Parliament
must act !

cake second session of the 24th
Parliament of Canada opened
Thursday of this week, January 15.
At the time of writing the particu-
lar Issue that will have top priority
in the traditional Throne Speech
is still unknown, but we know what
it should be — even as we fear it
won't be.
_ Unemployment! A steadly grow-
ing atmy of jobless workers and
their families, many thousands with
unemployment insurance benefits
long expired, compelled to subsist
on charity handouts. A jobless
army that may well reach one mil-
lion im numbers while this parlia-
ment is in session. :

There are other vital issues af-

fecting the wellbeing of the coun-

try which merit high priority in th

gh priority in the
Throne Speech, but none so press-
ing and urgent as that of hundreds

of thousands of workers deprived

of the right an i rm
‘ elikeed, id opportunity to ear

his crowing army of jobless has
had Its fill of Tory promises. Now
i wants to see performance from a
Tory government, in power with all
the power it needs to act.

Public power
needed now

HATEVER the final conclu-
Sions of the Shrum Royal
Commission presently investigating
power development and control in
this province arising out of charges
made by H. Lee Briggs, ex-general

_ Manager of the B.C. Power Com-

mission, one thing stands out like
a very sore thumb, that control and
development of the power resources
of B.C. must inevitably be brought
under a fool-proof system of pub-
ic ownership, if the people’s inter-
ests are to be served.

That much at least Briggs’ expose
of Socred. government juggling
with BCPC affairs has established

eyond question.

Consider the facts. The BCPC,

Pa ctic Tribune

Phone MUtual 5-5288
Editor — TOM McEWEN

_ Managing Editor — HAL GRIFFIN

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set up as a publicly-owned enter-
prise in the field of electric power
services, has been relegated by
Social Credit policy to the most
scattered and unprofitable areas.
Yet it still managed to provide
such services far below B.C. Power
Corporation monoply - controlled
prices.

BCPC has done this under dual
handicap of B.C. Electric domina-
tion, interference and direct sabo-
tage in its affairs, plus the sleight-
of-hand juggling of a Socred gov-
ernment with a Mulligan-piggy
bank outlook on BCPC financing,
aimed at fulfilling a boast of “debt
free” administration by putting the
financial load on BCPC power lines
—and users.

The Bennett’s government’s stall-
ing on Columbia River develop-
ment, its readiness to give away a
vast hydro-electric and other re-
sources empire in northern B.C. to
the Wenner - Gren B.C. Electric
monopolists, and its shabby treat-
ment and regard for future de-
velopment of the publicly-owned
B.C. Power Commission, leaves
only one conclusion to be drawn, a

conclusion already generally ap-
proved by wide sections of the
people of B.C., and highly desir-

able in the final recommendations
of the royal commission.

The conclusion is that the power
resources of British Columbia
should ‘be taken out of the hands
of private monopoly now, and de-
veloped, extended and controlled
as a publicly owned utility in the
sole interests of the people of this
province.

Merchant of

‘Death back

ITH the full approval of

Anglo-U.S. imperialism. Alfred
Krupp, German munitions king, ex-
ploiter of slave labor and co-part-
ner in Hitler’s “Murder Incorpor-
ated” Reich, has been restored to
his former eminence.

Sentenced to 10 years in prison
at the Nuremberg nazi war crim-
inal trials, Krupp’s sentence ‘was
terminated in less than two years,
and his Rheinhausen steel plants
and vast fortune returned to him
by British and U.S. high commands.
They needed “allies” in their new
NATO anti-Communist pact, and
who better than West Germany’s

top Merchant of Death?

