NDP—the challenger

O pening in Vancouver Friday of this week the B.C.
section of the New Democratic Party (NDP) con-
vention will begin its three-day sessions.

During the past session of the Legislature the NDP
has put forward a very commendable docket of Bills

covering a wide range of pressing needs. Nevertheless, on
many of the more basic issues such as existing anti-labor

legislation, the Socred give-away of natural resources, or
its repeated readiness to surrender Canada’s independ-
ence to the U.S., the NDP has had little or nothing to
say during the session.

Moreover, the general frontal attack upon labor by
the combined forces of the Bennett government and the
employers, is at the same time a concerted attack upon
the NDP as labor’s “legislative voice.”

In his threat to NDP provincial leader Bob Strachan
to contest the coming provincial election on the issue of
the “general strike,” and Mr. Strachan’s weak attempt
to disassociate himself and the NDP from the vital issues
of that historic event—and its ultimate victory through
a wide labor unity, was considerably less than labor was
entitled to expect from the NDP provincial leader.

It is already clear to all who care to see, that this
year’s wage negotiations affecting many of B.C. largest
unions, are not only meeting with concerted employer

provocations and obstruction, but are now faced with a

new and well-financed employer organization, reminiscent
of the anti-union “Citizen Committees” and “Black
Hundreds” of nearly 50 years ago. In this they are sup-
— by some of the most vicious Socred anti-labor
egislation in any province in Canada.

Thus, it becomes readily apparent that any major
attack upon, or setback for labor in B.C. at the hands of
Socred-employer forces, becomes at the same time an at-
tack upon the NDP, and in which the whole people's
movement in B.C. for an alternative to Socred reaction

“Who sent that ?”

—British Worker

‘Noose’ to stay

T uesday last week Parliament decided to retain the
hangman’s noose — long abolished in civilized

countries.

By a “free” vote, not tied to any partisan diktat, the
House voted 148 for retention and 112 for abolition, con-
firming the old adage of how “narrow the gap between
civilization and barbarism.”

Despite this socalled ‘‘free’’ vove as the individual
M.P.’s “conscience dictated,” highly-charged emotions
and partisan considerations played no small part in the
overall decision.

With the exception of one vote, Social Credit and
Creditistes voted solid for keeping the noose handy. In
Liberal and Conservative ranks the votes were diverse.

will suffer a major reverse.

It would, therefore, seem that one of the key prob-
lems facing the NDP convention is to seek a closer as-
sociation with organized labor; to become more of a living,
dynamic part of labor’s daily struggles for improved wage
and working conditions, for the over-riding issue of job
security, rather than to “deny” such association in reply

to Socred threats.

Re
renee ete

uring the past few weeks,
D Washington’s troubles in
Vietnam have fluctuated faster
than stock market quotations.

For LBJ and his homicidal
crew in the White House it was
bad enough having millions of
people around the world on the
march for peace, demanding an
end to U.S, killing in Vietnam,
And even worse, to have count-
less thousands of Americans
ranging from senators to school
children demanding the same
thing.

Together these mighty and
growing forces for peace, hor-
rified at the excesses of U.S.
war crimes and the greater war
danger implicit in a continued
escalation of those crimes
against the veople of Vietnam,
kept LBJ and his homicidal ¢ad-
- -yisers” in a perpetual sweat
thinking up new “excuses,” “ex-

planations,” ‘«pretexts,”’ etc., for
being in Vietnam, ‘

But worse was still to come.
Now the people of Saigon and
other South Vietnam centers, in
mighty demonstrations involving
hundreds of thousands of the very
people whom Washington was /and
is presumed to be ‘saving from
Communism,” from a U.S.-
invented “Viet Cong,” are now
demanding their American “sa-
viours” to “get out of Vietnam”
and take their military puppet
®eovernment” of Cao Ky along
with them, Scat.

For the White House “Sawdust
Caésar” this is indeed the ‘‘un-
kindest cut ofall,” so much so that
up until now Washington’s “tight
security silence” as touted by its
servile press, would indicate that
its stock supply of specious “ex-
planations” is running low.

With a good quarter ofa million

cowat,”

Messrs Pearson and Diefenbaker voted for abolition, but:
neither displayed any leadership in determining this vital
issue. All NDP-MP’s voted for abolition.

When the issue comes before Parliament again (as
already promised by James Byrnes M.P., Kootenay
East), let’s make sure all our MP’s vote for an enlighten-
ed civilization, free from this shameful remnant of social

vengeance.

