CCF meets in convention

Pictured here are the CCF leaders who lined the speakers platform at the opening session of

the party’s 10th annual convention in
Lewis, Stanley Knowles, Guy Desauliners, M. J. Coldwell

Winnipeg. They are (left to right): Angus MacInnis, David
and F, LaRoche.

CCF condemns King government
for failure in Great Lakes fight

Condemnation

_\WINNIPEG.

of the King governnient for its failure to take action against Great

Lakes shipping companies was voiced in a resolution adopted by the CCF national conven-

tion here last weekend.

Moved by A. A. Millard, MPP, the ori

ping companies,
Ment reached that would have
stressed the real issue in the bit-
ter four month struggle. But the

effect of the resolution was mart-

@d by, red-baiting attacks on the
leadership of the Canadian Sea-
men’s Union and defeat of amend-
ments,

When Herbert Gargrave, MLA,
Moved an amendment which urg-
€d the government to “insist that

the companies involved comply im-|

Mediately with federal regula-

tions’, David Lewis, COF nar
‘tional secretary, introduced &
Substitute amendment condemn-

ing the government for its failure
to take action against the com-
Panies, but asking only that the
Sovernment bring the disputing
Parties together to effect an agree-
Ment. Lewis’ amendment carried.

The clause which touched off
the hottest debate, however, was
that in Millard’s motion reading,
“However much we deplore its
(the (CSU's) Communist leader-
Ship and the resulting violence . -”

Rod Young, MP, moved an
amendment to delete this clause
‘ntirely. Young declared he was
°PPosed to| Communist _ policies,
but the members of a trade un-
ion, he said, must be allowed the

\

gina! resolution, while condemning the ship-
asked only that the parties involved be called together and some agree-

UNION RIGHTS DEFINED

CCF issues

national labor
union security

ful settlement of disputes:
@ Outlaw company
against violations of the act.
The proposed CCF

inces will be free to

Maximum hours of work,
equal pay for equal work.

act to provide for

The CCF national. convention here approved the draft of a
code which would: =
@ Guarantees labor the right to organize and to obtain
in all public as well as private enterprises:

@ Streamline conciliation procedure so as to expedite peace-

unions and provide effective provisions

federal
CCF first-term policy, will apply to all provinces, but the prov-
set higher standards in these fields:
minimum wages, vacations with pay,

The convention also discussed special provisions for. working
mothers, and urged amendment of the unemployment insurance
maximum coverage and increased benefits.

labor code

—WINNIPEG.

code, adopted as part of the

right to elect their own leadership
regardless of the latter’s political

views. :

He warned delegates that the
time might come when a fas-
cist government would declare
a union out of bounds not be-
cause of Communist but because
of CCE leadership. Therefore the
trend should be fought now.
various delegates appealed for

support of Millard’s. position, in-
cluding Angus MacInnis, MP, who
opposed the amendment “because

apie
4.152% 5

it would leave this convention in
the position of not deploring vio-
lence.’” It was noticeable that not
one delegate challenged the anti-
labor concept of attributing re-
sponsibility for violence in a strike
dispute to the union instead of
anti-union,
ies,

law-breaking compan-

When the .vote. was called,
Young’s amendment was lost, and
the offending clause remained in

the motion.

CF divides in

debate on

ERP

By MITCH SAGO

Opposition to official CCF

—WINNIPEG.
support of the Marshall Plan

as set forth by the leadership, and as contained in a foreign
policy resolution placed before delegates, was expressed in
a sharp but ineffectual protest made by a number of western

delegates to the CCF national

For one hour and five minutes
the debate on this fundamental Pol-
icy issue swirled around the amend-
ment proposed by Rod Young,
MP, to the section dealing with
ERP on the insistence of top party
leaders—M. J. Coldwell, Frank
Scott and David Lewis—and after
Stanley Knowles, MP, shut off dis-
cussion on the plea that it was ab-
sorbing too much time, the con-
vention voted support of ERP with
two registered in opposition.

Long before the convention open-
ed, the question of CCF policy on
the European Recovery Program
headed the list of contentious is-
sues,

The resolution adopted by the
Manitoba ~CCF convention last
June repudiating ERP as an in-
strument for maintenance and
reconstruction of capitalism, and
as a weapon against socialism,
in effect repudiatéd the foreign
policy of the national leadership.
It confronted the party with a
fight on policy that had to be
resolved at the convention it-
self.