Krupp’s recent purchase of the
giant Bochumer Verein Steel stands
in sharp contrast to Allied agree-
ments providing for “fragmenta-
tion” of the vast Krupp steel car-
tel. Such agreements have long
since been reduced to scraps of paper
by U.S. and British war architects,
and Nazi generals, munition makers
and notorious killers reinstated in
business’ at the same old stand
under a new title. ;

Obviously our much-touted “free
world” must be in sore straights
when criminals like Krupp are
hailed as NATO “allies” and given
free rein to rebuild their West Ger-
man murder cartels in readiness
again for another “Der Tag.”

x os xt
Dens spokesmen on TV programs

are poor advertising for enter-
prising opticians. They always “see”
things that aren’t there, or can’t
“see” things that are.

They “see” prosperity for 1959,
‘an “upturn” in the recession, a
“normal trend” when jobless fig-
ures skyrocket. But they can’t “see”
China, they can’t “see”  three-
quarters of a million’ unemployed,

and they can’t “see”

as others see them.

Tom
McEwen}

AST week I had a lengthy let-

ter from Archie Johnstone, a
brother Scot now residing in
Moscow, describing in some de-
tail how the Soviet people plan
to honor the 200th anniversary
of Scotland’s national Bard, Rob-
bie Burns.

For the information of our
readers, as well as those prim-
arily interested in the 200th
birthday of Burns, it should be
noted that several months ago
the Soviet postal department
authorized the issuance of a
special Burns Bicentennial post-
age stamp as one method of
paying tribute to the works of
Scotland’s Bard. -

Now we'll let Archie take it
from here:

“Ever since the USSR decided
that a Burns Bicentenary stamp
was a Must and official Britain
and Canada decided it was a
Must Not, some of us Scots have
had_to fight hard against over-

indulgence in the question about
the prophet being not without
honor, save. in his own country.

“The temptation has become
even harder to resist these days,
for the Soviet Union, with its
notorious disregard for the sanct-
ity of national frontiers, has gone
and produced a film in honor of
the 200th anniversary of Scot-
land’s national poet — who never
even-set foot on Russian soil.

“More than that; practically
the whole of the film was shot,
by a Soviet cameraman, mark
you — on British territory.

“Anyhow, it’s a lovely film.
The “Burns Country” itself steals
the show, and the director,
Samuel Bubrik told me: ‘We fell
head over heels in love. with the
unbelievably delicate green of
Ayrshire’s fields and river banks.

- No wonder Burns’ poetry is so
fresh and fair, and so full of
love for all growing and living
things. :

“The Scottish - USSR Society
collaborated in the shooting of
the scenes and the script is by
Samuel Marshak, the famous
Russian translator of Burns. *

‘It is not only in postage
stamps and films that the Soviet
Union is honoring Burns; in one
way and another January 25
will be, in effect, ‘Burns Day’
throughout the country.

“On and around that date there

will be large public gatherings,
concerts, radio and _ television

programs to mark the anniver-
sary. :

“A special bicentenary edition,
beautifully bound and illustrated,
of Burns’ works in Marshak’s
translations will be issued, with
a first printing of 50,000 copies.
This, with later printings, will
soon bring the total circulation
of Burns’ works in Russian and
other languages of the Soviet
Union, up to three-quarters of a
million copies.

“A new and very comprehen-
sive biography of Burns in Rus-
sian, by Rita Wright-Kovalyova,
is to be published, and the Soviet
Library of Foreign Literature is
to have a Burns Bicentenary
Exhibition.

“And how strange — but how

_typical of this cockeyed world,”

says Archie Johnstone, ‘that
many people in Britain and the
Dominions, when they see this
film, will be getting their first
glimpse of a lovely corner of
their own homeland — and get-
ting that glimpse almost literally,
through Russian eyes.’ And,
Archie could have added, the
same first glimpse, through fine
Soviet books, of  Scotland’s
ploughman poet restored to his
“ain folk” of the new world his
poetic genius proclaimed nearly
two centuries ago!

In next week’s issue we shall
print Samuel Marshak’s poem To
Robert Burns On His 200th Birth-
day, translated by the same
Archie Johnstone of this column.

January 16, 1959 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 5

themselves—