SENS TT ied such policies. ‘dT B FRIDAY, APRIL 3, Srectree | a Aw die jensat sean the — ‘en ei na Wali aE oat [ES EINE ty is 1953 BB politics are boiling over. Vast changes have taken; place since the provincial elec- tion of last June. And there is not a single political observer in the capital today who doubts that bigger changes are again in the making. Should Lieutenant - Governor Wallace accept the advice of a defeated minority ministry, led by Premier W. A. C. Bennett, or should he recognize the sup- remacy of the legislature and the constitutional right of the ma- jority of the people’s representa- tives to determine the future of the nine-month old government up to and including an election? That was the big questions be- . for the session of the 23rd legis- lature. Before the last word had been said on that vital issue, CCF Leader Harold Winch and Liber- al Leader E. T. Kenney joined their parties in granting the de- feated Socred administration an interim budget of> $94 million and unanimous passage of 52 legislative bills—an action un- precedented in the parliamen- tary history of this country. Thus the parliamentary dead- lock, and the constitutional crisis which had hovered over the leg- islature during eight weeks of bitter wrangling, was ended. The Lieutenant-Governor granted the disputed “right” of a defeated minority administration to dis- solution, and the 48 MLA’s pack- ed their bags to return home,. mend political fences and pre-_ pare for the June 9 general elec- tion. ‘ * * * * In the election last June, So- cial Credit (which two years previously had received only a few more votes than the LPP) emerged as the largest parlia- mentary group with 19 MLA’s to 18 for the CCF, six for the Liberals, four for the Conservat- ives and one Labor. The people gave vent to their resentment against the policies of the Liberals and Tories, the drive to war and reaction, the economic and political absorp- tion of B.C. by aggressive Am- erican monopoly capital, and the callous disregard of the people’s vital interests which accompan- In the politi- eal vacuum thus created — a result of the mass breakaway from the two old parties and the failure of the right-wing leader- ship of the CCF to present a real alternative to the Coalition’s “warfare - before - welfare” poli- cies — the people voted against the old parties rather than for a considered democratic alterna- tive. In the intervening period the world crisis of imperialism has grown immeasurably, the popu- lar opposition to the federal gov- ernment’s policies of war and be- trayal of Canadian independence , and vital needs has become sharper -and working class mili- taney, unity and initiative has risen. At the same time the political - crisis in B.C., which arose out of the inability of the previous government td head off highly popular social demands, still remains. A legacy of con- tentious issues on which there is widespread public unrest «and concern, is still awaiting solu- tion. As the LPP program pro- claims: “The people’s resistance, not yet fully conscious of its aims and perspectives and often negative and passive, is never- theless assuming, and will more and more assume a conscious, united character.” British Col- umbia has all the elements to- day for such a wide HED ment. : The problems which faced the electorate of B.C. last June 12 will still be before them this June 9 — only more pressing than ever. They are expressed in rapidly shrinking markets,, the crops which rotted in the field last fall, the perspective of mounting unemployment and a sharply reduced annual income for workers and farmers, The supreme need is united action for a_ progressive alternative. The fight. to unite democratic. opinion throughout the province around recognition of that need is the central task of the Labor- Progressive party today. There will be no real alternative unless the LPP leads the fight for it. That is why the LPP will nomin- ate in every constituency it pos- sibly can-in the forthcoming provincial election. Six hundred seek 51 jobs NANAIMO, B.C. When it was announced here that the Black Ball Line needed 51 workers, some 600 unemploy- ed loggers and millworkers ap- plied for jobs, — an indication of the acute economic crisis pre- vailing in this city, which has 1,700 registered unemployed at the present time. National Employment Service, which issued the call for oilers, stewards, seamen and wharfmen, interviewed some 200 men be- fore hiring the 51 needed. Black Ball, which is current- ly clearing and grading a ferry terminal site here, will run a ferry between Nanaimo and Horseshoe Bay. Cease fire issue shifts to UN The focal point of the hopes of the world’s peoples for peace has shifted from the truce negotiation building at Panmunjom (above) to the United Nations at New York with publication of new proposals sent to the UN tbls week by Premier Chou En-lai of People’s China. Locked-out miners on Alcan project seek arbitration Locked out from