Lau-
‘tent has not released the text
a his recent note to Soviet
$ Premier Nicolai Bulganin. It is
ie tkscribed, however, as ‘‘the most
Winging and strongly worded
_ Mote ever sent by Canada’ to the
" Whief of state’’ of another coun-

| The main burden of St. Lau
 WRnt's note, couched “‘in the
me of humanity,’ is a protest
®ainst the action of Soviet arm-
VW forces in helping put down an
Mperialist-inspired counter-rev-
Vilttion in Hungary, a counter’
RWolution of which the Hungar-
7" people are the victims.

7 St. Laurent also sent a note
0 British Prime Minister Sir
/ Anthony Eden on the British:
Bren c h-Israeli aggression 1n

}%he and the ‘‘stinging’’ tone of
7Me other indicates better than
J'thousand speeches the compat-
‘}'tve differences of these two
a Magical events.

‘| One, the assistance given by
] The Soviet Union at the request
}* the Hungarian government
{6 head off creation of a new
7 %ilkan ‘‘cordon sanitaire’ of
1 "estern Imperialism in Hun-
‘} Sty; a place d’armes for the pre-
tation of new fascist conspit-
j {les for war against the New
Democracies of Europe and the
) “Viet Union.

The other, brazen armed ag’
Mession against Egypt to restore
a Suez Canal to foreign bond:
| "ders and to restore Egypt to
© colonial bondage of Britain
hd France.

] On one St. Laurent is very
1 ‘dignant,’’ on the other re
Markably mild. The one is pre-
‘ined to be an example of ‘Rus:
‘tn brutality’? (with no words
“Ud about the thousands of fas-
| Rt terrorists sent into Hungary
q _Washingon s Project X).

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Watch words wih deeds

Bayne. The ‘‘mild’’ rebuke in

The other is “‘regrettable’’ but
seemingly “‘unavoidable.”’

In St. Laurent’s opening
speech to the special session of
parliament this week there is,
however, much with which the
people can find themselves in
agreement, particularly the mis-
use of the United Nations by
the big powers.

These powers, said St. Lau
rent, ‘‘have treated the charter
of the United Nations as an in-
strument with which to regi-
ment the smaller nations, and as
an instrument which did not
have to be considered when
their own: so-called vital inter-
ests are at stake.”’

This we heartily endorse —
and add that had Mr. St. Lau
rent and those who represent
Canada on the UN consistently
supported such a ‘position, in-
stead of supporting U.S. “‘on
the brink’’ war policies, prob-
ably neither Egypt nor Hungary

would have come on the UN

agenda as they have.

The fight to bring the world
back to sanity and peace re
quires a lot of thinking and ac-
tion along the lines suggested in
the Prime Minister's latest

x EDITORIAL PAGE

speech, in order to head off
“other Koreas’ as External Af-
fairs Minister Pearsor’ predicted
at the end of the Korean war.
And most important, to make
the UN an agency for lasting
peace instead of a big-power “‘in-
strument’’ for war conspiracies
against the countries of social-
ism and those other millions of
‘little’ people who struggle
daily against colonial oppres-
sion!

It is time for the people of this
country, and the whole world,
to take the initiative again for

peace. While many of the ‘“‘little
nations’ so eloquently describ-
ed by St. Laurent voted in the
UN for the motion calling for
immediate withdrawal of Brit-
ish, French and Israeli forces
from Egypt, Canada’s repre-
sentative abstained from voting,
thereby failing to take a stand
against the aggressors in Egypt.

In the struggle for peace and
the making of the UN into a
great force for peace, actions
must always~ correspond to
words. Otherwise the enemies
of peace stand to gain!

HERE used to be.a time, and
not so long ago, when you
could get your alderman or
councillor on the phone and re-
mind him of his promise to have
your road fixed. It was particu-
larly effective around this time
of the year, with the municipal
elections coming up.

Now, unless you live in one of
the few municipalities like Sur-
rey or Saanich which still have
the ward system, you find you
have no councillor. You have a
number of councillors, each of
them heading a department, but
they are responsible to every-
one and:no one, as you discover
when you call one of them.

Some of them are arrogant,
some sympathetic, but they are
all adept at passing the buck.
They may agree that your prob-
lem deserves attention, but you
have no idea how much more
pressing the problem is in other

areas and they have to consider
the needs of the municipality as
a whole.

Or they may tell you that the
problem is out of their depart-
ment and pass you along to an-
other councillor who refers you
to some one else until finally you
hang up the phone in disgust.

ce a

We know who our member of
parliament is. We know who our
member of the legislature is. And
it seems to me high time that we
returned to a ward system of
civic government so that we
know who our councillor is.

Far from making for more re-
sponsible and better civic gov-
ernment, the decision of most
municipalities to abolish the
ward system in favor of election
at large has led to less respon-
sible government.

Over the past few years poli-
tical machines operating under
such false titles as Non-Partisan
Association have tightened their
control of the big cities and major
municipalities and increasingly
big business picks the people’s ©
civie representatives.

This was why the -enabling
amendment to the Municipal Act
was made-and why it was seized
upon by the councils of the day
in most municipalities. The ward
system was no longer serving
their interests as well as it had.
In Burnaby, and other lower
mainland municipalities some

wards were consistently electing
progressive councillors. So, as
Vancouver did in the thirties and
for the same reason, to perpetu-
ate big business control, the ward
system was generally discarded.

The actual arguments used had
a lofty ring. The ward system
was described as parish pump
polities. It hindered sound muni-
cipal planning. Councillors, it
was asserted, were interested
only in obtaining improvements
for their own wards and failed
to promote the municipality as
a whole.

But they were compelled to
listen to the people who elected
them. Some of them even did
something to. straighten out
grievances.

You only have to look at Van-
couver after 20 years of govern-
ment elected at large, or Bur-
naby, where the system has been
in force for only a few years, to
know the falsity ofthe argument
that election at large. promotes
the interests of the whole. East
Vancouver, which is not the fa-
vored residence of Vancouver
aldermen, is still the neglected
section of the city. North Burn-
aby, although it has resident
councillors, is still the neglected
section of the municipality.

A new Municipal Act will be
coming before the legislature in
February and we’ all have an in-
terest in seeing that it provides
for direct representation.

NOVEMBER 30, 1956 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 7