¢ & Soviet Arctic explorer dead A great Arctic explorer, Pyotr P. Shirshov, former Soviet minister for merchant shipping, died in Moscow last week. Shirshov achieved world fame in 1937 as one of six Soviet scientists, led by Ad- miral Ivan Papanin, who established a scientific station on a drifting icefloe in the North Polar regions. After a journey of 800 miles lasting over nine months they were rescued by two Soviet icebreakers The expedition established the possibility of regular flights over the North Pole. Shirshov is shown at extreme right in ee photo, taken in 1937. OCULISTS TOUR REMOTE DISTRICTS ~ lwhen the floe began to break up. Czechoslovakia's mobile clinics fit eyeglasses free of charge NUMEROUS SPECIAL health institutions have been establish- ed in Czechoslovakia to safeguard the health of the country’s work- ing men and women. Their func- tions include safeguarding of food standards, organisation of acci- dent prevention measures, iding for regular medical examin- ation of all citizens, supervision of health and hygiene standards /Pprov-". and facilities in factories — in short, the protection ‘by every possible means of the people’s health. One of the most recent activi- ties along these lines has been a campaign to protect the eyesight of the working people. Normal vision absorbs 25 percent of man’s nervous ‘energy, and where there is defective vision or eye P.O. Oo CHAMPION PAGEANT * Postponed to FRIDAY, MARCH 6 8 p.m. : PENDER : AUDITORIUM 7 Please enter my subscription to CHAMPION for one year for which I enclose the sum of one dollar. : CHEQUE ‘ CASH Send to CHAMPION, Room 200, Ford Building » Vancouver 4, B.C. disease, the figure is considerably Further, defective vision the cause of nerve higher. is frequently disorders, headaches, and other complaints. In remote districts many ple who needed glasses have been without them, or used glasses un- suited to their needs. The care of children’s eyes was also neglect- ed. Such neglect had disastrous results, adversely affecting the people’s general health and their working efficiency. To combat this situation, Czechoslovak public health serv- ices have organised mobile oculist clinics through the national enter- prise, Sanitas, which is respons- ible for the distribution of ‘eye glasses. Three-ton ambulances now regularly tour the southern regions of Bohemia and the Bo- hemian-Moravian highlands. With them go oculists from the nearest targe town, to visit unified agri- peo- “cultural cooperatives, factories, mines and schools. Each ambulance is provided with adequate supplies of frames and lenses, including a minimum of 7,000 meniscal lenses, 3,000 astigmatic lenses, 2,500 spectacle- frames .and hundreds of cases. They also carry sunglasses and protective goggles for various types of work. Glasses are fitted on the spot in accordance | with medical prescriptions following eye-examinations. All working people receive their glasses free of charge except where they choose expensive frames, in which case they pay the difference in price. by experts These mobile oculist country under the slogan “Let ex- perts treat your eyes” also do an important educational job, seek- ing to convince people that good. eyesight is an important part of good health. . erial from which dizziness. clinics, which visit remote parts of the- GUIDE TO GOOD READING Beatrice Webb's diaries omit vital last decade THROUGHOUT her long life, from girlhood, Beatrice Webb kept a diary. With the first por- tion of it she constructed the book My Apprenticeship, which told the life story and views of Beatrice Potter, one of nine daughters of Richard Potter, a wealthy mag- nate, This book gave a vivid picture of a family. of the upper bour- geoisie, of a gifted young woman disquieted with that iife, and her subsequent social investigations which brought her the acquaint- ance of Sidney Webb. The second part of the diary was used to make the book Our Partnership. .. This showed the Webbs at work and play for a score of years, steadily carrying out their Fabian policy of per- meation with its effects on suc- cessive Liberal and Tory cabinets —mainly disappointing. Though not of *the same ab- sorbing interest as My Apprentice- ship (which gained a deservedly wide circulation as a Penguin), it-was nevertheless a notable book. Beatrice Webb’s Diaries, 1912- 