Who created the dragon?

inance Minister Douglas Abbott this week called for a

, longer working day, “to help slay the dragon of infla-
tion”. The minister would like the working day extended
by at least 40 minutes. or approximately 41%4 hours weekly.
There would be no additional pay for his extended working
day. It would simply be a personal “sacrifice”, nay, even
a “patriotic” duty of the Canadian worker—to head off the
inflation the St. Laurent government has inflicted upon the
Canadian people with its “guns before butter” insanity.

Ii the political economy of the minister and the govern-
ment of which he is a part ‘is, to say the least, dubious, his
gall is astounding. In effect, he is saying to the wage
and salary earners of Canada: “I have evolved inflationary
policies which make it incumbent upon me to tax you to
the limit. Now I must ask you to work longer in order
that you will have less of what you want, and the govern-.
ment will have more of what it wants.” Or to put it more
explicitly. more of what dollar-imperialism wants— "more
guns”, and much “less butter”.

Abbott’s demand for a longer working day cuts across
labor's 67-year struggle for the 8-hour day. It is a reac-
tionary, retrograde move, calculated to transform Can-
adian labor into an adjunct of aggressive imperialism; to
place the full burden of inflationary war policies wholly on
the backs of the common people, and first and foremost
upon organized labor. It is the opening wedge for a rever-
sion to industrial peonage; to the maintenance of fabulous
profits and the production of a regimented, subservient
“labor front” in the service of predatory imperialism.

‘The “longer work day” kité portends the hoped-for
“shape of things to come” by the St. Laurent government
and its Yankee instructors, As such, it must be unitedly
.and firmly rejected by Canadian labor. If there is any
dragon to be slain, it is the dragon of war with its evil
“consequences, and its profiteering, inflationary devotees,

Make Saturday peace day

‘his Saturdays peace workers in Vancouver and Toronto
will engage in a unique competition to determine which
centre can secure the most signatures for a Five-Power
Pact of Peace petition.
In Vancouver, under the direction of the Vancouver
Peace Council, hundreds of peace workers will be on the
streets with petitions. For many it will be a thrilling
first-time experience. They will meet a few of the “go-
back-ta-Russia” school of thought. They will meet the
odd citizen who has been propagandized into believing
that peace and communism are the same thing. They
‘may also meet one or more of the “we-dop't-want-any-of-
~thatsJoe Stalin-stuff-in-this-country” lads, who advocate
dropping a stated number of atom bombs upon those who
disagree with Louis St. Laurent and Harry Truman. For
them as for their mentors. the A-bomb is the answer to
, very political issue. Petitioners may also meet a few of
the cynical “what's-the-use” lads who, having signed for
the hospital insurance petition with no immediate apparent
results, say “to-hell-with-itall” and retire to the noisy
seclusion of the nearest beer parlor! :
But most important of all. they*will meet thousands
- of Canadian, people, of all political shades and religious |
denominations, who are deeply desirous of peace, and are
ready to sign for it on thé dotted line if given an ‘oppor-
tunity to do so. . :
Only by a real mass turnout of peace workers this
Saturday can Vancouver citizens have the opportunity to
strike a blow for peace, and provide the thrill of knowing -
that while the controlled radio and press howl the chorus
of their paymasters for war, the people in their countless
millions throughout the world and in Canada. sign for
peace, Shi ei ee ¢
As the foremost advocate of- policies leading towards
peace and international goodwill instead of the cold-war
‘ of atomic. hysteria, the Pacific Tribune again urges all its.
staunch supporters and readers to join in this great cam;
paign for a Five-Power Peace pact; to register with the
Vancouver Peace Council for active service in the cause
of peace; to make sure that every Vancouverite on Sat-
urday has an opportunity to sign for peace.

Let’s show Toronto that our peace builders are as

strong and enduring as our rugged mountains. Make Sat-
urday a banner day for peace in Vancouver.

