Peace lobby forces.

>"s to hear demand

for ‘negotiations now’

Despite threatening speeches ea Tory leader George Drew, insults from CCF leader M.

OTTAWA
J. Coldwell

and a curt brush-ox from Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent — and police attempts to bar them — over 200
members of the Peace Lobby buttonholed more than 75 MP's on Thursday last week demanding immediate
negotiations to end the war in Korea.

The women’s and youth peace
lobby, organized by the Canadian
Peace Congress in cooperation
with the Congress of Canadian
- Women and the Youth Peace Com-
mittee, was made up of citizens
from southern Ontario and from
Quebec. There were 65 French
Canadian delegates in the lobby.

When lobbyists cornered Prime
Minister St. Laurent in the corri-
dors of the House of Commons
building, he told them that if they
were from the Peace Congress, he
had nothing to say to them.

David Croll (Lib, Toronto-
Spadina) said he was in favor of
sending Canadian troops to Ko-
rea.

Health Minister Paul Martin,
sneeringly presented his own
“petition”, which he said was
signed by four MPs, declaring
the Soviet Union was the aggres-
sor in Korea. He said nothing
about the fact that it is Amer-
ican bombers which are laying

_ waste the Korean countryside.

Lionel Conacher (Lib., Toronto-

Trinity, tried to refuse a constitu-

-ency delegation. Later when four
members finally saw him, he told
them he believed China should be
admitted to the UN. He indulged
in the usual red-baiting.

J. W. Noseworthy (CCF, South
York) acknowledged MPs were
getting many letters and telegrams
of protest.

One MP stopped in the corridor
stated to the lobbyists: “I’m for
peace, but what can I do? I just
sit and vote.” He refused to give
his name.

Pressure of the lobby made itself
_ felt in the House where Tory lead-

er Drew was joined by CCF leader
Coldwell in an attack on the peace
delegation.

“The people buttonholing the

MPs today and spreading Commun-
ist propaganda are either very ig-
norant or misled,’ he told the
House. This drew boos from the
visitors’ gallery. Drew called on
the government to “legislate
against” the peace movement.

Drew read into the records the
demands of the delegation, which
called for ending of hostilities in
Korea, cessation of U.S. air raids,
withdrawal of all foreign troops
and the seating of China in the
United Nations. These he charac-
terized as “damnable lies” designed
for the destruction of “our sys-
tem”,

Led by the flag of the United
Nations, the peace lobby marched
to the Cenotaph from the station.
There Camille Dionne, wearing his
medals won in World War II, ad-

dressed the delegates. From the
Cenotaph, the lobbyists marched to
the House of Commons where such
a large crowd gathered, House of
Commons police acted to bar all
visitors. The attempt to prevent
lobbyists from seeing their MPs
failed, however, as the delegates
from various constituencies insist-
ed on their right to see their MP.

The colorful parade was alive
with Jbanners demanding peace.
Some of them read: “Blessed are
the Peacemakers”; “Let Our
Children Live’; “Welfare, Not
Warfare”; “Accept the Nehru
Proposal”; ‘Scholarships, Not
Battleships”; “Shrouds Are Not
Drape Shapes”; “The Peace Peti-
tion Is Our Only Defense”; “Ban
the Bomb.”

Some delegates stood on the
steps beneath the Peace Tower and
gathered signatures to the Stock-
holm Appeal. They reported more
than a dozen people signed in a
short space of time.

Unanimous proposals of a con-

9-cents per hour increase and other
concessions for shoe workers at the
J. Leckie Company, have been ac-
cepted by members of loca] 510, In-
| ternational Fur and Leather Work-
ers.

The conciliation board, consisting
of chairman H. McLaren, Bert
Marcuse and W. G. Rathie, ad-
vanced these proposals:

@ A 9-cents an hour increase on
top of present wages for a number
of categories, which include 80 per-
cent of employees; and a 6-cents an
hour increase for the higher cate-
gories, including about 20 percent

of employees.

ciliation board, recommending a.

Board recommends 9-cent
hoist for Leckie workers

@ Pay for four extra . statutory
holidays.

@ The present “incentive system”
to .be continued. ‘ :

@ The above conditions to be retro-
active to July 2, 1950, ,

District organizer Pearl] Wedro
and union local president John
Turner announced that union mem-
bers had accepted the award’ and
the Labor Relations Board has
been notified. ats;

A union demand for 15 cents
an hour increase and other conces-
sions at Pierre Paris and Sons is
going to a conciliation board, the
union announced this week.

Miss Wedro said the union has
applied for certification at the A.
W. Johnson Shoe Company and

“YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED’

On the steps in scores and hun-
dreds are mothers with their chil-
dren, and young people. They have
come to talk with their MPs in the
House that belongs to the people.
But the doors are barred and the
MPs try to run away. There’s a
reason.

