Thi i
Wnrte

our Deoartnent
f ot You Plewde.

6
Miner's view
Editor, Pacific Tribune:

District 26 of the United Mine

Workers of America which cov-
€rs the Maritimes are in the
fifth week of their strike,

A Vancouver Sun editorial of
February 24 stated production
has fallen off from 2.7 tons to
14 tons per man-day.

Elmer Philpott on March 4
States production has fallen off
from 2.4 to 14 during the same

_ Period, 1939 to 1944.

Taking the facts as known to
exist—a coal mine with a vay-
Toll of 1100 men produced 2,400
tons of coal daily.

A working force of 200 load-
ers were used to produce this
amount. These men were on
Contract,

With contract still in existence
it is idle talk to insist that

(“ue

the men who load the coal have
deliberately cut their earnings
down to approximately 52 per
cent of the 1939 level.

These figures would corre-
spond’ to the year of the slow-
down when the men loaded a
contract-day’s output of coal
every two days.

The opportunity to correct the
mis-informed facts were given
to the Vancouver Sun but up to
date they have not done so.

Very often a half-truth be

comes an eroneous statement and”

the public thug becomes un-
informed of the truth as it ex-
ists. :

When production drops at the
working face it is- very. often
due to the methods of work
governed by the operators and
totally out of the hands of or-
ganized labor.

Curtailing the output at the
mines by the methods of ev-
traction is a good way to bal-
ance the mine-sheets in the op-

erators’ favor, B.C. organized

‘ labor would do well to listen

to the facts of the case when
presenteg by the two miners

from District 26 now in this

province for there is a great
similiarity betwen the methods
of extraction used in the Cape
Breton coal-fields and that of
Vancouver Island coal mines.

Incidentally the difference in
the figures of the Sun when ap-
plied to the average coal mine
of say 2400 tons means that,
instead of the 2400 tons the out-
put is 2189 tons—this in turn
can well mean the difference
between profit and loss in. any
given mine.

RICHARD B. WILSON.

Cumberland, B.C.

By JAMES S. ALLEN «
t

‘More linus for India

perialist policies even in the midst of the severe economic crisis it now faces. As the

T is remarkable how the British Labor Government manages to continue Tory im-

coal crisis so dramatically illustrates, Britain can no longer solve its problems on
an imperialist basis. Yet, Premier Attlee has just made a new statement on India that

Continues a policy which events
have shown to be utterly bank-
rupt,

On the pretense of conferring
independence upon India by
June, 1948, the Premier threat-'
€ns to impose a British scheme
Which until] now has produced
nothing but greater division and
chaos in India.

‘

If the Indian parties do not
_ themselves implement the Brit-
ish scheme for a Constitution
“nd Central Authority by the
date fixed, the British Cabinet
_ threatens to transfer power to
Such bodies as it chooses to re-
Organize in India. Attlee men-
tions as the possible recipients
°f his favors a central govern-
Ment, various provincial authori-
ties, and, of course, the Prince-
ly States,

His reference to provincial au-
thority will undoubtedly be in-
terpreted in Moslem quarters a8
8n invitation to proceed with

Separate Pakistan states, based ~
Not on self-determination but on
artificial separation,

Preparatory measures are also
threatened to assure government
efficiency and defense. And to
top all this, Britain threatens

to make separate treaties in ad-
vance with the Princes, confer-

ring a new “self-governing” sta-
tus upon their feudal domains,

All along, British governments

have attempted to show that.

any delay of independence is due
to division within India. Attlee
again plays on this old , theme,
But in the end he offers even
more division.

Rafter fete «f

TTLEE holds: the Indian par-
ties responsible for not im-
plementing the British plan of
1942, as modified by the British
Cabinet mission last year. In
reality, none of the Indian par-
ties accepted this long-range
plan, but agreed only to work
within the framework provided
by it in order to attain their

own objectives.

If there is no immediate pros-
pect of a Constitution and an
emerging central authority as

we

More often than not at variance
With their rank and file. Mr.
Showler’s own teamsters are
g supplies in and out of
the ‘Southam scab emporium,
driving through ITU picket lines,
not because they want to scab
©n their fellow unionists, but
Precisely because of the ‘foreign-
domination’ which Mr. Showler
alleges to others but disavows
If.