their jobs at Horetzky Creek by the Yankee firm of Morrison-Knudsen, 240 Canadian miners (members of Rock and Tunnel Workers Local 168) decided at a meeting in Pender Auditorium here Wednesday this week to ask for arbitration of the dispute. The men were “mucked out” of their camp under guard of: the company’s security police, taken down to the Beach Camp and flown to Vancouver. “Here’s the story,” said Bill Henchuk, union board member and chief shop steward, ‘when the Pacific Tribune interviewed him this week. ‘During negotiations between the. union bargaining committee and the company in Vancouver, it was agreed that if the men worked portal to portal the com- pany would cut the shift differ- ential. We accepted that, and the men at Horetzky Creek okay- “ed the plan. “Whitey Davis, an American tunnel boss, wanted men at the face to keep speeding things up. Olie ‘Stranberg, American pro- ject manager, quickly reneged on the verbal agreement, began act- ing tough and declared he wasn’t paying the shift differential, nor would he pay from portal to portal. ‘You have to work here , as I say,’ he told us. ‘?’m a tough ‘ guy, plenty tough. If it takes 20 minutes to get from the portal to the face, that’s your time, and Pll take it off your pay.’ “Well, we held a camp meet- ing, and decided we’d stick by. the portal to portal agreement. Whitey Davis told us Stranberg had given orders that if the graveyard shift came out 20, min- utes early, he was to start muck- ing the boys out (firing them) and we were to work three eight- hour shifts at the face.~ _“We took a vote on it, and de- cided to hold the company to the portal to portal agreement. So the whole three shifts were fired. “We consider it an illegal lock- out, of course, for the company has not only broken its verbal agreement, but also the original Alean agreement, signed by the Hod Carriers before the job started. : “Morrison - Knudsen has_al- ready brought in 47 miners from back east in an attempt to get/ the work going again at Horetzky- Creek. “One interesting sidelight. A man on the last graveyard shift hurt his hand and got an order from the first-aid man to see a doctor at Camp 5. The security police say okay, then whipped. him right down to Beach Camp and onto a plane. He never got _ his hand treated until he -reach- ed the city. “We’re sure we’ll win our case when it goes to arbitration.” - held 24 hours in order to pel . by the great congress which mé Cops harry jobless in Interior KAMLOOPS, B.C. “What’s your home address?” demanded an RCMP constable of © a bearded, 22-year-old jobless citizen caught in a “roundup of vagrants” now underway here. “Vancouver City Dump,” re-_ plied the unemployed worker, in disgust. Hearing stories of big-paying jobs at the six-million dollar re finery and on the oil pipe line, hundreds of workers are. flock- ing to this district from Van- couver and other B.C. cities, and also from the United States. Finding no jobs, they “shack up” in the Thompson River jungles. RCMP have started a “crack. down” on these unemployed — there are probably close to 1, 000 of them—and are bringing them ; into court in batches, where they are given “floaters’—that is, @ two-months jail sentence, with the warrant of commitment with- mit them to get out of town. One question which the RCMP and the court are not interested in, but which is of vital concern to the unemployed workers: — “Where are we supposed to g0 to find work?” \ —— Continued PEACE special UN General Assembly session at which ‘Canada should move a motion for the accept ance of the Chinese people’s pro” Posal. ““Peace in Korea will aid world peace and contribute to the prev ention of world war,” said Buck. “The Labor-Progressive party has nominated 64 federal candi- dates up till now with others scheduled. All of our candidates are campaigning for an immedi ate Korean peace, through action upon the new and hopeful pro- posals of the People’s Republic | of China.” Canadian Peace Congress head quarters in Toronto, commenting on the new peace proposals, sail that “there now exists a golden opportunity to end that dreadful war in Korea through negotia- tion, and thus to open the way for a _ negotiated fiive-powe! settlement of all world diffe! ences to which all nations might subscribe. Peace is with reach. It is for us to grasp it.” A fortnight before Premiet Chou En-lai made his new PY? posals, an appeal for a pact of peace directed “not only to the governments of the five] gre4 powers but also to all other 20” ernments” was made by the Com mission of the Congress of Pe® ples for Peace meeting in Vie na. The Commission was set in Vienna last December._ Tt James G. Endicott, chairman the Canadian Peace Congress; a member of the commission. Hear NORMAN PENNER, national leader, National Federation of Labor Youth “END THE WAR IN KOREA NOW’ * CONCERT PROGRAM * UKRAINIAN DANCERS i - SUNDAY, APRIL 5-8 p.m. PENDER AUDITORIUM, 337 West onrer Street PACIFIC TRIBUNE, — APRIL 3, 1953 — PAGE |