These people have come long
miles to talk about peace, The MPs
have sat through thirteen sessions
preparing war. The clean breath
of common-sense Canadian life is
what the MPs fear.

But the MPs don’t want it known
that they fear to discuss peace
briefs. A wild story is hatched by
the press. The constituents were all
“Commies” (the press word), the
organizations “phoney fronts” and

stage “untoward incidents” and. to
enter the public galleries “barrag-
ing MPs with printed pamphlets
and vocal demands.” That’s what
the war-fomenting daily papers
said,

Early in the morning four Ot-
tawa youngsters were picked up
by police the moment they start-
ed to hand out leaflets of wel-
come to the peace lobby. “Four
Red Paraders Detained” shouted
the headlines, not “Mothers,
Young People Here For Peace.”

The lobbyists, most of them in
Ottawa for the first time, are
shocked but determined. Scores of
phone calls are made and mes-
sages sent to the MPs, Many MPs
recognize their obligation to talk to
constituents who have come so far.
Group after group goes in. Such
MPs as James Rooney (Lib., St.
Paul's) come down to the door to
see that his constituents are ad-
mitted. Others, too, keep their ap-
pointments on the dot.

Led by Mme. Legace of Quebec
City, the Quebec people are meet-
ing one MP after another. Not one
of them is hostile, for all of them
know the peace feeling in French
Canada that lies behind what they
are being told: “The mothers and
wives of Quebec hold you person-
ally responsible to explain to the
House of Common’s Quebec’s op-
position to Canadian intervention

in Korea or anywhere, to vote

BURNABY MP EVADES

STAND ON PEACE

Dodek Brothers (furs).

~Goode’s letter conceals contempt for people

_ One result of last week’s wom-
-en’s and youth peace lobby to par-
liament was a long red-baiting let-
ter to the Vancouver Sun written
by Tom Goode, Liberal MP for
Burnaby - Richmond, whose opin-
ions betray no recognition of the
fact that he can claim to speak
only for a decided minority of his
_ constituents, according to the last
election figures. The letter was
_ played up by the Sun in its Sep-
tember 12 issue. =
_ Goode remarks first on the dele-
gation, “... more than 75 percent
of them ... youngsters between
_ the ages of 17 and 21 — fine-look-
ing young men and women, well
‘groomed, well dressed and obvious-
ly well educated.” =) :

It did not strike him that these
same fine looking young men and
“women were in the preferred mili-
tary age group, the first likely to
be called upon for service in the
event of war. What did strike him
was “that they had left behind
them two banners, both of which
asked for the outlawing of the
atomic bomb and then I knew what
the party was for. It was a propa-

ganda show for the Labor-Progress- |

ive Party of Canada,
_ the Communist Party.

Goode, in his letter, adroitly

supported by

evades the question which must be
uppermost in the minds of most of
his constituents, whether he favors
outlawing of the atom bomb or ad-
vocates its use in warfare. And he
does it by the threadbare device
of assailing what he regards as
communism rather than discussing
“I have often wondered why Ca-
nadian young people choose this
time to take the Communist line
...” he writes, and it must have
jolted him a little when, having
asked the stupid question, “... if
passage became available, would
they rather live in Russia than in
Canada ” of two girls he received
this reply: — ‘ ’
“No, we don’t want Canada to
be like Russia but we do think
that, after all, this country. could
be improved and that improvement
should be made under the Russian
principle.” : .
Undoubtedly Goode would be out-
raged if he were asked why he
did not go to Franco Spain, where
the Falange would unhesitatingly
approve his statements. ey
» of course, persisted in
communism because
of his obvious reluctance to dis-
cuss peace and his support of
war policies. Had he posed the

question instead, “Why do Cana-

dian young people choose this
time to fight for peace?” some, at
least, of the things purportedly
troubling him would have become
self-evident. : ;

Speaking of the delegation,
Goode states: “The people were al-
lowed to interview the members in
their offices, but most of us refused
to see them.” ; ;

In this single sentence, Goode

betrays the contempt in which he
holds democratic principles, his
attitude that the only rights: the
people have are those bestowed
upon or denied them by their
supposed representatives.

Thus he can write, and see no

contradiction in his statement,
“The people were allowed to inter-
view the members .. .” MPs, in his
estimation, are not the representa-
tives of the people, the people have
no right to see them. Nor, because
“... most of us refused to see
them,” have MPs any responsibil-
ity to the people who elect them.
It is this ‘contempt for the people,
this fear of their actions, which
leads Goode to boast, as though he
had never heard of Hitler, “I have
suggested, in fact demanded, in the
House of Commons that the men
who are r msible for a party of
this kind, Tim Buck and his co-
horts, be placed in a position where

their ideas cannot be perpetrated
on the youth of our country.”

