British Columbia:
the people’s story

11
By HAL GRIFFIN

HE despoilment of

with

province that began in the eighties
Canadian Pacific Railway to
Vancouver grew to even more scandalous proportions in the
years leading up to the First World War.

Under the gata of the last of the great gold rushes,
precipitated by Robert Hendersoin’s discovery at Gold Bottom
on va Klondike in "1896, British Columbia entered on a
period of expansion and industrial development that ended
only with the de

construction of the

2)

pression of 1913.

In the wake of three

new railroads pushing across the
province- ss Canadian Northern to Vancoues, the Grand
Trunk Pacific to Prince Rupert and the Pacific Great Eastern
to Prince George—promoters and speculators flourished.

pri

Between 1900 and 1913 no less than 98 railroad companies

were incorporated in the province, few of which ever got
beyond the planning stage.

Land

their operations was «

In its iss

tors an id their agents, inclv

speculators ranged the province and the scope of

lisclo when the B.C. Federationist,

es published a list of specula-

ig Attorney-General W. J. Bow-

ser's own law firm, Sho 1ad obtained a total of 1,719,709

acres. The legislature, Parker Williams charged, had become
kind of glorified real estate office.”

>a

To meet the demands of the expanding lumbering, mining
immigrants poured in from Britain
' Europe, and particularly from the
lands of the Tsarist Toe an empire after the defeat of the
1905 Revolution. Fleeing oppression in their native lands,
these immigrants came seeking the promised freedom of a
new land. But often, in the logging and railroad construction
amps and the mines, they found conditions no better than
hose they had left. When they rose again to struggle, out
of the experi understanding that was their heritage
from the old it was often to the Socialist party they
turned or to the new Social-Democratic party they helped to
organise after 1911. It was their militancy on picket lines,

hen they were not disfranchised—at the ballot
Bic their voices and eae ip in the people’s organisations,
that profoundly influenced the course of the young socialist
movement.

ng industries,
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Throughout more than a decade of Conservative gov-
ernment, the Socialist party formed the only real opposition.
Secure in his majority, Premier Sir Richard McBride defended
his givea aways necessary to the continued development of
the ince, boasting that his government had ended deficit
7 an lated a surplus sufficient to pay off-the
entire bonded he But when the Conservative government
finally fell under the crushing weight of the PG E scandal i
1916, its defeat was due in no small measure to the ohseant
exposure of its corrupt ‘policies by the Socialist party and its
ip in the trade union movement.
Socialist party made its greatest parliamentary effort
in the provin and 1909. In 1907 it ran 18

ds

ions of 1907

candidates under own banner, with four of its leading
spokesmen, E. T. Kir ngsley. A. R. Stebbings, R. P. Pettipiece

and J. H. McVety contesting the Vancouver seats. Three
other Socialists ran as independents, among them W. W.
Lefeaux, in Revelstoke, Three Socialists were elected. J. H.

Hawthornthwaite won re-election in Nanaimo, Parker Wil-
liams retained Newcastle and John McInnis won Grand Forks
from the Conservatives. But in Slocan, William Davidson,
who had won the seat as a Labor candidate in 1903 and
sought re-ele independent, was defeated by a
Conservative.

When the new legislature met in 1908 the three Social-
ists made determined efforts to get the eight-hour day written
into law. After their own bill was de - ted 34 to 4 they tried
vainly to get a clause written into a succession of bills as they
came before the House.

ection as an

THE SOCIALIST TRADITION:

In 1909, the Socialist party entered the field with 20
candidates, Kingsley and Pettipiece being joined in Vancou-
ver by D. G, McKenzie, M. McGregor and A. Garvie. Both
Hawthornthwaite and Williams held their seats in the ensu-
iing Conservative sweep which reduced the Liberals to two
members, but McInnis was defeated in Grand Forks.

Again, in the 1912 provincial election, Nanaimo and
Neweastle remained as Socialist strongholds against a Con-
servative sweep which completely erased the Liberals from
the legislature, John Place held the Nanaimo seat vacated by
Hawthor nthwaite and Williams won re-election for a fourth
successive term in Newcastle. both running as Social-Demo-
cratic candidates. Two of the 13 Socialist candidates in this
election, both contesting Vancouver seats and both standing
for the first time, were William Bennett, later to become one
of the founders of the Communist party, and W. A. Pritchard,
who was to be imprisoned 1919 as one of the leaders of
the Winnipeg General Strike.

$e it it

As they led the fight for the eight-hour day, Workmen’s
Compensation and other social legislation, so the Socialists
were among the leaders of the long struggle to win the vote
for women in British Columbia. The movement for women’s
suffrage extended far beyond the organisations of the labor
movement, but it was the women in the labor movement and
particularly the Socialists among them who gave the various
suffrage leagues their militant character. a

The Conservatives were opposed to giving women the
vote. The Liberals were divided on the issue. Only the Social-
ists campaigned consistently as a party to end the discrimina-
tion which denied women a voice at the polls, In 1906, when
Hawthornthwaite introduced a bill to extend the franchise to
women, the entire Conservative group was joined by M. A.
Macdonald, the Liberal leader, in defeating it. In 1909: most
ef the Liberals supported a similar bill, but the Se BRN
SoS solidly opposed and the bill was defeated by a 23

> 13 vote.

Mrs. W. McConkey of the Pioneer Political Equality
League, Mrs. W. G. Drummond of the Equal Franchise Asso-
ciation and Miss Helena Gutteridge of the B.C.. Women’s
Suffrage League were members of the delegation sent by the
United Suffrage Leagues of British Columbia in December,
1913, to confront Premier McBride with their demand for the

Albert “Ginger” Goodwin is the man on horseback in this picture of lecal executive mene
of the Western Federation of Miners taken just before the start of the 1917 May Day para
at Trail.

June 20, 1958 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—F:

er ” Bel"
TOP: William “Ol Bill “

nett, one of the foundel®
the Workers party. CE " at
“Ginger” Goodwin’s 8T¥ 4_
Cumberland. BOTT O Me s
PGE train in the early

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