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One standard of citizenship

RIME Minister King’s belated announcement that the
PR government intends to repeal those clauses of the Chi-
nese Immigration Act which have discriminated against
Chinese within and without our borders, will be welcomed
by all decent Canadians, Likewise, the suggested modifica-
tion of regulations governing the immigration of East Indian
people to Canada is another measure long overdue.

This action is undoubtedly motivated by concern for
economic expediency rather than any altruistic idealism to-
wards the common’ equality of man regardless of color or
race. China and India represent a big market for Canada,
but one in which Canada can hardly expect reciprocal treat-
ment if she holds the nations with which she hopes to do
business as inferior peoples. The Chinese Immigration Act,
and the discriminatory regulations affecting both Chinese
and East Indians, could well be a part of Hitler’s ‘herren-
folk’ manual.

Oriental immigration into Canada during the past 60
years has been largely in the hands of the CPR, as, in
effect, most of Canada’s immigration has been. The railway
monopolists, with their control of colonization, had one
standard of policy—the securing of cheap labor. Their policy
was to force down the living, standards of other Canadians
by using Chinese and East Indian ‘indentured’ and ‘tyee’
labor, creating a situation which politicians of the type of
Tom Reid, Liberal member for New Westminster, have long
exploited to the disadvantage of all working Canadians.

Abuses of Oriental immigration regulations by CPR
‘empire builders’ led to statutory immigration barriers and
arbitrary discrimination now to be removed.

This coming session: of the provincial legislature will
face the long overdue responsibility of granting the fran-
- chise to Chinese and East Indian Canadians. A seven-man
government committee has tentatively made this recom-
mendation to the Hart-Anscomb cabinet. Both issues, re-
moving all discriminatory barriers to Oriental immigration,
and the granting of full citizen rights to Canadians of Ori-
ental origin, must be settled without further delay.. There
is no place in a civilized community or a nation of Canada’s
Stature for racial and color bars.

- Removal of electoral restrictions against the Chinese
and East Indians renders untenable the government’s argu-
ments for continuing its denial of the franchise to Japanese
Canadians, Native Indians'and people af Doukhobor descent.
Giving Japanese-Canadians the franchise in federal elec-
tions, but barring them from the same privilege in B.C.,
is at once a glaring injustice and an anti-democratic
practice that poses a constant threat to the rights of all
citizens,

In their belated and hesitant moves to adjust these
wrongs, the governments of Ottawa and Victoria are faced
with the responsibility of granting full citizen rights to all
Canadians. The issue will no longer permit of half measures
in readjustment but demands that racial barriers and dis-
crimination be totally erased.

.

Pd

The Polish elections

OSS MUNRO, Canadian Press staff writer in Poland,
did his best to smear.the recent Polish elections, but
in spite of everything he had to write, his conclusion was
significant, He stated: “There was not the slightest inter-
ference yesterday, however, with the actual voting. As far
as I could see, the polling stations were completely orderly.”

How about Canadian Press staff writers covering the
elections in the State of Georgia? It is much closer to home
than Poland, and Munro could not have written that para-
graph about the silver-shirted ‘white supremacy’ fascists,
who took over the seat.of government there in real ‘storm
troop’ style. =

It might also be well for the U.S. State Department,
together with Foreign Secretary Bevin’s office in London,
and some people in Ottawa, when they forward ‘notes’ to

terfere in the internal’ affairs of other peoples, that right
at home in their own domain they can find a full-sized job
providing their own citizens with the elerhentary rights of
citizenship. Even here in B.C., while we have no ‘silver
PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE FOUR

\seme as when the fightine was

their demands on industry and

the government of Poland on how to run elections, or in- “

|e MILL ni

Unite against this menace

- feos
Ses ae 3

eT TI FT
ee :

iim ntti it ttn nt

‘Coming events ---

|

ST By Leslie Morris

Sure, there is high national
production now. Exports are at
the all time
high for peace-
gatime. But these
goods are not
going to =.the
fronts, they are