The charge of ‘foreign-domina-
tion’ is an old gag. Hitler used
it with fleeting success, and at
heavy cost to humanity. It is
coming popular again in re-
actionary-dominated government
Circles, and copied by political
hangers-on, The CMA journals
8re full of it, Keynoting ‘all their

€d scribblers have to say on
labor and communism, That is
© be expected. But when it

Comes from the lips of a re
Sponsible labor leader — at &

FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 1947

see it

time when ball-and-chain labor
legislation is being formulated
to break down labor standards
and unity, it is not only regret-

table. but reprehensible in .the.

extreme.

Every indication from Victoria
is that labor legislation is be-
ing prepared—not in the spirit
of fulfillment of wartime prom-
ises for a better Canda, but
to usurp and nullify the gains
labor has already made by and
through its united efforts. Unity
and not divisions are the need
today: in labor’s ranks. A united
labor movement in Victoria next
week would not only serve to
halt the tory raiders on labor’s
standards, but could win much
of the needed legislation set

forth in labor’s legislative pro-
gram, Anything saiq or done
which endangers that objective
is not serving labor. ,

Attlee complains, it is because
the British plan itself is cal-
culated to prevent a _ unified
and democratic India,

As a leading British Commun-
ist and outstanding authority on
India, R. Palme Dutt, describes
its,

“The constitutional plan for
India — roundly condemned by
every Indian political organiza-
tion—is elaborately designed to
build up an alliance with priv-
ileged upper-class interests, the
Princes, the nawabs at the head
of the Moslem League and the
big industrialists dominating the

‘ Congress machine against the

Indian masses, ir: a complex con-
stitutional structure proiific of
deadlocks and ensuring con-
tinued British control in prac-
tice.” (Labor Monthly, Feb. 1947.)

During the present interim
period, when a central Indian
government was formed under
the British Viceroy and subject
to his veto, Britain has managed
to remain the real arbiter in
India, by adroitly maneuvering
between the Congress and the
Moslem League. ‘

tage She of

d hese central objective of their
policy was and remains to
prevent the complete collapse of
the imperialist position in In-
dia, The particular offer of
1942 was given by a Tory-dom-
inated Cabinet, and it serves
today as the policy of the Labor
Government,. This offer was
made to avert the danger of

a revolution in India by grant-

ing a facade of independence
while perpetuating internal
division as a means of con-
tinuing imperialist control.

But taday Britain faces in-
India a popular movement
more powerful than in any
preceding period, and also at a.
much higher political level. And
Britain’s own internal position
has become so critical that still
another colonial war in India
might well prove disastrous to
the British Empire.

The British people have reach-

.ed the point where their own

survival demands a clearcut
break with imperialism.

Short Jabs 1 or aw

N° matter how insistently other items of news may clamor fer
recognition in this column during this particular period, there
is one which must take precedence over all others—the Press Drive.
Only through the medium of our press can we make our voice
heard as it must be heard. Only by mustering our
supporters in unchallengable numbers can we
give concrete form to the ‘Four Fredoms’ of the
Atlantic charter, one of which is ‘freedom of the: press.’ Only
then will we be able to make our interpretation of ‘freedom of. the
press” the interpretation that will be accepted by society‘ at large.

A few weeks ago when the Rumanian elections were causing
heart-burnings in the ‘democratic’ countries, the leading news
agencies of Britain and the United States, Reuters and the Associated
Press, were bursting out all over with apoplectic concern for their
conception of ‘freedom of the press’ in that country. Their corre-
spondents in Bucharest kept the peoples of their homelands primed
with the slanders of the leaders of Rumanian reaction, Maniu and
Bratianu. :

These former friends of Hitlerism were not the least. bit above
demanding that the words ‘fascism’ and ‘reactionary’ should not
be used in the election campaign.

Further, their outery for ‘freedom of the press’, which had the
whole-hearted support of these same correspondents, embraced a
demand to allow former Rumanian papers that had been on the
pay-roll of Goebbels, to resume publication.

