Session not secret -
just behind closed doors

What has been officially hand-
€d out is that members will be
able to speak “a little more
frankly than one does in a pub-
lie forum.” That the subject of
discussion will not cover the
Contentious Marshall Plan. That
further, its sole purpose would
be to cover “the timing of the
deposit of letters of ratification
of peace treaties and such mat-
ters."

_ Senators and members will be
able to attend the session, which
is to be held in the large Sen-
ate Railway Committee Room.

The anxiety of the govern-
ment to dissociate itself from
the word ‘secret’ and the un-
democratic processes which ac-
Company an unnecessary secrecy
is seen by many here as sensi-
tivity on the part of the cab-
inet, flowing from its policy of
limiting debate on foreign af-
fairs,

It is the old and well-used
formula of Prime Minister King
~-the middle way compromise.
Here we have a great clamor
Fut up by Gordon Graydon for
the Tories asking for open de-
bate, for full and frank discus-
Sion on foreign affairs. And
_ then, on the other side, the con-
Ceale@ movements of Canada in
the international arena—as for
instance’ the blunt announce-
Ments on February 12, 1946, of
its mutual defense agreement
with the U.S.

URING the session a rebellious
house opposition, which had
Scored the lack of discussion on
external affairs, broke the traces
in an unprecedented runaway
debate on Canada’s military re-
lations with the U.S. It came on
the eve of Truman’s visit to
a—distinctly out of taste
Cabinet eyes and giving Ca-
Nadians some inkling of sus-
_ Picion about the unbrotherly de-
Signs of their big brothers to
the south.

Now with the peace treaties
Up for ratification before the
Ouse and the threat of new
blistering debate out in the open,
it would seem that King is cool-
ing off everybody’s nerves by
Shunting the’ discussion into
Private quarters, where nothing
that is said can be recorded in
_ Print on official documents.

_. Whether this is King’s stra-
Sy or not, what is very dis-
turbing and significant is that
while giving lip-service to free
Speech ang contrasting our way
°f life with that of the Euro-
Pean countries, the most signal
Stifling of debate takes place on.
the vita question of foreign
relations,

. Thus External Affairs Minister
Louis gt Laurent on July 4
ts\the drum of “two great
S8toupings’ in the world, and the
8l-importance of our ideological
erences, In this view he

Sressive-Conservative, an d
“rman Jaques, Social Crediter,
. avowed enemy of the United
Nations,
oe ‘Laurent speaks heavily
ut the “fog of ignorance and
representation’ which  sur-
a Und certain countries in the
©nduct of international affairs.
oe buts himself and Canada
baa ce back with, “No fog of
ss kind obscures the vision or
aoe dgment of our own people, be-
i, © our way of life and rule
s democratic and popular, not
‘Snly in words but in reality.”
et even on the testimony of

FRIDAY, JULY 11, 1947

_ Graydon,

Stands with Gordon Graydon,

By MARK FRANK

who holds_ similar
views to St. Laurent on the
countries of Europe and the
USSR, Canada is away behind in
affording opportunity for free
discussion of its international
affairs. —

: e

AST year’s external affairs

committee, according to Mr.
Graydon, recommended a_e set
period every week for the dis-
cussion of foreign matters. Only
two days in the last session
out of 119 sitting days were
used to discuss questions of
this kind.

Said Graydon: “This  parlia-
ment must keep abreast but it
cannot keep abreast if only
three, four or five opportunities
during the session are given to
the people’s representatives to
reflect the opinion of the people,

J IGHLY-PLACED officials of the department of external affairs, the minister him-
self and Prime Minister King have been falling all over themselves this past week
to assure Canadians, that the secret session on external affairs to be held this coming
Tuesday is not really ‘secret’ at all.

as it comes from various parts
of the Dominon of Canada.”

And later, bearing on the spe--
cial secret session to be held on
Tuesday:

“We should not really be go-
ing into a secret session of the
external affairs committee on
the question .of international
policy until we have at Jeast
exhausted the normal channels
and avenues of discussion of
policy in open session in that
committee.”

Instead of having a “wide-
open discussion on policy in the
committee, we are going to have
‘a discussion; of policy behind
closed doors,” said Graydon.

Graydon’s words give the lie
direct to St. Laurent’s com-
ments on “our way of life .
democratic and popular, not only
in words but in reality.”

eo.

