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Help Darshan Singh

MRS. RUTH TURNER, Bur:
naby, B.C.: I was shocked to read
in the Pacific Tribune of © Dar-
shan Singh’s sudden and crip-
pling illness in India. During the
years Darshan Singh Ifved in this
province I counted him as a close
personal friend and I am sure
there are many like myself who
will want to assist him in what
may bea long fight to regain his
health.

I first met Darshan Singh
through the Social Problems Club
at the University of B.C.

Though strange to Western
customs and unfamiliar with the
English language, he strove to
adapt himself and succeeded so
well that he became one of the
most popular figures on the
campus and in the Canadian
Youth Congress, to which he de-
voted his talents as a speaker and
organizer.

As a worker in mills, both on
the lower mainland and the ‘Is-
land, he won the respect and af-
fection of his fellow workers, and
particularly of the East Indian
workers he organized into the In-
ternational Woodworkers union.
There must be hundreds of IWA
members who remember him as
a hard-working and able official
of their union.

When the Labor-Progressive
party was formed in 1943 Dar-
shan Singh was a charter member
-and subsequently he served sev-
eral terms of office on its prov-
incial committee.

It is no exaggeration to say that
during the years he spent in our
country he made a brilliant and
enduring contribution to the pro-
gressive labor movement.

Since he returned to his native
land to take a leading part in the
struggles of the Indian people for
peace, democracy and socialism,
those of us who knew him well
have often wondered about the

* work he was doing. It is a trib-

ute to his work that hundreds of
people should visit him in hos-
pital after he was stricken by a
stroke and take-up. collections in
the surrounding villages to pay
for his medical care.

I feel that his friends here will
want to do no less for him. Per-
haps the Pacific Tribune could
arrange to receive donations and
forward them to him. At this
time there could be no better way
of demonstrating our concern for
his recovery. To start a fund, I
am enclosing our own contribu-
tion. :

@ The Pacific Tribune will
welcome all contributions
sent by readers to the fund
suggested by Mrs. Turner.

Dickens knew them

READER, Vancouver: I think
your readers will find these
quotations from Dickens’ Martin
Chuzzlewit singularly appropri-
ate to our own times: ;

“(The conversation) was rather
barren of interest, to say the
truth; and the greater part of ‘it
may be summed up in one word.
Dollars. All their cares, hopes,
joys, affections, virtues, and as-
sociations, seemed to be melted
down into dollars. Whatever the
chance contributions that fell
into the slow cauldron of their
talk, they made the gruel thick
and slab with dollars. Men were
weighed by their dollars, meas-
ures gauged by their dollars; life
was auctioneered, appraised, put
‘up, and knocked down for its dol-
lars. The next respectable thing
to dollars was any venture hav-
ing their attainment for its end.
The more of that worthless. bal-
last, honor and fair reading,
which any man cast overboard
from the ship of his Good Name
and Good Intent, the more ample

stowage-room he had for dollars.
Make commerce one huge lie and
mighty theft. Deface the banner
of the nation for an idle rag; pol-
lute it star by star, and cut out
stripe by stripe as from the arm
of a degraded soldier. Do any-
thing for dollars! What is a flag
to them!

“One who rides at all hazards
of limb and life in the chase of a
fox, will prefer to ride reckless-
ly at most times. So it was with
these gentlemen. He was the
greatest patriot, in .their eyes,
who bawled the loudest, and
who cared the least for decency.

_ He was their champion, who in

the brutal fury of his own pur-
suit, could cast no stigma upon
them, for the hot knavery of
theirs. Thus, Martin learned in
the five minutes straggling talk
about the stove, that to carry
pistols into legislative assemblies,
and swords in sti¢ks, and other
such peaceful toys; to seize op-
ponents by the throat, as dogs or
rats might do; to bluster, bully,
and overbear by personal assail-
ment; were glowing deeds. Not
thrusts and stabs at Freedom,
striking far deeper into her
House of Life than any sultan’s
scimitar could reach; but rare:
incense on her altars, having a
grateful scent in patriotic nos-:
trils, and curling upward to the
seventh heaven of Fame.”

—Martin Chuzzlewit

(Chapter XVI).

“A little later, Mark Tapley
sums up that “.. . they’re so fond
of Liberty in this part of the
globe, that they buy her and sell
her and carry her to market with
’em. They’ve such a passion for

’ Liberty, that they: can’t help tak-

ing liberties with her.
what’s it’s owing to.”
—Martin Chuzzlewit

(Chapter XVII).

That’s

Octogenarian reader

J. S. COE, Courtenay, B.C.: En-
closed please find one buck to the
good cause and give Courtenay
the small credit.

It is not much but I only get
$55 a month and it sure puts
the crimps in a fellow. So I
will drop in a buck when I can
spare it.

