Susy hunting season has begun in the snow-capped Tien- than mountains in Sinkiang and veteran hunters, such as he one in picture above, have shot hundreds of foxes, eopards, wolves, bears, boars and wild goats this month. mall farmer. Etienne Fajon, who visited /ais country last October as a aternal delegate of the Com- hunist Party of France to the 6th convention of the Com- aunist Party of Canada sets own some penetrating obser- ! ations about our country in n interview with L’Humanite. | Specially translated for this ssue of Merxist Review. ‘Photo by Hsinhua News Agency.) Marxist Review article discusses farming crisis An article on “The Crisis in Farming” appears in the _anuary-February issue of Marxist Review, coming off | he press this week. Written by William Beeching, pro- ncial leader of the Communist Party in Saskatchewan, _nd based on his report to its last provincial convention, he article devotes special attention to the problems of the viewpoint of Indian Commun- ists is outlined in an article by B. T. Ranadive. Leslie Morris reviews the much debated recent book by Guiseppi Boffa — The Khrush- chev Era and Tom McEwen, editor of the Pacific Tribune, writes on Tim Buck’s new work Our Fight for Canada, Marxist Review sells for 25 | There is wide interest these |cents a copy and is obtainable ‘ays in the relationships be-jat the People’s Co-op Book- weén India and China. The ‘store, 807 W. Pender. NEW YEAR'S EVE FROLIC AUUC Hall — 805 East Pender ‘THURSDAY, DECEMBER 31 | Supper — Featuring Ukrainian Dishes 7-9 p.m. Dancing — Favors — Fun — 9 to 1 a.m. Admission: Supper & Dance, $2.50 Each “ Sponsored by Association of United Ukrainian Canadians and the W.B.A. ] ae Rex NaCI DEI DED New Year's Eve BANQUET and DANCE Russian People’s Home — 600 Campbell | BANQUET —7TO9 P.M. (No service after-9 p.m.) DANCE — FROM 9 P.M. TO 1 A.M. Supper and Dance — $3.00 Each Dance Alone — $1.50 Each Sponsored by Federation of Russian Canadians GEE CECA GEE CE CECB CRE CA ECLA ‘Vancouver civic elections Second lowest. vote in history shows need for electoral reform In an election marked by the second lowest vote in Vancouver history the NPA took ten of twelve seats for council, school and parks board, while the CVA captured one position on parks board and barely held a seat on council. Thus the big-business NPA machine is entrenched in office for another year. | The NPA sweep was “matle easier by the failure of organ-|’ ized labor to follow up last year’s big gains. It will be re- called that in December 1958 the candidates. nominated by labor polled very large votes, beating out in most cases the candidates of the CVA: who were on a joint slate with them. These results showed that labor had great potential ‘strength in civic politics pro-|. |vided a united and vigorous effort was made, and provided labor joined in a united front with other candidates speak- ing for community and rate- payer movements. Unfortunately the sabotage by right wing labor officials of the Labor Council’s pre- vious decision to participate in civic ‘politics resulted in the late nomination of any one candidate, a divided labor movement and a weak appeal to the public and working class voters. A significant feature of the vote this year is that the hopes which some big business cir- cles had for building CVA into a “safe” alternative has not fully materialized. Many voters correctly saw little difference between the NPA and CVA. With the absence of any strong alternative because of labor’s abandonment of the field to the NPA and CVA many thou- ‘sands of voters saw no alter- native. This undoubtedly was a large factor in influencing many voters not to bother cast- ing their vote. The fact that voters are not jumping to the support of the CVA means that the door is still open for labor and its progressive allies to make big ‘gains this coming year provid-|- ed the right wing attempt to ‘| kéep labor out of politics is de- féated and genuine unity built of labor and its allies in pre- aration for next December. It also requires that labor take up the many burning civic issues before the people. : The percentage and total votes for most labor and pro- gressive independents this year was lower than last year due to the exceedingly small vote in the working class areas and because of the larger number of candidates running. In the main, however, they received substantial votes despite red- baiting attempts to confuse the Tee Outstanding among eo was school board ~eandi- ‘ed effort by the labor move- 4 ~ MONA MORGAN date Harry Rankin who made the central point of his cam- paign: ‘More education, less armaments.” Although his per- centage vote dropped from 40 to 30 he was only some 1,800 votes short of election. In the aldermanic race labor candidate Sam Jenkins suffer- ed from disunity in labor’s ranks and lack of wholeheart- ment. His total vote dropped by seven and a half thousand and hiis percentage from 29 to 24. Independent Mona Morgan, making her second bid for council, polled 14.4 percent which was a bare one percent below last year. Her campaign for a cut back in arms spend- ing to lift the tax load off municipalities was carried to a wide audience and injected the real solution to Vancouver’s growing financial crisis. John Dubno, running for the first time for council received better than 8 Pomcny of the vote. Biggest percentage gain by progressive. independents was made by parks board candi- date Donald Greenwell. In- creasing his vote from 14.5 to 21.5 percent, Greenwell was the single independent run- ning against the NPA and CVA slate. Bringing forward the need for increasing park and’ recreation facilities in work- ing class areas and for clean: ing up the mess in parks board, Greenwell’s proposals won wide support. The low vote in this years election has been widely dis- cussed. Only one out of every four voted on a city-wide scale. In the working class half of the city east of Main Street the vote was a mere 20 ‘per- December 24, 1959—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 2 cent while in the _ largely middle class districts it was 30 percent. In the Dunbar area the vote was 35 percent while in the heavy working class polls along the waterfront and | Hastings East the vote was often well below 20 percent. Those who uphold the pre- sent electoral system in Van- couver as democratic should ponder the fact that .an alder- man and school board member were elected with less than 8 percent of the eligible voters. A major factor which added to the exceedingly small vote in the working class parts of the city was that many saw no real alternative and therefore no real chance to change the situation on election day. Can- vassers reported they frequent- ly ran into working class voters who Said: ‘I don’t see much choice this year so I don’t think I’ll bother to vote.” A second major reason for the low vote is the thoroughly undemocratic electoral system in Vancouver which requires a city-wide vote to elect. This system discourages involve- ment of the péople in civic issues and politics and results in’ most cases in separating Civic politics from the needs of the people in the commun- ities. It also bars representation on civic bodies from large sec- tions of the population. Many examples could be given of -eandidates being elected by the vote in the working class polls only to be squeezed out by the usually heavier vote in largely middle class polls west. of Main Street. A case in point this year was school board candidate Harry Rankin who was’ among the winners until the heavier middle class vote came in. The present electoral sysiem is in fact designed to ensure that the middle class voters of the west end will dictate to the whole city what candidates shall be elected and what by- laws shall mean. It is a system based on denying representia- tion to working class voters. If Vancouver is to elect men and women to public office iruly | representative of the main sections of the population elec- toral reform will be necessary. Labor and progressive organ- izations should take up’ more energetically than ever the fight for a ward system or a return to proportional repre- sentation in voting.