«

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Published Weekly at Room 6 - 426 Main Street, Vancouver, B.C.
By THE TRIBUNE PUBLISHING COMPANY LTD.
Fie Telephone MA. 5288
_ Tom McEwen — seeee Editor
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_ Printed by Union Printers Ltd., 650 Howe Street, Vancouver, B,C.
Authorized as second class mali, Poe ffice Dept. Ottawa

4 1

vi x

is We See It
by TOM McEWEN

se :

HOSE born during October, the month of opals,
are heading into additional cold-war difficulties.
Australia’s opal mines, source of the world’s largest
supply, are being closed down. The Menzies gov-
ernment, under the instructions of Yankee im-
perialism, is building a huge atom rocket range in
the area of the opal mines. With “high wages” as a
bait, the opal mines are being drained of men. The
most progressive miners, regarded as a poor “secur-
ity risk,” and “over-age” miners are being left. in
the mines, temporarily. Soon they too, like the
Australian aborigines, will be chased into other
pastures to make way for atom-bomb dollar-progress.

Tigerite as
goon be all that is left for the October “birthstone”
fraternity. Perhaps the Menzies government, with
a nod of approval from Wall Street, may authorize

‘the wearing of the atom sign for those deprived

of their birthstone—and their birthright!

Menzies’ attempts to uproot Australian miners
from their homes and jobs to make way for Yankee
atomaniacs, may yet prove as futile as his efforts
to outlaw democratic freedom “down under.” Both
be and his bosses in Wall Street should give some
heed: to the glorious traditions of the Eureka Stock-
ade. There, three quarters of a century ago, the
Ballarat miners won democracy for Australia. To-
day, in the same spirit, and with the full backing
of Australian labor, the miners can hold it against
all that Menzies and the Yankee warmongers can
stack up.

A “famous” ‘Scottish soldier (what he is famous
for is still a mystery), a: Lieut.Colonel Alick B,
Buchanan-Smith, is urging in the Edinburgh, Scots-
man that General Douglas MacArthur be “given a
chance to go back to Korea” and win the war. The
Colonel thinks the Mad Mikado should be given full
authority to atom-bomb China,

We also think MacArthur should be sent back
to Korea—to stand trial before a Korean People’s
court as a war criminal; for waging indiscriminate,

_ ruthless, aggressive warfare against a defenseless

people, whose only desire is to be left alone to settle
their “own way of life” and affairs in peace.
Arthur’s military “orders of the day,” brought in
as evidence, would hang him as surely as similar
evidence hanged a handful of the Nazi high com-

mand at. Nuremberg.

So, by all means send this sawdust Caesar of
Wall Street back to Korea—to face a jury of the
people maimed and murdered, burned and tortured,
under his orders. The verdict would be as inevit-
able .as every catastrophic slump of the stock
market following every victory of the world’s peace
forces. It would also remove an “old soldier”
turned maniac, but with sufficient cunning left not
to follow the good example set by the late US.

an ersatz substitute for opals may -

Mac-

‘Secretary of Defense James G. Forrestal, that of

“taking a header out of sixteenth-storey window.

The Pacific Tribune has just completed a great
financial sustaining drive, to assure that the people
of British Columbia will continue to have one little
weekly paper, which speaks, out fearlessly on the
pressing issues of the day. Elsewhere on these
pages is the weekly story of this great effort and
our thanks and admiration to ‘those thousands of
workers who made it possible.

Our approach to this continuous problem of
keeping a fighting working class paper going may
not have always been as polished as the table
technique of a Waldorf-Astoria waiter, but in the
business of .combatting the big lie warmongering
propaganda of the enemies of the people, an ounce
of forthrightness is worth a bushel of double-talk
palaver any time. The people want truth, not
specious promises, double-talk and evasion, and
have demonstrated their desire for straight talk in
their magnificent support of the PT campaign.

This is perhaps best illustrated in the CCF News
of May 2. That sterile organ of “third force” social
democracy is also feeling the economic pinch of
the times. That, of course, is understandable, Even
the well-subsidized organs of big business do a bit
of whining at times when caught in the squeeze of
rising costs, declining circulation, and the periodic
reluctance of big advertisers to foot the bill.

% But the CCF News, as befits an organ dedicated
to political opportunism and working class betrayal,
approaches the matter of its sustaining fund with all
the gentility of’ an aristocratic pauper.