And it is to be hoped t

hat the 200 more or less

$18,000-a-year MP’s who absented themselves and “took

the day off” while the debat

e was in progress, show a

little more responsibility to/and for Canada, come the

next round with the noose.

or more U.S. trigger-happy G.Is.
in Vietnam, now more uncertain
than ever who or what to shoot
at, the stock market can be ex-

pected to take a few disturbing

drops, since any slowing up in
the killing of Vietnamese, North
or South, always has a depressing
effect on war production and its
gilt-edged stocks,

This point is well illustrated
in some recent “horse-trading™
between Prime Minister Holt of
Australia and U.S. Vice-Presi-

-dent Humphrey during the latter’s

safari “down under” in search of
more cannon fodder.

The Aussie Prime Minister
has stated before a parliamentary
committee in his country that in

‘talks’? with Humphrey in Can- |

berra in February this year, that
in return for the trebling of
Australian troops in Vietnam,
Humphrey gave a promise that
«the USA would buy Australian
munitions and other profitable
war supplies for the Vietnam
According to Holt, the
first of such orders for small
arms are already in production,

Blood for guns — the blood
cheap and easy, the guns highly
profitable, and the stock market
“buoyant,”

nam to its own affairs,
a poser for **statesmen” and war

And now this dilemma for the

“Pentagon war hawks: the people
of Saigon and other centers de-

manding an end to the U.S,—
puppet Cao Ky’s military *gov-
ernment,” the 9th in succession
spawned by Washington; that the
Geneva Agreements be imple-
mented forthwith, and for Amer-
ica to “go home” and leave Viet-
Truly

profiteers with homicidal tend-
encies, and certainly one which
will not be solved by branding
it “another Viet Cong plot” —
or lobbing tear and incendiary
bombs into Buddhist temples to
subdue anti-U.S,—Cao Ky dem-
onstrations,

Pa Le

Editor — TOM McEWEN
Associate Editor —
Circulation Manager — JERRY SHACK

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| Worth
Quoting |
*

One tycoon once confided to us that
the reason for using ‘‘cenfs on the sales
dollar” was due fo the fact that work-
ers couldn’t understand how much sev-
eral millions of dollars were. ‘‘So we
break if down to a level they’re more.
familiar with—like 5¢ on a dollar. This
is so they'll be better able to under-

Peep ne Fo y fi ing.”’

—Bob Ward in UE NEWS

*

A sensational expose was lately re-
vealed in East Germany proving, with
verifiable documents, that the present
president of West Germany (Heinrich
Lubke, Ed.) was personally responsible
for planning and building Nazi concen-
tration camps. Practically the entire
press of the western world smothered
the story. :

Can you imagine a situation in
which the president or prime minister
of a major western nation had any-
thing as atrocious as this in his back-
ground, who made his fortune by
building concentration camps where
workers were murdered in cold blood,
and then have every bit of this news
killed by the press?

—ILWU President: Harry Bridges in :

THE DISPATCHER, April 1/66

x

Naturally, those who seek to make
Bonn a nuclear partner are anxious to
“clear the air’ so that people will
think of Germany (West. Ed.) as the
land of Goethe, Schiller and Beethoven,
rather than the land of death camps,
genocide and crematoria.

—George Lewis in Canadian Jewish

OUTLOOK, April, 1966

1 found—just as | had always sus-
pected—that it was impossible to elicit
a rational answer from the raider rep-
resentative on any question. He ad-
mitted his union was raiding a CLC
affiliate — the Plumbers and Moulders.
Union — but it induced no sense of
shame in him whatsoever. He also ad-
mitted that they had lots of time and
money and were out fo destroy us.
Well, that’s the face of a raider. —
—Trail Mine-Mill President Bob Keiver

-in THE COMMENTATOR, March, 1966

These far-reaching events in
Saigon present Washington with
an “out,” a “face-saver,” apath-
way of retreat from greater dis-
aster, Whether those who hold
the destinies of America in their
bloodied hands can/or will take

it or not, is another question,

Now, however, they are strip-
ped naked of every excuse and
pretext for their wanton ag-
gression to “save” South Viet-
nam, The people of Saigon have
had enough of such ‘¢saviours,”

and in their mass protests have.

said loudly, clearly and simply:
“Yankee Go Home!” :

“Trtbume

MAURICE RUSH

April 15, 1966—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 4

i

lace