" RE was much ado among

the senators. For the moment
they forgot the heated and indig-
nant discussion they had been en-

gaged in on the refusal of the Un-

ited Electrical Workers, the ITU

and the United Mine Workers to

conform to the Daft-Heartless
law. Rebecca West had just turn-
ed in a story to
them that
sounded the
depths of their
patriotic fervor
and had them
burned up = as
only Republican

senators can
burn up. :
This story

was not asf ‘
lengthy as the one she wrote
about the Republican convention
which got pushed around in the
UP office and appeared later in
the Vancouver Sun as a report of
the nominating convention of the
Progressive Party at which Henry
Wallace was chosen to run for
president. This was a short and
Sweet story just off the teletype.
The Russians, according to her,
ehad made a demand on the U.S.
government for a place on a com-
mission to regulate traffic on the
Panama Canal for themselves and
for Poland and Czechoslovakia.
This was the cause of the fire-
and-brimstone atmosphere. All
the Republican senators were

Sweating and some of the Demo-
crats as well. :

“Them gosh-dinged Rooshian
furreigners will have to be put
in their place; attempting to horn
in on running our canal. They
think they can make laws for us.
Well we better answer them with
a few atom bombs,” said one.

Said another, “What rights do
they think they got in the Pan-
ama Canal? Why, they ain’t with-
in 6,000 miles of the canal. If we

don’t stop them, next thing we”

know they will be sending guns
and tanks and submarines and
military advisers to Mexico, just
like we are doing in Turkey, so.
the Mexicans can invade us.”

Rebecca: West had left the cham-
ber after she passed on the infor-
mation. She now returned. She
bad got her wires crossed again
just as she did in reporting the
conventions. “So sorry, gentle-
men,” she said, “I made a mistake.
What the wire actually says is
that General Marshall’s state de-
partment has demanded. represen-
tation on the Danube Commission
for the U.S., Britain and France.”

“Ah! that is different,” shouted
all the senators in chorus, “That
is a legitimate measure for our
national defense. It is not like Red
Bolshevik imperialism.”

The Danube Commission is a
body which controls the naviga-
tion of the Danube River. After
the First World War Britain and
France secured seats on it because
they rattled the money-bags which

UT
were “open sesame” to getting
Power in the Danubian countries
with the kind of governments they
had at that time. The Soviet
Union, although a Danubian coun-
‘try, was denied a seat on the
Commission.
taire” was in operation at the
time, that being the post-war
name then for what is known as
the “iron curtain” today, the

changed name being all that is
left of Goebbels’ literary: heritage.

The Danube is just as far from
the United States as the Panama
Canal is from the Soviet Union.
The Panama Canal is entirely in
U.S. territory. At one time Pan-
ama was part of the Republic of
Colombia but before the: U.S. in-
vested a penny in the canal, Am-
ericans and American money
stirred up a revolt in the province
of Panama against the Colombian
government. Panama declared its
independence and was immediate-
ly recognized by Uncle Sam. The
first act of the new state of Pan-
ama was to turn over the Canal
zone to the United States.

So today, imperialist America
alone controls the Canal, not even
Panama having any say in run-
ning it. The proposal of the So-
viets is that only the Danube
countries shall have a voice in
the control of the Danube which
is the correct stand at this time.
When we have socialism through-
out the world the internationaliz-
ation of all waterways will be in
order, but not today.

TTT

She

or

FUTAEETOVELIULSIUULTSTE

of the publicity boys has quiet-

ened down, the ordinary citizen

~ who pays the shot can begin mak-
ing some estimations of what took
Place at the recent Liberal con-
vention.

From where we stand it is be-
coming patently clear that the
autstanding
achievement of

the Liberal
gathering was
- not the machin-
ed “election” of
the clerical-tory
Louis St. Laur- | |
ent to wear the
halo of the
aging Macken-
_ zie King, but the
almost unanimous decision of this

galaxy of Liberal stalwarts — we

almost said delegates—to commit
political hari-kari,

In point of history, policy, and
bankruptcy of perspective, the
third national convention of the
Liberal Party is undoubtedly its
last one; Mackenzie King’s vale-

_ dietory to his assembled lieuten-

ants, political ward bosses and as--

sorted heelers was not a farewell
address of a retiring leader to a
growing and virile party, but ra-

ther a funeral oration over the ©

. semi-animated corpse of tradi-
tional Liberalism,

Organized labor and farm move-

ments in Canada ,ever concerned

with the preservation and exten-
sion of constitutional and demo-
cratic principles, seek to hold con-
ventions of their fellow-men at
least every two or three years, to
renew policies and extend leader-
ship in the democratic march
forward. Not so with the Liber-
aise:

The first convention of the Lib-
eral Party was held in 1893, the
second convention took place 26
years later, in 1919, just 29 years
ago, at which Mackenzie King
was elected successor to Sir Wil-
fred Laurier. With gaps of 29
years between conventions, demo-
cratic expression of rank-and-file
opinion on policies and leadership
beeomes a howling farce — and
this is the party chiefly noted in
recent years for its empty prat-.
tle about “preserving democracy”.
Even the Vancouver Sun was com-
Pelled to moan: “It (the Liberal
Party) must give greater voice to
the rank-and-file of Liberals
through more conventions. If the
Liberals adjourn this weekend not
to meet for another 29 years, they
may never have another conven-
tion.”

