ELECTION ROUNDUP:

EDITORIAL.

Labor Day, 1966

abor Day 1966 marks a tremendous pageant of “things’
here and things to come”,

The year 1966 (to date) has given a smashing rebuff to
those who argued a few years ago that the strike weapon “had
become obsolete”, Not only has 1966 seen the greatest strike
struggles, with big wage and working gains made by a united
Canadian labor movement, but on this Labor Day 118,000
Canadian railwayworkers are still on strike for a 30-percent
wage hike, plus job security. Parliamentis in “special” session
and the Pearson government frantically.searching for a sell-
out strike-breaking “formula”. 5 :

Holding tight, the rail workers reply: ‘‘nothing less than 30-
percent and no settlement or government ‘back-to-work’ order
— without a democratic vote of approval (or otherwise) by
118,000 railway workers”, In this they have the full backing
of Canadian labor, despite a year of harassment by countless
court injunctions, police persecution and prison sentences,

Labor Day of 1966 is symbolic of great victories won by a
united labor movement — and greater victories still to come.

‘Wake’ or awakening

he Commonwealth Prime Ministers Conference, sched-
uled to open in London, England, September 6 will be a
momentous conference in one respect, that of survival,

Past Commonwealth premiers conferences have been dedi-
cated mainly to fine speeches on how best to ‘‘cement” common-
wealth ties, but all the *cementing” hasn‘t endured, It is now
faced with the illegal Smith racist regime in Rhodesia, which
stands defiant of its imperialist “Motherland”: to impose white
supremacist minority rule upon a preponderent Black majority
native people.

_And in the midst of this Rhodesian “commonwealth: wreck-

age” is also the wreckage of British Prime Minister Wilson’s: .

“sanctions” against the Smith racist regime, and his: empty
replies to.the demands for military intervention made by the
heads of “emergent” Black African states, as a means of
bringing down the Smith white-supremacy gang,

Together with Tory imperialist Britain, Wilson publicly
expressed his reluctance to shooting at ‘‘our ownkith and kin”,

How different had the “illegal” revolt been staged by a Black

_ native people, “Commonwealth’’ members or ‘not.

This is the rock upon which the Commonwealth Premiers
Conference will inevitably founder, thereby turning it into
something of a ‘‘wake’’ rather than an awakening to the realtity
that the *sun has all but set” on a Commonwealth hitherto held
together by high-sounding ‘‘formulas” — and British bayonets —
which no longer serve to “blind”,

Prime Minister Pearson “may not attend because of the
railway strike”. That’s-as good an alibi as any — but there

are.many others, including Canada’s.‘‘trade relations” with” -

Rhodesia, .via South Africa-to get under .Wilson’s. sanction
wire,

Tom
Mc EWEN

ost of us these days are

fairly well accustomed to
hearing the age we live in des-
eribed as “the nuclear era”, the
‘tatomic age”, the “era of tech-
nology and automation”, the “H-
bomb era” and so on,

The future historian, assuming
that we’ll have a “future”, will
undoubtedly record human pro-
grecs (or otherwise), under any
or all of these varied definitions,

In addition to these descriptive
adjectives, there is another which
has won a high priority in this
modern age jargon which should
not be overlooked, viz, the “in-
stant” era, dinged into our ears
almost 24-hours a day on TV,
radio and press commercials,

“Instant” coffee, “instant” soup.

“instant” potatoes, “instant” kill
and overkill, labelled *mega-
death”, “instant” almost every-
thing, You name it, they have it,

Now we have “instant’’ elec-

tions to facilitate “instant” dem-
ocracy designed by Socred Inc,
in B,C,, aimed at.perfecting the
Einstein Theory of Relativity as
it applies to the “shortest dis-
tance between two points”, That
is, calling an “instant” election
with the prime aim of “instant”
re-election, Or ‘to put it more
simply, the “shortest distance”
between going out of office and
getting back in,

Like the alleged potatoes in the
“instant” potatoes package, the
democratic processes in “instant’
elections takes one hell of a beat-
ing. Basic issues. affecting the
well being of the people and coun-
try are either obscured, ignored,
sluffed over, or ground to a fine
pulp in the Socred machinery of
“instant” elections, with the elec-
torate footing the bill for a con-
tinued diet of “instant” Socred
political jello.