HERE is a lot of truth
in the old saw that
“coming events cast their
shadows before them.” In
fact it is good science, since the
things that happen today fore-

cast what will happen tomor- going on the
row. ~ : market. And
The Tribune front page this pp e. sbricling

paradox of cap-
italism is that
the more goods
go on the mar-
ket, the quicker
= ss we get over-pro-

week speaks rightly of the feel-
ings of uncertainity, fear,
anxiety and sense of drift which
are ‘in the minds of the Can-
adian people. These are very atiction: anuieen
real and natural. They do not Leslie nomic crisis.
come from some _ unnatural e

mental state, or because people
are born with the blues. They
arise from experienée, past and
present. }

Morris

AT’S what is worrying peo-

ple. With the exception of a
small percentage who always
make money under capitalism,
most Canadians have, no real
faith in the ability of a private
industry to give them a per-
manent livelihood such as would
enable them to keep their self-
respect. They aren’t yet Social-
ists, but they haven’t much
faith in a capitist future.

The majority of Canadians
can remember the economic
crisis of 1929 and the denres-
sion which followed it. Their
faith in the success of canital-
ism was hit hard. It will never
be the same again.

Wartime nrosnerity jis finish-
ed. Prosperity now jis not the The days are gone when peo-
ple could enter business for
themselves, go on a homestead.
become a professional by their
own endeavors or by some other
means get in on the vast ex-
pansion of Canada, Yes, there
may be ‘the odd case, but that!
doesn’t prove anything.

on. Then there was a snecial,
unlimitet kind’ of market and!
goocs did not pile un to pro-
duce economic crisis. The fight-
ing fronts were insatiable in

farming. :

SAA

shirters’ of Ku Klux Klanners dominating the polling booth,
we have election regulations based on property and color
concepts which bar thousands of our people from exercising

their democratic right of franchise. Until we correct these

evils, we have little moral grounds upon which to admonish

the Poles or others on how to run elections.

We can appreciate the perturbation in certain circles
in Ottawa, Washington and London. at the fact that the
people of Poland gave the communists an overwhelming
majority in the recent elections. But according to the high
principles of the Atlantic Charter and subsequent instru-
ments for the shaping of a world free from fascist-imperial-
ist rule, the choice of a government would seem to be quite

_ within the rights of the Polish people, regardless of the

opinions of atomic diplomats.
* * *

Among the ideas which have shaped Canada’s external
policy, according to External Affairs Minister Louis St.
Laurent, “is the conception of political liberty, an inheritance
from both the French and English background of Cana-
dians.” And now see how the King government is squander-
ing that inheritance.

their increasing leaning toward
the Socialist solution,

As a matter of fact, free en-
terprise and private initiative
do not govern the lives of nine
out of ten Canadians as far
as economies are concerned.
Monopolistic decisions and
practices rule the lives of Can-
adians, :

The propagandists of Big Bus-
iness are casting most of their
seed on stony ground. All the
facts of life in (Canada deny
their slick sales talk. -

‘

e@
NTIL the people of Canada.
translate their uncertainty

and- anxiety into action they
will be at the mercy of Big
Business. It is not easy to find
& way out. The daily press, the
cheap Hcollywood movies, the
pulp magazines and the smooth
House of Morgan prodncts like
Life and Time all have the af-
fect of leading people away
from the truth. drugging them
with unreasonable hope against
hope that things will be “all

right in the end.” Roe
Micawbers are anti social peo-
ple and don’t do any good to
themselves or their families.
That. isn’t to say that everyone
should go about with long faces
and a feeling of impending
doom. In action against high

“prices, low wages, bad housing,

pocr health and all the conse-
quences of monopoly capitalism
lies net only strength but hap-_
piness and hope. There is no
other way.

_ More and more Canadians are
finding a way out of their
doubts. They are readying them-
selves for the inevitable econ-
omic grisis, not by bowing to
it, but by’ expecting it and by
organizing to fight against it.
Coming events cast their sha-
dow—and it is a shadow of eco-
nomic and social crisis for Can-
ada. But that self-same shadow
is also a. warning which, if

heeded, will save our people

from degredation by their own
democratic and labor unity and

; Aer
FRIDAY, JANUARY 31, 1947