~ — LTR UL O01 JL 1 I |

i Fore an a | oe

HE celebrated case of Socred ex-
minister of lands and forests

Robert Sommers is once again “sub
judice,”” which means that, pend-
ing trial before the courts, relative
Comment is forbidden.

Happily such comment is not
Proscribed against our Socred gov-
€tnment of whicly Sommers was a
Member, or concerning the total un-
fitness of Socred attorney-general
Robert Bonner to. administer that
fesponsible office.

In all the sorry spectacle of poli-
tical scheming and chicanery to
keep the Sommers’ case under
Socred wraps for the past two years,

the attorney-general has played a

“ontemptible role; one in which the

Only decent course left, even at
. this late date, would be to resign
. his office.

As is known, however, such a
‘ourse, regardless of attendent cir-
‘umstances making it necessary, is

| ot Socred practice. Instead Bonner
| 488 riow done what should have
been done two years ago—ordered
the arrest of Sommers and other
°0-defendants on charges of “con-
Spiracy,” thereby hoping to add a
New lustre to fading Social Credit
alos. Thus the long delay engin-
feted by Bonner had its advant-
ages, if not to Common justice, at
least to past Socred elections.
Nor is the Sommers’ case the
‘st instance of attorney-general
Snner’s dereliction of duty. The
rise of ex-chief of police Walter
tulligan is still fresh in the minds
“Vancouver citizens.. Even when
* toyal commission estimated that
‘trough a sordid regime of bribery,
“erruption and underworld con-
*Piracies, Mulligan got away with
‘ome $37,000 in graft and other
Payyoffs,” the Socred attorney-
reneral of this province pleaded
ae Inability” to act to bring this
hiformed grafter to justice.

With a farcical two years of
“ees

Pacific Tribune

ts Phone: MArine 5288
A ~ Editor — TOM McEWEN
Ssociate Editor — HAL GRIFFIN
Subscription Rates:
One Year: $4.00
Six months: $2.25
Published weekly at
Room 6 — 426 Main Street
Vancouver 4, B.C.
p anadian and Commonwealth
Untries (except Australia): $4.00
a Year. Australia, United States
d all other countries: $5.00 one
year.

Bonner must go!

evasion. of responsibility, in which

the attorney-general has directed
the use of the judicial machinery
of this province to shield Social
Credit “integrity” a la Sommers’
stewardship from public . criticism
on the hustings and in the legisla-
ture, for the purpose of advancing
Social Credit partisan interests
rather -than common justice, it is
clear there is now only two courses
left open: either Bonner resigns
forthwith as a belated mark of re-
spect for the people of B.C., or the
people exercise their inalienable
right to recall and kick him out.

Either way, since attorney-gen-
eral Bonner has amply demon-
strated his unfitness for the high
post an accident of history placed
under his charge.

Alsbury's role

5 ee politically versatile Tom Als.

bury, who. craves the public
limelight as a cat does milk, and
whose varied political acrobatics
closely follows the pattern of the
patchwork quilts Grandma used to
stitch, is now a candidate for the
newly organized Civic Voters As-
sociation in the coming Vancou-
ver elections.

For a self-styled labor man, hold-
ing the honored position of a vice-

president of the Vancouver Labor
Council, this is strange behaviour
indeed, particularly when that body
gave Alsbury every © opportunity
and encouragement to put his name
forward as a candidate to carry the
banner for organized labor in the
civic elections. Now they find him
in the role of a vote splitter against
his own WLC civic candidates,
Brothers Jenkins, Neale and La-
marche.

Alsbury hastened to assure all
and sundry following his CVA

nomination that he is still a
“staunch supporter” of labor prin-
ciples. Unfortunately for Alsbury,
his CVA candidature, in terms of
indep€adent labor political action
to defeat the Non-Partisan Asso-
ciation octopus at City Hall, does
not coincide with his “labor prin-
ciples.” His preference for a CVA
nomination rather than a VLC one
demonstrates . the pure-and-simple
political opportunist, whose desire
for civic office far out-weighs his
labor “principles.”

By accepting the CVA nomina-
tion Tom Alsbury has given the
labor movement he claims to “sup-
port” a treasonable stab in the
back. Working men and women,
trade unionists and progressives
generally who desire to see genuine
labor representation in .Vancou-
ver’s civic affairs, should remem-
ber this on December 11.