Medical scienceis already pre-
dicting that a too long diet of
“instant” foods will soon leave

Program for youth aired.
by Communist candidate

‘*Despite Premier Bennett’s
buoyant, bouncing confidence,
young people in B,C, have cause
to be apprehensive about their
future,” said James _ Beynon,
Communist candidate in Van-
couver Centre, who at 20 is the
youngest candidate in the election,
In a _ statement outlining his
party’s youth program, te.
said:

*Nowhere in the present boom
can young British Columbians
see the shape of their future
emerging, Rather they are faced
with diminishing opportunity to
utilize their professions, trades
and skills in the province of their
birth, and the need to go else-
where for gainful employment,

“They are confronted by an
educational system designed to

Homo Sapiens stomachless. Poli-
tical science (‘Free World,’’ that
is) may soon arrive at a like
conclusion —-that “instant” elec-
tions may soon eliminate the need
of elections altogether. Having
clothed itself with an ersatz
“divinity” Socredia may well Soh

- why not?

+k Kk

Sunday, September 4th from 2
to 3 p.m,, the CBC-TV is sched-
uled to feature’ a program en-
titled “The Union Man”; ‘a ‘pro-
gram designed to honor the me-
mory of the founders of British
trade unionism, the “Tolpuddle
Martyrs”,

In the quiet English village of
Tolpuddle, Dorcet, in the year
1834, six farm laborers formeda
trade union in an attemptto stave
off a third wage cut in an pneady
meagre weekly wage. ’

For nope a union they were
imprisoned, tried at. the. Dor-
chester assizes, (on the spurious
charge of administering an “un-
lawful” oath of allegiance to their
union), and sentenced to seven
years penal servitude inthe Aus-
tralian penal colonies,

These were the six “Men of
Dorcet’’ forever immortalizedas
the “Tolpuddle Martyrs” who will

ne

produce, not youth with a cosmic
vision, but automats tailored to
produce profits for big corpora-
tions,

“We live in a cultural vacuum
subjected to massive bombard-
ments of American commercial
T.V. and radio with practically
no provincial government action
to develop the cultural talents
and tradition of our people.

“There is no Provincial sports
and physical fitness program and
upon leaving school most young
people are pushed into being
spectators of sports,

“Tuition fees for university
are increasing yearly making
entry prohibitive for most young
people from average income

families. In addition to this the

WHAT ABOUT ME?

serve as the ‘‘backdrop” on this
CBC- TVs program,

' Top trade union leaders from
three continents will describe the
struggles of working men through
the media of their unions since
the days of the “Men ‘of Dorcet”,
Albert Monk, president, Australi-
an Council of Trade Unions;
George Woodcock, secretary-
general, British Trade Union
Congress, and $72,000 per annum
plus ‘texpense sheet” George
Meany, president of the AFL-CIO.

. Perhaps CBC couldn't help it,
but to associate George Meany
with the *Tolpuddle Martyrs” is
to associate grandeur and cour-
age with the treason of class
betrayal and cowardice,

pernicious practice of screening
now in effect in B.C. culls out
thousands of promising students

from academic training in their

formative years,

“The Communist Party pro-
gram meets these problems, It
calls for:

e Government action to build
secondary industry in B,C, to
utilize the professions and skills
of our youth,

e Free education at all levels
financed by provincial and fed-
eral governments.

e A massive Provincial sports
and physical fitness program,

© A bold program to encourage
the artistic talents of our youth
including the subsidizing of the-
atre and cultural centres through-
out the province,

“My. party is deeply aware that
only the removal of the profit
system and its replacement with
a socialist system where the
needs of the people are the first
concern, can thoroughly solve
these problems,

“We fight for these needed
reforms now, however, confident
that in the course of events
Canadians will more and more
‘see that the magnificent poten-
tial of our country can only be

guaranteed by socialism.’’ —
* Kk OK /

SURREY:

Mrs, Jean McLaren, Commu-
nist candidate in Surrey, told
an all-candidate meeting in the
Dell Hotel Tuesday night that
increased aid for education is
essential, She said her party
advocates that the Federal gov-
ernment pay. the full cost of

elementary education and the
See SURREY, pg. 3

One can almost imagine the
revered dust of George Loveless,
John Stanfield and James Brine
in Siloam cemetery near London,
Ontario, and two others of this
famed little band of heroic men
in another Canadian cemetery,

, stirring in protest at this alleged

“Voice of Labor” for the Penta-

-gon’s murderous aggression in

Vietnam, claiming even the re-
motest association with their
struggle and sacrifice in pioneer-
ing the birth of trade unionism!

The Canadian and American
working class, yes, they have an’
unbreakable affinity
‘“*Men of Dorcet”, but “I-never-
was-on-strike* George Meany —
faugh! ‘

i Pep mil candies

with the

| Pacific. “thane

‘Editor — TOM McEWEN -
Associate Editor — MAURICE RUSH

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September 2, 1966—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 2

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