No chiselling on pensions!

remier_ Byron Johnson has called a special session of the legislature
for November 6 to deal with the question of old age pensions.

The Coalition government has already agreed “‘in principle” to
the new federal old age pension agreement, effective next January 1,
under which there will be pensions-for-all (including Indians and

Eskimos) at 70.

What Johnson and his Coalition colleagues are concerned about’

is a scheme to chisel pensioners out of the $10 monthly cost-of-living
bonus now paid to senior citizens. Their contention is that some of
the old folk “won't need’’ the additional $10, and they propose to
hold back payment until the prospective recipient has passed a “means

”

test. ‘

“You can’t give the $10 cost-of-living bonus to everyone,” bleats
Boss Johnson, “There isn’t enough money in B.C.”

Stuff and nonsense! We spend hundreds of millions of dollars
on war preparations, yet begrudge a miserly pittance to our senior
citizens, the builders of our country. \

The Pacific Tribune says: Pay the $10 bonus without a means
test to every old age pensioner, in addition to the $40 federal grant.

How would YOU like to live on $50 a. month, Premier
Johnson?

2

French Canada for peace

; : ; ae
N° all Canadian editors are on the American war chariot. On

August | an editorial appeared in the Fi rench-language paper,
Le Devoir, telling some plain truths to its readers.

“Pe American government wants war,” stated Le Deyoir. ‘‘This
can no longer be doubted. Its main leaders multiply their warlike
declarations and demand from Congress astronomical credits . . ey

“General Eisenhower is in the process of putting on foot his

_ European army of occupation. The first American planes have landed,
‘these last few days, in Frankfurt. Washington let us know last week

_ that within the next 12 months 500,000 GI's will be stationed in

“AIL who have travelled in Europe during the last 12 months
return with the same impression: a Russian aggression against the
west European countries. is improbable, unless the intervention of
Washington forces, Moscow to take the initiative in operations. In

modern war, the aggressor is not always the one who fires the first

'

“The Americans have arrived at the point where they can no

Pape longer reverse their steam. Their material and psychological prepar-

ations are too advanced, With the electoral campaign which is being .

primed, the warlike sentiment will be brought to a white heat.

“There is something changed in the American mentality. | This
great people, peaceful and even gentle, prone to tolerance, is in the
‘way of becoming, because of the fault of its politicians and because
tof a series’ of uninterrupted successes, the most aggressive and danger-
‘ «ous people on the earth. ; Lt: :

“Tras too bad. With their economic power and spirit of enter-
_ iplise, the American people could save from misery hundreds of millions
Of people who are cold and hungry. But instead of giving them bread,
‘they (the Americans) give them guns. The American people may
‘lose, through their own failing, one of those occasions which will
never return.”

_ We can agree with many of the comments of Le Devoir’s editor.
‘But we have more faith in the American people than he has. The
‘hour is late, but it is not yet too late to stop the drive to war. In.

‘the great world-wide peace movement which can be the instrument

_ ‘to halt Washington’s war plans, we believe that ‘the American people
will yet play an honorable role. From Maine to California the senti-
tment for peace is growing; a sentiment that will lead to action for
peace. In the final analysis, it is not Washington or Wall Street,
but the American people who will decide the issue of war or peace.

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Published Weekly at Room 6 - 426 Main Street, Vancouver, B.C.
fe By THE TRIBUNE PUBLISHING COMPANY LTD. |
Telephone MA, 5288 ;
LOnr MGRRVENY 28. a hee ee eres.
Subscription Rates: 1 Year, $2.50;

Editor
6 Months, $1.35.

