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ee Beautiful Garibaldi Park can become one of this province’s most popular playgrounds. Photo shows p

_ EDITORIAL PAGE +

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SHEN

ark’s peaks rising from the lake.

Rising unemployment calls for labor-farmer action

WHEN unemployment reaches
a stage where it can no
€r be ignored, our “eco-
pete experts” seek to pass off
tc 2 social phenonema as purely
POtary, seasonal and so forth.
ee carefully omit to mention
a under the laws of capital-
Production and distribution,
Nemployment is not only a
Petmanent feature of our way
ab life, but that its ‘“seasonal’’
Petiods ate steadily lengthening.
Pi toof of this is seen, not in
lg Unemployment Sery-
ata on mounting unemploy-
ment (which NES declines to
Slve out when things get bad)
Ut in the fact that near the end
a July mission houses in Van-
®uver have to turn away scores
f destitute men nightly. “And”,
“ays the keeper of one of these
°p houses, “this is only the
middle of summer . . . what is
8eing to happen in winter?”
oy hus while one gang of eco-
: a experts paints nice “sea-
®nal” sketches, without saying
®W a worker and his family
ha live during these lengthen-
w® Seasons, another gang of
eal is busy compiling
8Utes to prove how prosperous
We are;

According to these DBS: lads,

Pacific Tribune

Published weekly at
»-Room 6 — 426 Main Street
> Vancouver 4, B.C.
Phone: MArine 5288
A Editor — TOM McEWEN
SSociate Editor — HAL GRIFFIN
Subscription Rates:
One Year: $4.00
- Six months: $2.25
4 Canadian and Commonwealth
SUntries (except Australia): $4.00
ane year, Australia, United States
‘nd all other countries: $5.00 one
year,

long

at the end of May of this year
Canadians had hoisted their
credit buying by fifteen percent
above 1956. In other words our
on-the-cuff buying of cars, tele-
vision sets, deep freezes and
other gadgets has reached a
grand total of one billion, two
hundred and eighty-six million
dollars. That represents a siz-
able mortgage on a future beset
with lengthening “seasonal” idle-
ness.

Nor is that all. Capitalism
being as full of contradictions

as a dog is of fleas, seeks solace

in “tight money” to east the in-
flation its coldwar stupidity has
incurred; promotes automation
to increase productivity and
eliminate manpower; maintains
its maximum profits by mon-
opoly concentration; and looks
upon all wage increases which
workers must demand to keep
pace with living costs as a sini-
ster “communist plot’ to “des-
troy our economy.”

As if all that weren’t enough,
these’ “economic experts” advise
against trading with the ‘‘com-
munist enemy”’, thereby cutting

us off from some of the world’s
greatest markets. Our continued
refusal to trade with Peoples’
China is a fine example of this
cutting-off-nose-to-save-face —_in-
sanity called a “policy.”

Well may a Vancouver flop
house keeper ask in the middle
of July, “What is going to hap-
pen in winter?” It doesn’t tre-
quire a capitalist “economic ex-
pert” to answer that one. The
eal answer must be given by
united labor - farmer _ political
action, acting as its own eco-

nomic expert.

‘

Tom
McEwen

HEN GEORGE Christian

Hanna stepped on _ these
shores from the good ship MV
Gudveig and decided to stay
here, ex-Minister of Liberal Im-
migration, J. W. Pickersgill gave
out with one of his customary
pinheaded NO’s.

Then a number of our legal
fraternity with Tory leanings got
into the act and made a lot of
political capital out of the cele-
brated “Hanna case.” It also gave
our sensation-mongering press a
lot of rich material for “human-
itarian” headlines.

Hanna was portrayed in all the
poses of a very desirable citizen,
had a lot of nice profound statc-
ments attributed to him, and was
often to be seen in newspaper
columns and on TV poring over
the bible. In short, Hanna got
what is called a good “build-up”
by. political sycophants intent
upon ‘putting the political boots
to Herr Pickersgill and boosting
their own political stock mean-
time!

Now it seems Hanna is letting
his ‘benefactors’ down. He
doesn’t “stay put” on the jobs
they find for him; he is accused
of getting drunk and jumping
bail. Nor does he seem to be
reading the bible as earnestly as
the hacks. of our “free press’
would like. So they write him
an Open Letter with front-page
prominence, telling George in so
many words that he’d better be-
have according to their “moral”
code — or else.

Personally I’m not the least
interested in Hanna as the “pro-
tege” of Tory lawyers and. tear-
jerking newshawks, but I am
interested in Hanna the worker.
If he feels like taking on a super-
cargo now and again of the B.C.
Liquor Commissions’ adulterated
water, that is strictly. his own
business. And if he feels like
-quitting his job, whatever it may
be, that is also his business. This
country was built by workers,
who, when it suited them, ex-
ercized their inalienable rights.

Since our “free press’ is ladling
out its special brand of intimid-
atory advice to George Christian
Hanna, let us give him soma too.

First, and as speedily as’ pos-
sible, cast off your moorings
from Tory “benefactors”; always
uphold trade union standards on
any job you land, and, if the
situation calls for it don’t be
backward about telling an ornery
boss to go to hell. Next, get drunk
if you must, remembering how-

ever, that it is more productive
of bad. hangovers than good
citizenship. And finally* forget
that you were ever a newspaper
seven-day wonder and_ settle
down to the business of becoming
a normal everyday run-of-the-
mill good Canadian.
x it x

“The majestic equality of the
law,” wrote the great Anatole
France, “forbids the rich as well
as the poor to sleep under
bridges.”

This “equality” gets a bit over-
done at times, as in the case of
the 12 Kitimat contracting firms
who applied for a government
certified “lockout vote” to head
off building workers’ wage de-
mands. Such a lockout they
claim, is “just as legal as a union
strike vote.”

* Not quite. The productive
forces under capitalism have a
class relationship. A few, (in this
ease the Kitimat-contractors and
their chief Alcan) own and con-
trolall the means whereby
thousands of others, ownirg
nothing but their labor power,
must sell in order to live. Such
“equality” doesn’t even come up

to. the specifications of the famed _

“rabbit pie” and its “equal” pro-
*.portions of one horse, one rabbit:
Organised labor has the job
of climinating such “equailty”
loopholes from labor legislation

in B.C, Otherwise “legal lock-

outs” can become as numerous as
dollar-day bargain hunters.

July 26, 1957 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 5