Tom
McEwen

T A PRESS conference last

week John Foster Dulles un-
loosed another of his world-re-
nowned ‘“brinkmanship”  fire-
crackers. This maniac whom the
American people allow at large,
told his audience that “the United
States has .nuclear warheads
stored in Canada.”

Then things began to hum.
The U.S. state department, which
obviously regards its chief as
being totally irresponsible when-
ever he opens his mouth, re-
writes the Dulles blurps for pub-
lie consumption (and confusion).
The result of such a procedure
is readily obvious. Dulles says
one thing, while his departmental
editors, (with the weighty stamp
of Pentagon authority) declare
he said something else. In this
case they knew that the Dulles
statement of “warheads stored
in Canada” would alert the Can-
adian people to the grave conse-
quences of such “storage,” hence
the “official” version of what they
want the people to believe he
said.

To help this “official” distor-
tion along and smooth away the
fears of the Canadian ‘people,
Tory Prime Minister John Die-
fenbaker rushed to the rescue,
announcing from Ottawa that
“Mr. Dulles must have been mis-
interpreted or misquoted

because to bring atomic weapons
into Canada, would require the
permission of the Canadian. gov-
ernment.”

It certainly should, if it hasn’t
already received it. And if that
government represented the Can-
adian people, there would be no
doubt about the answer, now or
later. It would be an emphatic
“NO!”

Let me quote the opinion of
the national executive of the
Labor-Progressive party, an opin-
ion shared by tens of thousands
of Cariadians in all walks of life
Who are becoming keenly aware
of the atomic menace of the Dulles
“brinkmanship.”

“The statement of Dulles about
atomic warheads existing in Can-
ade under U.S. control should, in
our view, be accepted as the
likely ‘ruth, and Diefenbaker’s
deniai a diplomatic ‘action. de-
signed to cover the facts.”

Dulles was boasting of what he
knew to be facts, and since such
atomaniacs are more accustomed
to dictatorial ranting, what the
Canadian people or others might
think is of little concern to the
Dulles: breed. The need of votes
of coursé makes the NATOized
Diefenbakers' a little more sensi-
tive to public opinion, hence the
assumed role of a Dulles “apolo-
gist.”

Any doubts on the original
Dulles statement are readily dis-
pelled by events prior to and
since making it. Unheeding of the
tremendous significance and im-
pact of Soviet sputniks for peace,
or of Soviet appeals for a summit
meeting of the great powers to
outlaw the devastating horrors of
nuclear -warfare, the U.S. im-

perialists with their British,
French, Canadian and _ other
“allies” have and are embark-
ing upon an ever-greater arma-
ments race. Now it is a case of
pretending to “catch up” with
Soviet science in the field of
inter - continental missiles; to
plant U.S. launching bases in
Canada and other U.S. satellite
coun'ries, in ofder to speedily
fulfill the Dulles mania of “mas-
sive delivery” of nuclear war-
heads via the rocket route, and
to remodel! NATO for such “de-
livery.’

In this the Diefenbaker gov-
ernment, following in the foot-
steps of their Liberal predeces-
ers, and seeking to shield Dulles
from the anger of the Canadian
people, have’ put Canada right
in the “front line” of atomic
war; co-pariners with Dulles in
selecting this country as the Bel-
gium of a nuclear holocaust. Hav-
ing stockpiled his warheads here,
Dulles and his U.S. atomanics
now want to turn Canada into a
U.S. launching platform.

If ever there was a time when
the people of this land should be
alert to the terrible dangers in-
volved, that time is now. The
struggle to maintain peace, to
outlaw nuclear weapons and nu-
clear warfare, to substitute the
conference table for lethal wea-
pons, and to make doubly sure
that no government of this coun-
iry will ever permit U.S. rocket
‘aunching platforms on its tervi-
tory—all this must be stepped up
tremendously if we wish to free
ourselves from the nuclear war
conspiracies of U.S. imperialism.

Foot-in-mouth Dulles let out a
warning that shouldn’t go un-

heeded—if we wish to survive!

November 29, 1957 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 5

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