I just passed my 82nd mile-
stone but I sure enjoy the Pacific
Tribune. Good luck to you peo-
ple. a

| The German Toy Industry will |
now, following political develop-

ments, produce military toys.
Kerman ley ladustny Assen,

By VICTOR BEREZOWSKI

Finance companies are seizing _
farmers’ cars on Prairies again —

PELLY, Sask. .

yt was a nice harvest day, one of
the first in a long while. Farm-
ers in town for their mail were:
talking of ‘starting up their com-
bines and beginning again their
oft-interrupted harvest.

Maybe now we’ll get our crops
off, they said. After they’re in
the granary there’ll be one wor-
ry less.

Worry? On a day like this?

What are those two big car and
transport trucks doing in fown?
They brought in no new trucks
or a car of any kind.

The transport trucks were park-
ed on the main street and work
begun. When it was done, three
cars and a tractor were loaded
and on their way out of Pelly.

Three trucks that could have
been used to move many a bushel
of grain, haul many a load of gra-
vel onto roads that need it badly.

Three cars that could have been *
used in making a quick trip to
town for repairs, or to bring in a
can of cream or a crate of eggs
or just to visit a neighbor.

A tractor that could have been
used to produce many a bushel of
grain. .

Yet these vehicles were being
moved out of the district before
harvest had even got a good
start. é

These and other vehicles had
been repossessed by the dealer
from farmers. Now the finance
company was repossessing them
from the dealer.

*

Some of these were trade-ins
on new machines, others were
bought new and some second
hand. There was a down pay-
ment made, the rest to come after
the crop was taken off, the fin-
ance company loaning the balance
to the farmer to pay the machine
company off.

The farmer couldn’t pay, so the
dealer repossessed the vehicles,
on the insistence. of the finance
company which wanted its money
plus interest. The dealer could
not resell, so the finance company
repossessed them for him, taking
them out of the area to try to re-
sell them.

Now, if the finance company
cannot resell these vehicles the
dealer will pay the difference
plus all expenses involved in
moving it. :

The farmer lost all he had paid
on the vehicle. Now the dealer
stands to lose too.

@

Why weren’t the farmers able
to pay? Here’s a typical case:

His. is a quarter section farm:
assessed for 154 acres. This year
he seeded 70 acres. But with the
bad weather this summer, what
crop was not drowned out was
severely affected by rust. His
cash crop, wheat, averaged 13
bushels to the acre. He was able
to sell his quota of 300 bushels.
It went No. 5 at 95% cents a
bushel, giving him $285.

Here’s what he has to pay out
of this $285.

His direct municipal taxes were
$65.50, school taxes $72.90: tele-
phone levy $5.00; union hospital
tax $10.80 — a total ‘of $154.20.

Now add his threshing bill
$280; hospitalization plan $30, gas
bill owing $60 — and total ex-
penses (without food and clothing
and other living: costs) are
$524.20. ‘

If he plans to do any more field
work he will have to pay cash for
gasoline as well as everything
_else he may want to buy, and
there are debts contracted in his
operations this year.

In Pelly, elevators have a
capacity of 420,000 bushels. To-
day there is a very limited space
enly for oats, so even if the quota
' opens up for more deliveries the
possibilities of selling more grain
will be small. (Only 25 percent
of the farmers delivered the in-
itial quota). :

The final payments on last
year’s crop are being made. They
are only a part of what we should
be getting and most farmers will
receive only “chicken feed.”

Prices of livestock and poultry
have dropped drastically. Yet
prices of the goods the farmer
buys have not dropped at all.
ts) a

That is why the farmers, farm
workers and businessmen of the
prairies — in order that there
will be no more repossession of
machinery, no losing of land be

cause of failure to pay taxes, no
closing down of stores and other
businesses, plenty of work for.
agricultural workers — will have
to fight and support the fight TOE
a drastic change in governmene
policies. ;

+ They need acceptance of
sterling payment for farm prod-
uce in order to regain lost Com-
monwealth markets.

+ There must be an end to
U.S. domination of our agricul-
ture and there must be ways
found of doing business with the
900 million customers in the so-
cialist countries of the world.

+ Parity prices for all farm
products is not a new demand —
but it was never more urgently
needed. ;

+ Cash advances from senior
governments on all farm-stored
grain will meet with the approval
of every farmer. - os

+ Long-term low-interest loans

are needed to help young people

start farming.

For this present emergency the
tax enforcement acts will’need to
be amended to allow all farmers
to sell enough* grain to enable
them to keep their families over
the winter; and to halt the seizure
of PFAA payments and stock for |
taxes.

Senior governments must guar-
antee that under present circum-
stances no farmer will lose his
home or land should he be unable
to pay his taxes.

'- And there will have to be fed-

eral-provincial grants for emer-
gency works projects to put some
money in the hands of the farm-
ers — road construction, bridge
building and general improve-
ments.
Canada is a beautiful rich land
well able to provide a good living

_ for everyone. We should be able

to look forward to a continuously
expanding farm economy, promis-
ing constantly improving living —
conditions for all our people.,

But it won’t come without 4
struggle. . -

“Since it is impossible to SUP”
port your wife on your pay ek
me introduce you to one ae
our finest divorce lawyers:

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — NOVEMBER 19, 1954 — PAGE -