WELL HOW ABOUT IT
MR. DIEFENBAKER?

Canada aske
to be mediator

BULGANIN
Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin this
week invited Canada to take the initiative

in arranging East-West negotiations.

(Last week in the House of Commons
Prime Minister Diefenbaker replied to a
CCF suggestion that Canada play a medi-
ator’s role in arranging a summit confer-
ence by stating that such action was “inap-
propriate without consultation with our
Western. allies.’ But, he said, the West is
seeking further clarification of Soviet views

: : . ”
“through normal diplomatic channels-’”’)

Said Bulganin in his letter to Diefen-

baker:

DIEFENBAKER :

“Here in Moscow, the reports of the in-
tention of your government to assist in or-

ganizing negotiations between statesmen of

the West and East on questions of disarma-.

ment and other international problems have

‘ .
not passed unnoticed.

“Undoubtedly we would welcome the ef-
forts of the Canadian government in this
direction as well as the initiative of Cana-
da in drawing together the points of view
of the parties on other international ques-
tions and, in particular, on the problem of

PS ‘
disarmament...’

iran

Vol. 17 No. 3

i te ef o HY FRIDAY, JANUARY WW 1958

28 Authorised as second class mail by ;
the Post Office Department, Ottawa

VANCOUVER, B.C.

to unions

Unemployed looking

to lead

struggle for jobs

By BERT WHYTE

A. Vancouver minister with a flair for the florid phrase

once labelled the unemployed “Canada’s Untouchables.” That
wa: back in the Hungry Thirties, when one out of every three
workers was jobless, every freight train carried a cargo of
homeless wanderers: and a goodly percentage of the youth
ot the land were herded into government-operated “slave
camps” miles from the cities on the theory that out of sight

was out of -mind.

History never repeats itself,
at least not in the same pat-
tern. Under capitalism, depres-
sions seem as inevitable as
death and taxes, but the cur-
rent slump (750,000 seeking
jobs on January 2) isn’t de-
veloping as a replica of the
last big. economic crisis,

There are similarities, of
course: chari'y organizations
dcing.a “booming” business as
misery mounts; mission run-
ning out of soup and sand-
wiches and bed tickets as job-
less lines lengthen.

Yet the difference between
the Thirties and today are
-enormous. Some of them can
be summarized as follows:

® Canadian labor today is
strenger and more united than

Nations this week.
ing 1954 Nobel Prize winner

It carried the names of 36
Nobel Laureates, of whom
seven were from the United
States. a
World-famous signatures on
the petition included those of.
Dr, Alkert Schweitzer, Ber-
trand Russell and Lord Boyd-

Orr:

ever before, and has adopted
a “figh -back” policy against
the spread of economic depres-
sion.

@ Unemployment insurance
benefits (which did not exist
in the Thirties) act as a tem-
porary “cushion” for workers
thrown out of their jobs. The
immediate fight of the trade
unions is for higher unem-
ployed benefits, work-creat-
ing public programs, and the
improvement of existing social
legislation.

® Unlike the Hungry Thir-
ties, this time the unemployed
are not. being :ut loose from
the employed. Trade unions
recognize unemployment as a

Continued on back page

See UNEMPLOYED

World scientists ask
UN end nuclear tests

UNITED NATIONS, N-Y.

A petition signed by 9,235 scientists in 44 countries calling |
fot ar end to nuclear bomb testing was presented to the United _

The petition was formally presented by Dr. Linus Paul-

in chemistry who headed an

easlier appeal made by American scientists.

“Each nuclear bomb test
causes damage to the health of
human beings all over the
world and increases the num-
ber of seriously defective chil-
drey that will be born in fu-

ture generations,” the petition
warns,

loc