The “youth of our country”
vee en have asked him whose

eas he wants to perpetra’
them. His own? | ne ane
Goode concludes with a mis-
Placed piety; after wondering again
“... if the Kremlin would have al-
lowed a demonstration of this
kind .. .” He writes: “T hope that
the God whom these kids sneer at
will forgive them, because soon it
will be impossible for the Cana-
dian people to do so,”

Goode’s wonderment is as mis-
placed as his piety. Unless he be-
lieves in keeping himself in the
ignorance he would impose on the
the people, he knows that the Soy-
iet government has already ‘en-
dorsed -the world peace petition for
banning of the atom bomb and
branding of the first country to use
it as a war criminal, and undoubt-
ee ume Soviet welcomes

a ;
Pe ny its Bronte declaring

By the same token, it is
‘their own children, the vice ce

any future wars, the Canadian\

heople will find it hard to forgive,

It is See the stamp of Tom
; uses the ai 2

and methods of Yauctoue ty Oe

whom their anger will be vented.

they wanted, not to lobby, but to}

Martin flaunts phony
red-baiting petition —

OTTAWA

The Peace ower: At the doors to the Parliament Buildings below
the tower are uniformed guards. MMP’s coming from the House look
beyond the guards. What they see frightens many of them. They turn,
hustle back along the corridors, try to duck out of other doors.

against the government’s plan to
send Canadians anywhere in the
world.” .
English - speaking MPs feel
(and time will show their error)
that they can be more reckless,
Alan McNaughton (Lib., Mount
Royal) shocks delegates by argu-
ing that western powers should
use the atom bomb first. A father
of three children, he’s reminded
that there could be retaliation.
“That’s warfare,” he replies.

Prime Minister St. Laurent

‘breaks the Quebee tradition, _He

tells Quebec at an entrance, “If
you’re from the Peace Congress,
I've nothing to say to you.”.

H. P. Cavers (Lib., Lincoln)
gives the run-around to the stal-
wart little group who have driven
over 350 miles to see him. They
leave him a joint letter and you
may be sure the folks back home
will hear about it.

H. O. White (PC, Middlesex
East) loses his composure as he
talks to the vet >and the mother
who have driven from London to
see him. He leaps out of his seat,
attacks the vet (who keeps his
composure) and pushes him out of ©
his office. He lays hand on the
mother, too. No peaceful outlook
here, An Ottawa Citizen staff writ-
er writes an exultant story about
this incident with his byline. The
Peace Congress seeks an apology
from White. .

One would think Mrs. Ellen Fair-
clough (Lib., Hamilton West)
would be glad to talk to mothers.
She turns, tries to leave by an-
other door, but lobbyists are there
too. ,

The delegation caused “scarce-
ly a ripple”, said Canadian Press.
But in the House during the
morning John Diefenbaker (PC,
Lake Center) asked the prime
minister 'to personally lead 4
crusade against such “propagan-
da”. Tory opposition leader
Col. Drew wanted a law to deal
with such “traitors”.

In the afternoon, CCF leader M-
J. Coldwell made~an extensive —
speech in an apparent leading at- —
tempt to detract from the peace
arguments. And Rev, Daniel Mc-
Ivor (Lib., Fort William) found it
necessary to defend his position
on the floor, 8)

Colin Bennett (Grey North) 35
approached in the rotunda with all
courtesy. “What do you do for 2 —
living?” is his greeting, His undis-
guised sneers bring this retort from
a Toronto working housewife wh?
may have lost her job to come:
“It’s a disgrace the way you treat
People.” ,
\ Mae a * ;
That true heart of Canada W385 —
never more proudly displayed tha?
in the procession that wound its
ay from the station to Parliament —
Led by the flags of Canada and
of the United Nations, the mothers:
the children, and the young me"
Paced their way with all the dig: —
nity of “Champions of the Charter
and of Canada. 5
They had no bayonets, they #4
placards: “My child shall be a ma?
not a cinder”, “Let Asia Speak +
“Stop Bombing Children”, “B
Are the Peacemakers”. :

At the cenotaph, Camille Dionné
a French Canadian veteran, medals
glistening in the hot sun, laid ? _
wreath in memory of those whe
died that the scourge of é
should be removed forever from
the earth, Me
1 sins trample that memory. The
obbyists held it high. pe

“Please don’t take my daddy” '
Quebee 10-year-old’s | sign ak e”
He “refused to give his bape
sniped the press (the boy nO
earned early in life). ‘ b
The question remains. The lobby-
ists are back building the re
movement, They'll get an rae
“Please don’t take my daddy:

PACIFIC TRIBUNESEPTEMBER 15, 1950-PAGE ? _