EDITORIAL PAGE x

Comment

We jobless full benefits

| on the face of it the Diefenbaker
government's bill to extend sup-
| plementary “seasonal” unemploy-
} ment insurance benefits until July 1
| looks like an advance token pay-
} ment on Tory pre-election prom-
is. In actuality it is a gesture that
‘adudes tens of thousands of job-
} 6s workers not listed as “seasonal.”
What the labor movement says,
} ad what this paper joins it in say-
| ig, is that regardless of what long
} short-range works projects the
| Tory government may have in
mind, supplementary unemploy-
| ment benefits should be paid to
| "ety worker as of now, and paid
intl he or she secures gainful em-
yment. Anything short of that
‘simply playing cheap politics with
| “inherent social evil.

Thus the six-week “seasonal”
| Tory handout which the Senate is
| %¥ pondering for ratification, is
}# insult to working people, em-
ployed and unemployed alike.

As though to add injury to in-
jal, we now have Prime Minister
|Diefenbaker urging us to “spend,
] spend, and spend” as a means of
unemployment. And here
in BC., Premier Bennett has taken
| the same theme, exhorting all
4 sundry not to “become scared
vhen a little recession comes.” Both
|) Meadopted President Eisenhower's
: theme song, without mentioning
} "0%, where, or by what means an
my of nearly one million jobless
nada (and approximately six
a half million in the U.S.) are
ig to get anything to “spend.”
Gearly, such “economists,” if
re serious, belong somewhere
than in leading government
Being capitalist politicians,
er, their “economics” are on
with their concern for the job-

ific Tribune

Phone MUtual 5-5288
ditor — TOM McEWEN

ing Editor — HAL GRIFFIN

3 Subscription Rates:
One Year: $4.00
' Six months: $2.25

3 Published weekly at
wom 6 — 426 Main Street
_ Vancouver 4, B.C.

anadian and Commonwealth

ries (except Australia): $4.00

year. Australia, United States

‘all other countries: $5.00 one
year.

less victims of their short-sighted
cold war policies and its resultant
economic crisis.

To “spend, spend, and spend”
requires jobs, pay envelopes, sup-
plementary benefits until jobs are
available, new markets and new
trade relations with the whole
world, based on mutual respect and
friendship.

The Diefenbaker government has —

given no indication that it plans to
seek or work for, despite its pre-
election “pledge” and its March 31
“mandate” to do just that.

A nation-wide campaign of pres-
sure by organized labor, farmers
and the people generally might
assist the Diefenbaker government
to grasp the hard fact that approxi-
mately one million jobless workers
is not a political football to be
kicked around at will, or soothed
by a handful of peanuts and a
“spending” theme song. They de-
mand something to spend—and that
means jobs, and full jobless insur-
ance benefits until jobs are avail-

able!

Taxation without return

THE reactions of Vancouver tax-

payers to current civic tax in-
creases, like their fellow taxpayers
in other municipalities, are many
and varied.

First there is the homeowner who
resents paying a high rental in civic
taxes for the privilege of living in
his own home. For every improve-
ment he has added there is the
accompanying “penalty” of higher
taxation. Many in this group are
deciding to “sell” their homes and
move into high-priced apartments.

Then there is the “escapist” tax-
payer who seeks refuge in some
outlying and relatively undeveloped
suburb, willingly accepting limited
services for what he hopes will be
lower taxes, only to find the taxes
climbing year by year with no ap-
preciable return in services.

(It is said of Burnaby that its
early settlers and pioneers located
in that area to escape Vancouver's
heavy taxes. Now Burnaby taxes
are as high as Vancouver’s, with a
little added for the magnificent
“View” to be had from both North
and South Burnaby).

There is yet another Vancouver
taxpayer, literally the “forgotten

man,” thousands of him, and the
most abused of all. He doesn’t
grumble too much about the rising
mill rate on his home, but would
like to see some tangible returns
for fifty years of increasing taxes,
other than a horde of parking
meter sleuths.

He sees fine streets, avenues,
curbs and boulevards winding in
and out of the new high-priced sub-
divisions, while practically nothing
is spent in his own area. The street
or avenue in front of his own door
is like Westminster Avenue (now
Main Street) in the nineties. Ruts,
ditches and “drainage” holes at
intersections—full of mud in wet
weather and full of dust in dry.

For such taxpayers a bit of badly-
needed road work in scores of city
blocks would be a fine gesture. It
would help convince him that he
was getting some little return for
his money, and that City Hall had
some other interest in his welfare
other than picking his pockets
clean.

It would also be a fine Centen-
nial achievement to give miles of
Vancouver's streets and avenues a
1958 rather than an 1886 “look.”

HE large and varigated num-

ber of “socialist” periodicals,
mimeographed leaflets and such
publications received in this office
from groups and_ individuals
across Canada and the U.S. shows
that a lot of people other than
those of the CCF and LPP are
thinking about the need of a new
social order.

In the U.S. there are many such
authors, obviously strong “indi-
vidualists’ who spend a lot of
their own time and money (and
we do know something about
printing costs) publishing and
mailing such periodicals. The
general tenor of many of these
“socialist” productions is anti-
capitalist, anti-Catholic, anti-
Communist, but also strongly pro-

Soviet Union and pro-People’s

China.

What I like most about these
leaflets and periodicals is not
their confused individualism, but
the courage (and obvious finan-
cial sacrifice) of the authors to
spread the seeds of — socialist

thinking. They are not afraid to
append their signatures to their
views on how they think social-
ism is to be attained.

Then there is another type of
“socialist” publication, what one
might call post-20th Congress
(Communist Party of the Soviet
Union) vintage. This is largely
produced by groups of ex-Com-
munist and ex-LPP elements.
Many of these deserted the Com-
munist movement because they
suddenly discovered, some of
them after many years of pos-
turing as Communist “leaders”,
that the social science of Karl
Marx and V. I. Lenin were totally
“alien” and unworkable in Can-
ada or other English-speaking
countries.

With a few rare exceptions,
these new “socialist” architects
of a brand new world find their
greatest pastime and _ pleasure
lambasting the Marxist party
they shamelessly deserted, and
offering sage advice to the
launchers of 14%2-ton Sputniks-on
how to run their internal and
foreign affairs. Reminds us of the
little boy offering advice to
grandmother on how to make an
omelette.

Then there is a third variety
of “socialist” periodicals and let-
ters, all strictly anonymous, The
writers are of the “poison pen”
variety, specializing in slander,
falsehood and misrepresentation

against the LPP and its member-
ship in every field of its activity;
against the Soviet Union and all
its works. They outdo Marx in
their “Marxism” and out-Zion
the Zionists in their Zionism.
And, of course, a little collobora-

tion with the RCMP is not con-

sidered out of “line” with their
“Marxist” fulminations.

Excluding the last category of
“Socialists” who, like a_ well-
known specie of rodent, prefer
to gnaw in the dark of anony-
mity, and whe have little claim
to Marxism and less to common
decency, it is obvious that a
great ferment of socialist think-
ing is going on among individuals
and group circles outside the
established Marxist parties in
Canada and the U.S.

It is also clear, despite ideo-
logical or other differences sep-
arating all such groups, that in
the struggles ahead accentuated
by the rising crisis of capitalism
and no less by the rising victories
of world socialism, all such group-
ings will be inevitably drawn
together in greater unity of pur-
rose —to achieve the end they
desire, socialism.

Many of these “socialist” pub-
lications show the “germ of an
idea” which soon may become a
mighty material force for North
American socialism.

May 23, 1958 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 5

teers 5 em