THE NATION

‘venture was distributed in 15,000 copies.

By PIERRE GELINAS

Quebec press voices opposition
to involvement in Korea

MONTREAL

Fo" all corners of the political field in Quebec, protests
are rising against Canadian involvement in Mac-
Arthur’s. war. :

More than 200 giant posters issued by the Labor~
Progressive Party in Quebec were posted in Montreal and
Quebec City with the slogan: “No Canadian lives for the
Yankee war in Korea.’They appeared the same day
Trygve Lie asked Ottawa to send troops to Korea. A
leaflet carrying the same appeal not to let the St. Laurent
government drag Canada into the Yankee colonial ad-
(Montreal
thought-control police ran around pulling down posters
and made threats against people posting them up.)

The Quebec City papers, Le Soleil and L’Action Cath-
olique, said no Canadian ships should have been sent to
the Pacific.

In Montreal, Le Devoir takes the same position, and
notes wth satisfaction that Catholic opinion in the pro-
vince is expressing itself more and more openly against
any attempt to involve Canada in a war that could lead
to an atomic third world war.

Vers Demain, official organ of L’Union des Elec- .
teurs (Social Credit), is publishing a special issue on the,
Korean war, also taking the position that Canada has no
business in that Yankee adventure.

Attempts by the St. Laurent government to justify
Canada’s intervention have not taken hold in Quebec.
The LPP was the first political party to express and
mobilize in action the deep-rooted French-Canadian anti-
war sentiments, at the same time giving its unreserved
support to the peace petition campaign of the Canadian
Peace Congress. P \

The province of Quebec is unanimous in saying to
the St. Laurent government: “No Canadian lives for the
Yankee war in Korea.” : :

Why not consult the

Taiwanese about it?

ANADA should not recognize the “People’s
Government” of China until the North Korean

forces are back behind the 38th parallel.

M. J. Coldwell, CCF national leader, said
this here Monday.

“We should not recognize the. new Chinese
government under duress,” Mr. Coldwell said.

The CCF leader said, ““We should not protect
Chiang Kai-shek in Formosa. The United Nations
should tell Chiang to remove himself from there.
It is a Japanese island.”

— M. J. Coldwell, CCF national leader,
in an interview with the Vancouver News-
Herald, July 25» 1950

Just a “Liberal m a hurry” —— along Wall Street.

What! No Russians ?

F ROM Norman Campbell, Ottawa staff reporter,
comes the following: “More than 200,000 soldiers, sail-
ors and airmen of the western powers are now committed
to battle while Russia has not a single man in Russian
uniform in the field. That is the most alarming fact of
the developing war situation, a high Ottawa official said
_. 2 The official is quoted as saying: “... What does
it mean? Who knows?”—Toronto Evening Telegram.

LPP COLUMN

yearn is hereby tendered to the
editors of the Vancouver Sun, In their issue of

July 19 they published in full on the editorial page the
LPP Column entitled “Test”, which had appeared in the

Tribune of July 10.
The sudden apparitio

a of this column spread
across the Sun is an index of fever in their editorial
offices, Apparently, reports of meetings on Korea held
by the LPP in Victoria, Vancouver and other points
in the province had rather painfully affected the
manufacturers of “public opinion”. Something in my
column evidently scraped a raw nerve.

An adjoining editorial amplified their fever chart.
It was entitled: Plotting By Petition.

At this point, fever induced delirium. : a

In the bloodshot eyes of the editors of the Sun, e
Stockholm Appeal and the petition of the Canadian
Peace Congress are obviously and
at first glance “phony”, 2 “sham”,
and “diabolical”, “no torious’,
“scheming”.

Signers of the petition are
either fools or knaves—a couple of
hundred million of them.

How deep the depths of knave-
ry and hornswogglement, only the
Sun (exclusive) is in a position to
reveal,

For it appears that this world
_ referendum on, peace has nothing
to do with the banning of the
atomic bomb and the pinning of

responsibility on
ning (de-

would-be aggressors. Its hidden, secret mea
by its able staff of
coded for readers of the Sun by ts onewill open

editorial analysts) is that it—the pe
the door to “a reign of barbarism . - - intimidation,

the rule” Sos hes DQ
violence, double-crossing will Be Ter ont of execu-

“. ea
Stockholm Appeal “will Decoll™ ing their own death

tion”. Its signers “may be si ,
warrants if their ‘plebiscite’ should ever succeed.

Clear, no doubt? oe ‘
“Journalism” such as the foregoing kate bib ye
creeps. I remember an exhibition of “eos ia
Munich in 1932; the Nazis had already ie ae Sa?
influence into the ¢
yet in power, The delirium tremens of the Vancouver

By STANLEY RYERSON

ancouver Sun

press-mongers and war-touts reminds me of the Munich
exhibit. It has to be witnessed to be believed.

And what are the eminently respectable editors of
the Sun driving at?

The same thing as the editors of the Montreal
Gazette and Toronto Star and the rest of the provoca-
tion-press: the mass intimidation of Canadians, to
silence the voice and break the will for peace.

Thirteen words in-the Sun editorial betray its
authors, utterly: -

“Suppose moral and strategic considerations even-
tually justify the use of the atom bomb. . .?”

- Get that: moral considerations — :

The morality of mass murder is of a specific and
refined order, truly!

It goes with the mentality of. the Big Lie, the
depraved outlook of the press brothels of big business,
the ultimate corruption that the profit system brings
in the days of its evil decline, For it, the use of the
atom bomb is “the lesser of two evils’. The other
“evil”, presumably, being the social emancipation of
mankind. ; .