These Nazi organs in Rumania were condemned on the evi
dence of their own records, seized when the Germans were driven
out of the country by the Red Army and the Rumanian workers.
One of them, the Tribuna, got a 1,400,000 lei subsidy monthly from
its Nazi paymasters.

The reactionary Rumanians who demanded that the ban

be lifted on the Nazi press are’ the same who also demanded

that the elections be carried out under the supervision of ar

international commission. That is the same proposal that
was made by Byrnes on behalf of American ‘democracy’ and

Bevin for British ‘democracy’. The really democratic Ru-
mainian people spurned «hese demands of their own reactionaries
and the buttinskis who jimpertinently attempted to interfere in the
internal affairs of their country on behalf of worlg monopoly.

The Rumanians do not have a Communist government; they
don’t have a Social Democratic government; they have a people’s
government composed of those of them who are opposed to the
feudal landowners ‘and capitalists. Because of the unity in their
ranks they are able to offset the plans of the capitalist press to
sow confusion in their ranks, about the meaning of “freedom of
the press.’

This unity is one of the things we have to perfect here in
Canada, and for those of us who live on the coast, in B.C. particu-
larly. ‘That is one of the reasons for the Press Drive, so: we can
muster our forces as well as the Rumanian people have done.

Our column must raise $100 in donations and $50 in subscrip-
tions. But we don’t have to stop at that! Let’s make it $100 in
subscriptions as well as $100 in donations. I’m sure we can do it!
Organize a party in your home! Raffle something you have no
use for, and nobody else has either, and turn the proceeds into
the Drive. I'll help you any way I can! | as

Here is a sample of what I mean. I received the following
letter one morning in which was enclosed a cheque for $8.00.
Dear Bill: Please arrange for the cashing of this cheque and do-
nate to the Tribune fund. This represents payment for one day
of slavery behind a slave-driving concrete mixer and you may
acknowledge it as ‘Blood Money’ in your column. I trust it is in
proper order, but’ I cannot guarantee the honesty of the capitalist
so I hope you get the money. Revolutionary Greetings. J.O.

THIN wedge of liberalism seems to be finding its way into the

Press Drive

A minds of a section of the Catholic Church. In recent weeks,

statements coming from clerics of that church indicate that the
pressure of world events is making itself felt on them as on every
other class in society. :

One group, the National Catholic Welfare Conference in the
US., at the beginning of February, placed a declaration of rights
‘ before the United Nations committee
Action and Reaction f human rights of which Mrs. Eleanor
Roosevelt is chairman. Amongst their
demands were, the right to a living wage, the right of collective
bargaining, the right to associate by industries and professions to
obtain economic justice and the general welfare, freedom of expres-
sion . . . access to the means of livelihood.

A little later, a Catholic priest, Rev. Father Brier of Edmonton,
addressing the Catholic Youth Organization in he Vancouver Hotel
ballroom said that, “industrial partnerships, credit unions, coopera-
eciand strong trade unions were ‘as necessary as the teachings
of Bee

We know of many Catholic priests who never have, ang un-

-doubtedly never will, speak in-such terms to their ftocks. It must

have galled Alderman G. G. Miller who was at the latter meeting
representing Vancouver, to have to listen to the demand of Father
Briere for “strong trade unions”

It is not surprizing to us, however, that there are some Catho-
lic priests whose social ideas are taking on a liberal tincture. We

Saw them in Spain during the struggle of the peovle against fas-_

cism. The charter submitted to the United Nations committee is
also the work of “theologians, bishops, priests and laymen.”

It is a pity they did not direct their words to John Hart, who
along with his liberal-tory coalition government have been swept
into the stream of CMA propaganda against the trade union move-

. ment in B.C. ang are making the government of this province a

tool of the monopolists and to whose wage-slashing and union-
busting program they hope to give legal sanction.

The unionists of this province, who have a record to feel proud
of, never had a harder struggle than the one they are confronted
with today. -

In spite of the drivel of individuals like Gervin and Showler,
whose performance of the last few days in the matter of the labor
lobby, has all the earmarks of a conscious betrayal, the whole might
of the labor movement must be used to show the Hart-Amscomb

government that they will not be allowed to write the program of

the CMA into the statutes of British Columbia.

t

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 6