Printed by Union Printers Ltd., 650 Howe Street, Vancouver, B.C. *

a Authorized as second class mail, Post Office Dept., Ottawa

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> As We Soe. |k

~ by TOM McEWEN

AAU :

Dpurize the depression days of the early 20’s (we’ve
never run short of depressions) the dirt farmers
in Saskatchewan used to say that “the only damn
thing that holds this country together is haywire.”
‘Bedevilled ° by mortgage, machine, grain, banking
and other sharks, the farmers found haywire a
handy article to hold run-down machinery together
when economic conditions made new replacements
impossible. Many an early homesteader “proved
up” on his 160 acres of “free” land by sheer
doggedness—and haywire. \

There was a certain quality of grim humor in
the haywire era. Jimmy Gardiner, our present
federal minister of agriculture, was then a “big
shot” in Saskatchewan politics, and no slouch when
it came to making specious promises to irate farmers.
In fact, it was precisely Jimmy’s uncanny ability
to diddle the farmers that earned for him the sine-
cure of this ministry under the paternal guidance
of the late peer of Liberal doubletalk, Mackenzie
King. : :

When a haywire agronomy produced little else
except sowthistles and tumbling weed, Jimmy ap-
pointed a “weed inspector’ whose main qualifica-
tions was to vote the Liberal ticket—and Produce
more weeds per acre on his own farm than in any
surrounding section. When farmers’ wives wanted
something ‘done in the way of health hygiene for
their children, Jimmy appointed a good female
Liberal heeler to lecture the farmers’ wives on a
subject she knew nothing about, biologically or
‘scientifically. The dame couldn't have changed a
diaper to save her life, but that didn’t stop her
touring Saskatchewan to lecture on the “care and
feeding of children.” Anything went in the hay-
wire era. ; “ '

Today, in this age of atomic doubletalk, hay-
wire is totally obsolete. Jimmy of course is still
pitching away, trotting out one explanation after
another on “wheat agreements”, beef exports, dairy
produce and-so forth. That part hasn’t changed
much since the days of the haywire era, and it
is still as phoney. But we get our daily dose of
haywire propaganda today, served up in fancy
wrappers of diplomatic language, and so plausibly
worded that it almost sounds like the real goods.
In fact there is only one thing stops the farmers
of the wheat belt from accepting all of Jimmy
Gardiner’s long-winded ‘ explanations about the in-
ternational wheat agreement—the millions of dollars
the farmers ‘didn’t get.

And so it goes. In every sphere of economic
life the difficulties are “explained’’ away in a per-
petual deluge of top-level doubletalk. Obviously
what Canadian farmers of the middle west tried to
‘hold together with haywire, has now gone com-
pletely “haywire”. No amount of explanation by
any Canadian statesman, so called, can justify Can-
ada’s participation in the killing of Koreans. Nor
can any statements be uttered that will “explain”
why we must rearm Germany, Japan, or any other
country with whom we dicker in the export of
weapons of murder—but reluctantly in the export

of food, clothing or other essentials of life and well
being. - aie

What does it all add up to? Simply that Can-

_ bit short of convincing anyone, Koreans or others:

‘vehicle for the canons of Christianity, ™

adian foreign and domestic policy, as laid down PY
a power-drunk Liberal machine in power, is totally”
haywire, but the kind that, instead of holding the ,
country together (temporarily, at least) bids fair a
to hasten the process of final collapse! Ot ail

Canada will have an estimated wheat crop this
year of some 582,000,000 million bushels of wheat.
Millions of peoples throughout the world would like —
to buy some of it. Other millions, as in Indi®
gripped by man-made famine, need food badly. But
will we sell it to them; or barter it for useful and
profitable goods in return? Not on your life, if
such transactions run counter to the interests of
the financial plunderbund of Wall Street. The food —
we sell has strings attached—for the buyer. In the
case of a nation as with an individual, if we don’t
like his politics, what he thinks, or believes in, the?
to hell with him. He can go hungry. /

Of course we don’t say it so crudely as that. Was
rather say “a new, and perhaps less benevolent —
attitude may result in view of Prime Minister
Nehru’s refusal to fall in with an American-backed
peace treaty with Japan’, with Nehru portrayed 45 _
a sattelite” of something or somebody! Perhaps
the most haywire thought of all advanced here 38
that a grasping profit-mad imperialism, its hands
red with blood of successive wars of conquest and %
greed, can be “benevolent”. If we ever get eH
believing that, then we will be “haywire”, period. ;