Both Coldwell and Lewis reiterat-
ed their offical support for the
Marshall Plan (on grounds of
“senerous” relief to the peoples
of Europe), deprecating the Mani-
toba decision as not representative
of either the provincial organiza-
tion or general sentiment in CCF
ranks,

Lewis was so confident of the na-
tional leadership’s hold on the con-
vention ‘delegates, that he freely
predicted in the Canadian press
that the Manitoba position against
ERP would be repudiated.

That the convention did support
the national council in its Marshall
line on foreign affairs came as no
surprise to political observers here.

It was obvious that national lead-
ers had placed the convention in a
position where. any vote repudiat-
ing national policy in support of
ERP would be the equivalent to
a non-confidence vote in the lead-
ership.

“This debate,” said Coldwell,
urging adoption of the national
council’s resolution word for word,
“is perhaps the most important one
to come before this convention.”

Thus the convention's acquie-
scence to the leaders’ demands was

neither unforeseen or surprising.

What was surprising, however, re-
flecting the extent of the Protest
against Marshal] Plan support, was
the long and intense debate.

Young’s amendment, had it
been adopted, would have altered
the section on ERP to ensure
“that the economic and political
fredom of the peoples involved is
fully maintained” and that the
plan be used for the purPose of
European reconstruction and
“not merely as a temporary mea-
sure of relief which gives an out-
let for the surpluses of produc-
tion on this continent.”

Even this mild qualification of
the leadership’s position on ERP,
ignoring the aggressive imperial-
ist character of the plan, was un-
acceptable.

Introducing his amendment,
Young told delegates that “we’ve
got beyond the stage where we be-
lieve in the remarkable generosity
of the American people. They have
made a generous offer, but don’t
deceive yourselves that it was done
in a. spirit of selfless sacrifice.”
His amendment, he contended, was
intended to prove “that we are no-
body’s catspaw, whether it be the
U.S. or the USSR.”

Because Manitoba had stepped
out of line on this issue in June,
Ralph Frith, chairman of the Mani-
toba section, took the flor in sup-
port of the main resolution.

convention here.

Conceding that “we do not whole-
heartedly agree with,” Frith plead-
ed that Europe needed help now,
not next year, or any other year,
when the CCF might be in power.

Frith said he. thought some
members of the Manitoba section
had been “out of order” when they
expressed themselves as opposed
to ERP. He accepted the Manitoba
convention’s resolution as express-
ing the opinion of “a minority
group in the Manitoba section.”

B.C. delegates who took in the
debate opposed ERP as “nothing
more than an attempt to rebuild
capitalism.”

Mrs. Mary Campbell of Victoria,
bitterly opposed the plan, declar-
ing that US. capitalists would
stop at nothing in these attempts.

Coldwell, who usually refrain-
ed from participating in debates
on the resolutions, reflected the
fears of the CCF leaders that the
debate might go against them by
his ‘intervention and remarks in
the course of this debate.

“A great deal of propaganda has
infiltrated into the CCF,” he com-

plained, “designed to undermine
this generous gesture. We would be
placing ourselves in an invidious
position if we convey the impres-
sion that we are not whole-heart-
edly in support of ERP.”

European _ socialists, Coldwell
added, had passed a resolution only
two months before staking their
hope for Europe on the acceptance
of ERP.

*T ask this convention not to
waste time talking about Commun-
ist propaganda. Vote this amend-
ment down and let us show this
country, so far as we can, that we
are unanimous in support of this
resolution.”

Mrs. Dorothy Steeves “deeply
resented Mr. Coldwell’s implica-
tion “that ‘those who oppose this
plan: have been infiltrated by
Communist propaganda.” Those
opposing the plan, she said, saw
it as a violation of the principles
of the United Nations and the
Potsdam agreement, and noted
that it had been passed outside
the UN in order to avoid the
veto. :

Frank Scott, national chairman,
called ERP “a remarkably generous
gesture,” stating that “people here
have talked as though this plan
were nothing more than a drive on
the part of American capitalism.”

Although formal policy com-
mits the CCF to support of the
Marshall Plan, more and more
it is apparent that workers in the
labor movement, including the
ranks of the CCF, are beginning
to know the plan for what it is:
the economic instrument of the
Wall Street imperialists for
world domination.

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