The editors of the Sun state their fear, that the
Stockholm Appeal “will be held up as far more signi-
ficant than democratic methods of popular opinion such
as free elections”. Translated into something ‘like
honest English, this would seem to mean the follow-
ing: Truman and St. Laurent, having got to power
with the pretence that they were advocates of peace
and social progress, then cynically betrayed their
promises and enacted policies of stark reaction — we
face the danger that the democracy of Tammany may
be elbowed aside by the democracy of the people,

asserting themselves at last. The United Nations hav-
ing been subverted into a branch office of Tammany,
there is danger of the people speaking up, and ‘over- .
ruling the Wall Street politicians . .
e ‘
The editors of the Sun unwittingly are paying
tribute to the great impact of the peace .petition on
the thinking of Canadians.

The madness of their raving is in its own perverted

a measure of the sound common sense of the

young and old Canadians, women and men, from sea
to sea, who in the face of war, hysteria and intimida-—

LABOR FOCUS By J. B. SALSBERG

What ClO said
on Korea in 1947

a THESE lines are written it is no longer possible
for the warmongers to conceal the fact that not only
the heroic army of Northern Korea but the toiling masses
of both North and South Korea are in the supreme battle
to free their country from the foreign invader and his
native puppet regime. It is the people of Korea, of both
North and South, the workers, farmers, intellectuals, who
on engaged in a war of liberaticn and national unifica-

on.

How else can one explain that units of the Southern
army crossed over to the North even before the puppet
regime of the South began its invasion, or that the South-
ern army, which the U.S. formed,
trained, equipped and led (by an ad-
mitted U.S. officer corps of 500) and
which MacArthur's staff only a few
weeks before called “the best army in
. Asia,” has ceased to be a major fight-
_ing force in so short a time? And how
can one explain the reports of U.S.
newsmén that practically the entire
South is fighting the interventionist
forces so that the U.S. soldiers “don’t

trust any Koreans”?

There is only one explanation, and
that is than an entire people with the exception of its
Quislings, is fighting for national independence, land, jobs,
social security. and democracy.

In North Korea all the large-scale industrial enter-
prises formerly owned by the Japanese were taken over
by the people’s government and are owned by the workers.
Northern Korean land was divided among the landless
peasants. Little wonder that everyone from the North
entered the fight against the invaders from the South.

But what was there to cause the people of South
Korea to fight their brothers in the North from whom
they were forcibly separated? The factories and mines
in the South which were formerly owned by the Japanese
oppressors were taken over by Wall Street firms. Since the
defeat of Japan American monopolists secured an “inter-
est” in South Korea to the tune of a billion and a half
dollars. As for the land, the same gang of fabulously rich
landowners who exploited the peasantry during the half
century of Japanese oppression still own the land and

* form the main support of the terror regime of Syngman
Rhee, Why, then, should the workers and landless South
Korean farmers fight against their liberated and econ-
omically and socially advancing brothers?

In the face of these facts how can any fair minded,
self-respecting, class-conscious workingman or any decent —
labor leader line up with the enemies of the Korean
workers and farmers of both North and South? How can
any honest union leader give “unqualified support” to
Truman, MacArthur and Dulles? Yet that’s what Philip
Murray and his like in the AFL have done! ase

But some well-meaning union members may say,
“What you say about South Korea may only be your
opinion and you are not impartial.” To which I would say,
“Of course I’m not impartial. I’m for the Korean workers
and farmers and I’m sure that you are, too. I could easily
fill this column with quotations from articles, statements
and speeches of the best and proven fighters for Korean
freedom and for working class justice. Let me limit my- —
self to one source to prove my contention, the official CIO _
organ which even Philip Murray could hardly question.”

e

Henry C. Fleisher, assistant to the CIO Director of.

Publications, in an article in the CIO News of April 21, —
1947, under the heading, “Thugs Threaten WFTU Dele-
gates in ‘U.S. Korea’,” wrote: “A world labor mission to
Korea cancelled its tour of the American zone of that
Far Eastern country: after encountering threats :
armed company thugs, beatings of Korean workers seek-
ing to greet the delegation, and wide-scale arrests of
union leaders.

“Charging that the incidents encountered during
March 31 resembled activities in the ‘fascist states’ the
World Federation of Trade Unions delegation filed ;
strong complaint with General Lerch, commanding US.
forces in Korea. a

“Willard Townsend, CIO member of the mission and
head of the Transport Service Employees, together with
four other unionists from England, France and the Soviet
Union, complained that they were threatened by armed
company police dressed in Japanese military uniforms.
Rifles were being cocked for action, hysterical thugs were -
surrounding their cars, and two workers were beaten al- —
most to death in front of their eyes.” —

The article, which could stand reprinting in labor and —
trade union papers (we'll gladly supply the full text)
continues: oF

“ |... Occurrences at Seoul (South Korea) were in
marked contrast With the mission’s treatment in Northern
Korea and Japan, where they received friendly, cooperat-
ive assistance from occupation authorities, government
officials and representatives of company
and labor.” And that’s that. ©

The case is clear. There can be no two ways about
it. The trade union movement must demand, “Hands Off
Korea!” No Canadian involvement in Wall Street's war
on the Korean people! No third world war! Sign the
Stockholm Appeal to outlaw the use of the atomic bomb!
Adopt peace resolutions in every union. Elect dele
.to the forthcoming trade union conventions who will

tion, are signing up for peace.

for peace, labor unity and democracy!

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JULY 28, 1950—P