Tag days

A

if people keep them so ~
By JOHN STANTON

SIGNIFICANT decision of the Supreme Court of
Canada was recently handed down in Ottawa in a

e

are legal

case which the International Woodworkers of America

carried to this highest court

Police Court.
The case concerns the right of

workers to solicit funds from —

the public by means of a tag
day—a right the reactionary
authorities in Vancouver have
long sought to restrict.

“The Supreme Court of Can-
ada decision upholds the right
of workers and any public org-
anization to hold a tag day in
Vancouver at any time, so long
as the taggers conduct them-
selves in an orderly manner and
do not obstruct the streets.

During the loggers’ strike of
1946, the union sought public
support on various occasions by
or, izing tag days throughout
Vancouver. City authorities, in
order to assist the lumber com-
panies in their attempts to
smash or weaken the strike,
sought to prevent the tag day
from being effective by arresting
taggers and charging them with
“obstructing police officers in the
execution of their duty.”

Two test cases were brought
by the city prosecutor against
‘Elfread Johannson and Maria E.
Daniluk. :

Miss Elspeth Munro, a law
student in the office of John
Stanton, labor attorney, defended
Johannson and Mrs. Daniluk,
and was commended for her
work by the magistrate. At the
conclusion of the hearing, how-
ever, Magistrate W. W. B. Mc-
Innes found the accused guilty
and imposed fines of $100 each.
The union paid the fine.

In giving judgment, Magis-
trate McInnes threatened jail
sentences if there were any
more taggers brought before
him, stating that “if any more
cases of this organized lawless-
mess come before the court, jail
sentences may be expected. This
kind of thing is not going to be
tolerated in Vancouver.”

IWA appealed this reac-
tionary decision, which was
obviously calculated to help the

- lumber companies against the

union and to hamper the union

all the way from Vancouver

in its fight to secure public
support and funds with which
to carry on its strike.

The appeal was heard in Oc-
tober 1946, by the B.C. Court of
Appeal at Victoria where two
of the three judges agreed with
Magistrate McInnes and held
the taggers guilty of obstructing
police,

The union then carried the
case to the highest court in Can-
ada at Ottawa, and after re-
serving its decision for some
time, judgment was finally hand-
ed down June 18.

The Supreme Court decision
states in part that “there were
at least one hundred taggers on
the streets that day. . .. The
evidence makes it quite plain
to me that it was not obstruc-
tion or possible obstruction, but
tagging which was in the mind
of the police.”

It points out that “there is
not a single word of evidence
that the appellant was standing
‘or loitering in the manner pro-
hibited by the bylaw. What the
officer clearly objected to was
the tagging. .. .”

The
aside the judgments of Magis-
trate McInnes and of the Court
of Appeal, thereby restoring to
citizens their right to conduct
tag days, provided always that
the taggers conduct themselves
in.a lawful way and do not
obstruct traffic on the streets or
otherwise infringe upon city by-

- laws.

It is still possible for Van-
couver City Council] to nullify
this progressive decision by en-
acting a bylaw prohibiting tag
days outright, or by putting in-
to force a bylaw requiring per-
mits before tag days can be held

Organized labor must be on
its guard to see that no such
regressive measure is passed,
and that the right to hold tag
days which the IWA has won
for the people of Vancouver is
not to be taken away by the
present clique in the city hall.

_ Impressions of Scott’s meeting

‘used to do that too. It was no compliment to the efficiency of

. What the audience did learn about this cult was gathered, not

court accordingly set

Short Jabs

thy Ol’ Bill

ANCOUVER was subjected to two invasions last week, both of
them in grey. The 58,000-ton Iowa, almost fresh, one might say,
from her victories over democracy in Greece, dropped her hook in
Vancouver harbor to show any recalcitrant Canadians what
they will be up against if
they try to thwart the
plans American imperialism
has for Canada. The other grey invasion was of a different kind;
it was a land invasion—about half-a-million dollars’ worth of it,
on wheels. Over 200 cars rolled along the cobblestones of Van-
couver. This was Technocracy Inc., showing its teeth.
As this invasion on wheels passed along Vancouver streets,
few people took much notice of it. To me, however, it was remin
iscent. In January, 1933, I saw a parade; although it was a foot-
slogging affair and did not heve one automobile, it made a lasting
impression on my mind. That was in Berlin and the parade was
staged by a section of Hitler’s storm troop following. This grey
car demonstration made a similar impression on me. A stranger
to whom I spoke later said’ it reminded him of seeing Hitler's
tanks rolling along the roads in the invasion of Holland. Others
who have seen fascism at work must have had the same impres-
sion, the denials of Technocracy’s ‘Chief’ notwithstanding.
* x. *

the parking lot across from the Forum, space was at a
premium. All the cars were not grey either. The 4,000-plus audi-
ence that faced the platform inside the Forum was decidedly a
middle-class one. Women made up a great part of it. Under the
powerful lights the sum-
mer dresses of the wom-
en reflected a_ brilliance,
color and warmth in the audience which contrasted sharply with
the drab, rat-colored uniforms of the storm troopers and the bleak
chill of the platform. :