The election of uncompromis-
ing St. Laurent to replace the
arch-compromiser King is predi--
cated upon the hope that the
Quebec political .tail »will continue
to wag the rest of Canada. . to
the everlasting glory, prestige,
(and most important of all) con-
tinuity of the Liberal Party “in
office’. The hope is as dead as

hy i
iy ST Fe
ant tivewal NY An

Published Weekly at 650 Howe Street
By THE TRIBUNE PUBLISHING COMPANY LTD.
Telephones: Editorial, MA. 5857; Business, MA. 5288

Tom McEwen

Sows hrs s UENCE SE Pee ee ca coke oe

e See lt

TTT

the illustrious William Lyon Mac-

kenzie, who must have turned
over in his grave when a Liberal
“delegate” in a burst of ersatz
enthusiam, referred to Mackenzie
King as “the illustrious grandson
of a great grandfather”.
e
WHEN the Liberal convention
_ ‘drafted its “new look” program
of social security it forgot one im-
portant factor which the Cana-
dian people are not likely to for-
get at the next general election,
that the Liberals have been in
power almost continuously for two
decades; that one of the boasts of
their retired leader is that he
has been longer in that office than
any other Commonwealth leader;
“that its “new program” could have
been a reality instead of a vote-
catching document of promises.
Instead of making social secur-
ity, peace, and international good-
will the “supreme task of Liber-
alism”, Mackenzie King in his
valedictory speech chose a page
from Hitler’s Mein Kampf ,dedi-
cating the new Liberal leader and
his tory-diseased party “to suc-
cessfully combatting the menace
of Communism”. That political
menu, as the Hitlerite experiment
demonstrated, didn’t build homes,
extend democracy, or promote
_ peace, But it did fil] graveyards
with people who refused to sur-
render the right to think for them-
Selves, or who held ideas differ-

ent from the totalitarianism of |

narrow partisan politics,

The Liberals have held their last
convention. Their promises em-
,bodied in their “new” program
will not erase the handwriting on
the wall manifest in recent pro-
vincial and by elections, Their
hand-picked convention is the best
yard stick yet to hand on Liberal
“democracy”, and their “supreme
task” enunciated by Mackenzie
King, the sure guarantee of their
inevitable doom as a party of re-
action.

The “cordon sani--

oe

Requiem for Liberalism

IB fact burning issue of sky-rocketting prices, which are
daily cutting into the living standards of the working
people, got scant shrift at the Liberal: Party’s national
convention. The top strategists of reactionary Liberalism
were only concerned with selecting a leader who could be
relied upon to serve the interests of grasping monopoly.

Stripped of press and radio ballyhoo on the locale,
atmosphere, and political horse-trading which highlighted
the convention, little is left save the dry skeleton of black
reaction. It could hardly be otherwise in a party which has
consistently promoted the interests of reactionary monopoly
at home and abroad against the needs of the people since
the first days of the post-war years. »

The formulation of a progtam was nothing more than
a callous piece of Liberal window-dressing to catch votes.
The Liberal convention was held for the sole purpose of
selecting a national leader to fill the political shoes of Mac-
kenzie King. With that machine job done, the convention
folded up like a busted accordeon.

A handful of delegates (if such a term can be applied ?)
concerned with the rising tide of prices in their own con-
stituencies and across the country, attempted to bring the
issue onto the floor of the convention. The machine quickly
snuffed out this “incipient revolution.” The monopoly
powered steam roller which has ignored a 750,000 signature
petition on prices, and universally branded housewives’
organizations, trade unions and other public bodies as “Reds”
for daring to protest the prices gouging of the profiteers,
backed by the Liberal government of Mackenzie King,
didn’t want any discussion of prices, since to do so would
have exposed the political guilt of the Liberal party before
the nation. An inocuous top-strategy proposition to set up
4 Royal Commission, to “investigate the freight-rate griev-
ances of the province,” got the convention over the prices
hurdle, and silenced the “revolutionists.”

The Liberal convention laid bare the deepening crisis
within the two old-line parties of capitalism. Traditional
liberalism was officially scrapped, and the new leader “elect-
ed” on a carbon-copy of a “Marshall Plan” program—anti-
Soviet intrigue and war-mongering in the sphere of foreign
policy, sharpening economic crisis, lowered living standards,
and growing repression of basic liberties at home.

The Liberal convention must serve as a starting point
for the Canadian people to win that measure of unity which
will guarantee a sweeping Liberal-Tory defeat at the polls,
and an end to the rule of monopoly government which drains
the substance of the people in an orgy, of price racketeering.

“Mmmm. I’m on duty tonight.”

Leoking backward

(From the files of the People’s Advocate, August 12, 1938) oie

“Every alderman is being inundated with eviction complaints”

+ announced Ald. Harry DeGraves at the Civic social services committe?

Monday in response to a delegation from the Workers’ Alliance '
questing a 50 percent increase in rent allowance,

Relief recipients are being turned out of their houses at an aver98®

of five or six each day to make room for tenants who are able to’ P2Y

more,

“The council can do nothing
teridge. go to the people for action.” :
Alliance asked for c0° ;
ation from the city council in its plea to the federal government for ®

work a month with an extra

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—AUGUST 13, 1948—PAGE 8