“We know exactly how the undernourished of.
South Asia feel—the CCF News annual sustaining
fund is currently suffering from malnutrition, hav-
ing received exactly $17 in the last five wee Me
But, continues this “third force” organ in @ valiant
bid for sustained respectability, “while other papers
which have such funds are able to make forthright
appeals through their columns, CCF News must
approach our prospective contributors in a discreet
and genteel manner... .” .

We do not presume to speak for CCK members —
and supporters but we are sure they won't take it
amiss if we hazard a suggestion on the “under-
nourishment” of the GCF News. A little less of
the “discreet and genteel” mannerisms of the par-
liamentary faker, and a little more of the fight for
those things, including a policy for lasting peace,
which CCF workers as well as others desire, and
the political vitamin content would be immediately
reflected in the response of its readers. “. . - Ex-
actly $17 in the last five weeks” is a splendid baro-
meter on the high value CCF supporters place on 4
“discreet and genteel’ plea for social democratic
alms. n

~ George Bernard

By H. G. SEAR

- George Bernard Shaw's writings on music (his
Music in London has been published in three
volumes by Constable, London) three things stand
out: the liveliness and clarity of ‘his journalistic
style, his practical knowledge, and his insistence on
the social aspect of music.

Together they make up what he called his wis-
dom on the subject and he published it all for those’
who read about music and nothing else; which in-
cludes many musicians.
references, is the Most important if only because of
the lack of it in the bulk’of criticism. .

The old warrior never pretended to be impartial.
I am always electioneering, he declared.

_ “Never in my life,” he wrote, “have I penned an
impartial criticism; and I hope I never may. AS
long as I have a want I am necessarily partial to
the fulfilment of that want, with a view to which I
must strive with all my wit to infect everyone ‘else
with it.” 5 3

For him bad performance was wasteful, aca-
demic perfection anathema, star worship a fraud;
laziness he could not abide. He loathed the religious
unction brought to performances of Messiah in
Britain.

Better for heathens to sing it with ‘‘unembar-
rassed sincerity of dramatic expression” than the
regulation Christmas productions demanded by “pure
abstract reverence.”

He was all against wasting “huge sums on the

multitudinous dullness called a Handel Festival,”
and because “some of us would be glad to hear the
work seriously performed before we die,” he de-
manded a thoroughly rehearsed and exhaustively
bas ang performance with a chorus of twenty capable
artists. hee

The last point, the social.

«

Shaw on music

He slashed at the Norwich Festival because the
proceeds were given to charity instead of being —
used for the endowment of art in the county, Noting
that the committee included 25 peers but no musi-—
cians, he remarked that there was no danger of the
festival being spoilt by the interference of specialists.

And he informed a young music critic who took
®exception to his jibes that while for a hospital gove™
nor a concert is “nothing. but a dodge for raising the
wind of charity,” he as critic, should know that musi¢ —
is worth cultivating for itself. ; ;

'

He added: “A man who is brought up in a tow?
where there are exchanges and chambers of ccm
merce, but no orchestra and no opera will never be
a cultivated citizen of the world.”

All this was in the ’nineties when ‘the only
properly constituted orchestra. was Manchester's
Halle; the London bands were mainly scratch af- a
fairs though made up of good players. :

Here is a typical Shavian sally which only. needS
to be paraphrased to be applicable to our own day,
in which London County Council has withdrawn it
grants from London Philharmonic Orchestra, at th®
same time organizing a gargantuan festival fF
which it has to hire orchestras. (It also has it¢—
point for the social-climbing, penny-pinching and
very partial-musical pretenders who control what #
left of Vancouver Symphony Orchestra): .

“What is wanted is a weekly orchestral —
concert ... all the year round. If the scheme
should not pay at first, it should be taken over
by the county council which could meet the cost —
at once by confiscating the entire property of
tha Duke of Westminster, as a judgment on him
for signing @ petition to prevent the schools of
London from being provided with pianos on the
grounds of “extravagance.”

¥

Shaw wielded his sword doughtily, using poith —
edge, the flat of the blade—and even the hilt 9 —
seemed necessary—but never with indifference. ;

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — MAY 11, 1951 — pace §