Behind the rostrum, banked by the flags, Canadian and Am-
erican, hung the flag of Technocracy Ine., with its ‘ege’ of life
and death, appropriated from the ancient Chinese mythology by
the Technocrats in the same manner that Hitler appronvriated the
swastika from the temples of the ancient religions including the
Temple of Solomon at Jerusalem, and that Mussolini adopted the ~
fasces from the trappings of ancient Roman law. Such movements ©
always go to the past for justification. E

The meeting for Howard Scott was staged. It was very theatri-
cal. They worked the old trick of ‘the big noise’ coming late. Hitler

Two invasions of Vancouver

Technocracy but it impressed the crowd.

When at last the ‘Chief’ did get on the platform, fifty min-
utes after the start of the meeting, any one who came to learn
something about Technocracy Inc. must have been disappointed.

from what Scott said, but from what he did not say. os
The advertising blurbs led the public to believe the ‘Chief’ was
going to deal with Technocracy, fascism and communism. He did
not. He merely referred to them. But we gathered from the few
positive statements he did make that he is opposed to ‘politics’
and that “Technocracy is not going to take over anything.”
“You,” he said, meaning the people, will do that. It is not
hard to see that when the people do that, Technocracy Inc. will
be Johnny-on-the-spot to see that they do not profit from it.”
*, * *
dividing society into ‘chisselers and suckers,’ Scott did not
indicate to which class he belongs himself, but there is no doubt
in the world in which class he placed his audience. If any one in
the audience considered himself insulted by Scott, he was right, for
as : 'the whole hour-long sneech
Either chisellers or suckers was a considered insult to
the intelligence of the people
listening. The audience did not appear to enioy the vulgarisms
with which the ‘Chief’s’ address was interlarded. He descended to
a depth of vulgarity such as has never before been reached in
this town from a public platform. Altogether he created an im-
pression of being inhibited by the atmosvhere of respectability and
would rather have had the freedom of the smoking room in 2
hotel for commercial travellers. ;
The concention of politics he tried to convey to the audience
was the anarchist one of ‘putting pieces of paver in a ballot box,’
but his real attitude to politics could be gathered from his ad- :
vocacy of the ‘water cure’ for the enemies of Technocracy Inc— |
Mussolini’s caster oi] cure in reverse.
Anything that was good in Scott’s speech is already imherent
in socialism. He is not original in denouncing the ‘price system.’
Eighty years ago Marx wrote in the second volume of ‘Capital,’
“If we assumed that society were not italistic, but communistic,
then the money-capital would be entirely eliminated and with it
the disguises which it carries into the (market) transactions.”
' ‘By talking in the most demagogic way, about the 4hour day
and 25-mile-square farms, Scott may not know it, but when he
was wearing knee-pants, bonanza farms were common street
gossip among socialists and they sold a pamphlet on the two-hour
day to be accomplished by the increased use of machinery and —
planning of production. :
No one-hour speech could be entirely bad but what was good _
in this speech is only possible of accomplishment after classes _
have been abolished, after the victory of the working class. He
spoke of building a navigable waterway across Canada. While
class rule exists, that is only a pipe dream as are most of the
other ‘technological schemes’ they talk about.
In Russia under the Tsar, schemes of the same kind were _
proposed every so often and just as often denounced as impossibili- _
ties. One of these was the linking of the Baltic with the White
Sea, another was the linking of the Baltic with the Caspian Sea.
These were absurdities in the class society of Tsarist Russia.
But with no class limitations and réstrictions hampering them
the people of the Soviet Union have alreadv accomplished these
two ‘impossibilities.’ This concrete demonstration is worth more
than all the charts and graphs, the grey uniforms and the fan-
tastic salutes, the ‘hail the Chief’ and all the other Boy Scout
nonsense that Technocracy Inc. asks us to swallow. That could |
only happen where “the government of persons is replaced by
the administration of things and by the conduct of processes of
production” (Engels).
Besides, Technocracy is not a movement, it is a conspiracy!

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 5