1924, edited by Margaret Cole, is of a very different quality. First, it is simply the raw mat- Beatrice, had she lived on, could have construct- ed a third book, enriched with ripe reflection on the dozen: years. The editor, quite properly, does not at- tempt to substitute herself for Beatrice. But inevitably this suffers by comparison with the previous two books, so much so, indeed, as to make it doubtful whether these selections were worth publication at the present time. \ Second, there is no longer the fresh impressionability of the Beatrice or of the young married couple, with all before them. The diarist is frequently tired, some- times sick and to a great extent disillusioned. itself to the reader. Third, mainly the characters reappear. same old The exception is Arthur Hen- : derson, Labor party secretary, the wooing and winning of whom by the Webbs is the pink thread that runs throughout this book. ‘(Omitted is the record of the world tour of 1911-12, of which I remember Beatrice telling me some quite strange .stories about what they found in China and Japan, Singapore and India. * * * THESE DIARY extracts begin _ in 1912 in the autumn months that saw the foundation by them of what is now the Labor Re- search Department and the work for launching of their New Statesman, now the most widely circulated weekly paper of its kind. The diaries end with the entry of Sidney Webb into the cabinet a year after his election to par- liament. ‘ In these dozen years two people passed from their fifties to their late sixties. They lived through much national This communicates ° They were, in. short, tw? Fabians with all the cleverness and all. the basic inadequacy of that outlook. The first of the great events - imperialist world wat — was ‘the of 1914-18, the second was a Russian Revolution in 1917. Though Sidney had been com cerned with the Socialist Inter ” national he had no real belief i?! international action by working-. class. bodies and busied himself chiefly with what form of inter organization by. states should arise after the war. ee For the rest, “with urbanity of manner and unconsciousness 2% sin,” he ignored the anti-war poli: ries of the international Socialist congresses and so played into the» hands of the imperialist warmone” ers. Beatrice, on the question of that war, professed herself “mel ancholy agnostic? as she repeat edly said to me at the time, 4? this standpoint (“depressed 28” nostic”) is repeated in the diaries. * _- * THEN THERE is their attitude to the Russian Revolution. Some may have thought that the out- look in their Soviet Communism al New Civilisation, was natu in those whose History of Tradé Unionism had been translated 10° to Russian by Lenin and whos? studies had been so extensive. On the contrary, ‘as these diaries show, it was from the most completely prejudiced standpoint and from a fierce antipathy $9 Marxism that they, viewed Russion Revolution, both in 1917 and for many years afterwat a They detested it. ; It took every sort of experiential including their disillusionme?” with the two Labor cabinets ? which Sidney was a member, 2? a severe factual investigation ° the Soviet state to change them: Beatrice, at the end of her life told how they had been mistake™ about capitalism: for most of the lives, and how Marx, and sti e x more Lenin, had been right whet’ the Webbs had been wrong. But these diary extracts, unre" ay lieved by any comment that * enlightened Beatrice of the: last decade of her life might have vided, crudely represent a perioe of right wing opportunism Ww the Webbs were operating throws right-wing labor leaders for many of whom they had no but contempt.—H. PAGE ARN ———— ZENITH, CAFE 105 E. Hastings -Street VANCOUVER, B.C. UNION HOUSE ot oe othing 4 i greater events than they | Vancouver Second Hand Store @ Stove Parts and Repairs had hitherto encountered, events @ Used Plumbing Supplies for which neither their previous Tools Kitchenware studies nor their association with: 3457 statesmen nor their world tour } 588 MAIN ST. Pacific j had given them an equipment. - Soa s! = STANTON, MUNRO & DEAN s Barristers - Solicitors - Notaries = SUITE 515 FORD BUILDING | 193 E.. HASTINGS | = (Corner: Main & Hastings Sts.) 3 MARINE. 5746 gist TUES Tht cnmaicadittel PACIFIC TRIBUNE — FEBRUARY 27, 1953 — PAGE y - = ch iiesincenieeten™ ‘