Perhaps no other happenings in human affairs ye
have spotlighted the haywire civilization of the 8° —
called “Western democracies” as have the events i=
Korea. Every calculation of the top-brass politicians B
and militarists who run our haywire-way-of-life oe
has gone “haywire’—and will continue to do
until the rule of reason supercedes the junsle
“code” of brute force. “Operation Killer” is a POO™

napalm bombs incinerating a whole people falls Bi ge

that Western civilization is preferable to their own!
Our “superiority” stands in poor contrast to a Kor ae
ean peasant who, with the English poet Shelley,
prefers “Hell’s freedom to the servitude of Heaver :
Those who have read the report of the Womens
International Commission under the chairmanshiP me
of a Canadian woman, Nora K. Rodd,of windsoy

Ontario, which investigated the atrocities committer 5
against the Korean people by the interventionis' —
armies of “Western civilization” will find little ey
that report to be proud of. Those who haven't rea® —

it, should. It is a document which shows us hoW ©
narrow the border-line between so called civilization
and savagery. It also helps to remind us that “nay
wire” thinking, clothéd in diplomatic doubletalk
led Canadians into this sorry and sordid mess. :
mark of our complete break with the haywire @f4 —
of our lives will be how soon we can TESCUe Nee
honor and dignity of Canada from this Yankee?”
spired crime against humanity, which the WOT°
Korea epitomizes. © : : eae

With all honor to the farmers of the roaring
20’s who felt they could hold body and soul togetht” ieee
with haywire, let us begin in a big way to substitu ae
sanity and farmer-labor unity in action for a !
end.

~ Now let’s get those new readers

Sian first 200 copies of Dyson and Charlotte Carter’s

new book describing their trip to the Soviet
Union, We Saw Socialism, were snapped up by
eager buyers as soon as they reached Vancouver.
Thousands of copies of the 175-page report will
undoubtedly be sold in cities and towns throughout
B.C. in coming months. fa oe ; \ :
/ The unprecedented demand for the book gave
Pacific Tribune business manager Elgin Ruddell-
an idea. “Why not wire for 500 copies of the
Carter’s best-seller and offer the books as premiums
in the PI’s current circulation drive?” he reasoned.

No sooner said than done. The order has gone
in and the Pacific Tribune can now announce the
following premiums, effective for the period of the
circulation campaign: 2

@ For $1.35 plus 25 cents (total of $1.60) every
new subscriber or reader who renews will receive

the PT for six months and a copy of We Saw
Socialism. ; His ‘ ;

@ For $2.50 plus 25 cents (total of $2.75) every

ing Pacific Tribune circulation by at least 1)

new reader or reader who renews will receive the —

PT for one year and a copy of We Saw Socialism.

® Every PT reader who secures THREE subs
(new or renewal, six months one year) will re-

ceive, FREE a copy of We Saw Socialis

_ truth about local, national and international eve?”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — AUGUST 31, 1951 —

ih

The Carters’ book is; enthusiastically described
by all who hawve read it as the best recent book 0 —
life in the Land of Socialism.

Many other prizes are being offered in "
September circulation campaign, aimed at increas i

readers.

Top sub-getter will be’ given a hand-carved 4
bone-handled hunting knife and sheath made aa
reindeer bone by Laplanders and presented to t oe
PY last month by the progressive Swedish new ne
paper Northern Light. This is a souvenir wor? —
cherishing. ee ¥

Top city and provincial press clubs in the ari
will receive silver cups, suitably engraved, as 2 ¢ f.
ward. The clubs will have permanent possession ®
the cups. ay ibe: Sek Wie

_ Other prizes include ‘valuable books for tHe
second and third best individual sub-getters.

The battle for circulation is a fight to bring tB°

to the people of British Columbia. We appeal *
all. Pacific Tribune readérs to support this campal
Let every reader get even one new reader, and
go over the top! : j