Too ee ING BE | | ‘i } Peavey TES; Published Weekly at 650 Howe Street By THE TRIBUNE PUBLISHING COMPANY LTD. Telephones: Editorial, MA. 5857; Business, MA. 5288 iia: DECIOWOR: 6. on. 5 nk 5 ok oh eve nce ene ees Editor Ivan Birchard Manager Subscription Rates: 1 Year, $2.50; 6 Months, $1.35. Printed by Union Printers at 650 Howe Street, Vancouver, B.C. Authorized as second-class mail by the post-office department, Ottawa ers Labor, farmers demand session REMIER Hart’s assurance to the Vancouver, New Westminster and District Trades and Labor Council, that the ‘new labor code,’ as he euphemistically terms Bill 39, is being “given closest study” is something less than honest when placed alongside the 114 or so writs issued by .his government this week against striking steel workers and their union, The action of the TLC in ‘unani- mously demanding a special session of the legislature to deal with Bill 39 is a timely move. Not only does this ive statute abrogate the spirit and content of B.C.’s Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act (once reputed to be the best in the Dominion), but already it has worked serious harm to good industrial relations. Whether the Coalition accepts the advice of the TLC to the growing demand for a special session of the legis- lature or not remains to be seen. From its persecution of hundreds of steelworkers it would appear that like the Bourbons, the Coalition “learns nothing and forgets noth- ing,” and hopes by this latest barrage of persecutions to save something of the ‘face’ it lost in its recent legal debacle in Nanaimo. The fact remains however that the action of the TLC in unanimously demanding that the legislature be con- vened to remedy some of the evil done by Bill 39, now 4 presents the Coalition with a united labor and farmer movement for immediate legislative redress. Both the AFL and CIO-CCL on Bill 39, and equally important, from the _ farmers on the burning issue of unjust_school taxation. It is obvious from reports of the Kamloops meeting of ‘the farmers with Dr. Weir, that they are in no mood to accept the plausable ‘assurances’ of Hart or his cabinet members on the school tax issue. To make sure it would not be another ‘run-around,’ the farmers gave the govern- ment commission set up to ‘investgiate’ the tax issue a - November 30 deadline, at the same time reiterating the demand of the B.C. Beef Growers Association for a special session of the House to deal with the matter now. _ With their hands full of their new school tax notices, the farmers and rural taxpayers are demanding a_ special ‘session of the legislature, and they pull no punches when they say so, Steelworkers, with their hands full of court — writs, make the same demand. Every trade unionist re- ess of affiliation, realizes that he may be next should he decide to exercise control of his labor power in seeking a_wage increase, or to smoke the CMA bosses out from behind the protective curtain of Bill 39. To both the farm- ers and labor Hart’s assurances are inadequate and un- acceptable, That is why AFL unionists through the medium Of their central body, join in the demand with others for a session, ; Organized labor and farmers in British Columbia are asking for legislative redress to correct specific grievances which affect the welfare of the entire country. MLA’s look- _ing to their political fences, would do well to heed the voice of the factory and farm. Those legislators and their CMA prompters who have been basking in the belief that the opposition to Bill 39 and an onerous unjust tax levy is only ‘communist propaganda’ are due for a rude awaken- ing. 1 vils of Bill 39 and a one to six hundred percent tax increase cannot be hidden by a red herring or a _ Coalition platitude. Such evils require action in place of fine ‘assurances.’ Only one assurance will meet with the approval of workers and farmers at this time—withdraw all” charges _ against the United Steelworkers Union membership and _ Officials, and convene the legislature NOW. As we see it HF By Tom McEwen HE Vancouver office of Mr. Li Chao, consul- general in Canada for the nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek issues a month- ly four-page periodical entitled “China, News and Views.” Need- less to say, as a worthy repres- entative of Chiang Kai-shek, the Chinese consular publications are not too restricted by observance of truth, nor above indulging in a little plain and fancy forgery at times. The August 1 issue of the ‘China, News and Views’ is a re- print of an address to the Ro- tary Club of Vancouver by a ‘Dr.’ Tien-fong Cheng, described as one of China’s leading “edu- ecators and _ diplomats.” Mr. Cheng’s after-dinner belch at his Rotarian audience is as fine a bit of anti-communist anti-Soviet propaganda as we have seen in these parts for a long time. It has that smooth ‘co-prosperity sphere in Asia’ style of similar propaganda that used to flood Vancouver from the Japanese consul-general’s office in the roaring thirties. Mr. Cheng is terribly anxious that Canadians should know that Chiang Kai-shek and his Kuo- mintang phalange are as pure and lily-white as the driven snow, and that the Communist areas and the Chinese ‘Reds’ are as black as old Satan and equally as tricky. According to ‘educa- tor’ Cheng they have only ‘one loyalty’—to Russia. Seems like both we and the Rotarians have heard that refrain quite a lot, although it must be stated that while it helps the Rotarian di- gestion, it has the opposite ef- fect on honest working men and women. ; To clinch his point on com- munist loyalties, Mr. Cheng re- fers his Rotarian listeners to Mr. Mr. Cheng, is supposed to have said that “... the red flag is the flag of the revolutionary class, tee. Foster—according to and we (the communists) are part of the revolutionary class. All capitalist flags are flags of the capitalist class and we owe no allegiance to them.” We don’t have to consult Mr. Foster nor the Congres- sional record t fact that above is cheap forgery, quite ing with aims of thel. ‘co-pros- perity sphere’ bloc who have taken over Tom McEwen from Hirohito. We might add, however, department of Mr. Li Chao’s consular office in Vancouver under-rates the intelligence of Canadians, and in promoting the frothings of ‘educator’ Cheng, (who apparently mastered the Goebbel’s art during his sojourn in Germany between 1935-38) ren- — ders an ill service to the Chi- nese people. . 6 UR jail-houses are again in the public eye. In its main essentials the story is pretty much the same whether in Ok- alla, B.C., or Bordeaux, Quebec. A few ‘mysterious deaths,’ a few attempted suicides in jail, a prison ‘riot’ and the issue hits the headlines. It makes good copy. Editorials reeking with sage profundity are dished out. Government officials—most of- ten on such matters the at- torney-general, makes official de- nials that anything is wrong with our prison system, and that that the propaganda » is that. Every once in a long while, when the situation gets so bad that the position of leading poli- ticlans is threatened by public testimony alleged to have been given by Mr. William Z. Foster, chairman of the Communist Farty of the USA before a Con- gressional Investigating Commit- Canada’s immigration ‘policy’ RITISH immigrant Harry Chassis, succumbing to the bland- ishments of the ‘more immigration’ yodellers from Ottawa and Queens Park, arrived in Canada a couple of weeks ago. His observations, made befcre the Toronto Board of Control, have already thrown a political monkey wrench into the immigra- tion schemes of Drew and King. The Chassis family of seven are already divided, liying in three separate rooms on different streets, with one so small, says Chassis, “that you couldn't swing a cat in it.’ Each room costs $9 a week, which means that the Chassis family has a monthly rentai budget item of some $108. Queen’s Park authorities are already explaining that . Chassis and his family did not come to Canada under a provincial scheme, and therefore could not have been “influenced by materials put out by the provincial government.” Which is a neat, albeit an uncon- scious way of saying that Canada has no immigration policy, but that every politician concerned with the need of cheap labor for whatever branch of the CMA he represents, has an immigration policy of his own. The question of housing, employment or other factors essential to the welfare of the prospective immigrant do not enter into the picture. The main all-compelling concern is the securing, or hoping to secure an adequate supply of ‘green’ cheap labor. : The actors have changed, but the stage setting is the same. Flooding the old land with attractive literature on Canada; telling the prospective immigrant of the ‘great New World’ awaiting him. Painting pictures which those who traffic in immigration know can never be realized in life. Painting a picture of a ‘home’ that not even those who live here in Canada can attain without years of grubbing ... and waiting. It is a great game. British immigrant Chassis has exposed it—but you would never know it unless you _read the Daily Tribune. The commercial press gave him a big ‘build up’ on his arival as the ‘fine type of immigrant Canada needs’, and in praise of the Drew-King immigration racket. Now that Chassis has said his piece on selling Canada short, the ‘more immi- grant’ politicians and their kept press regard him in stony silence, and like Pilate seek to wash their hands of his being here. All of which adds up to the need of a new workable immigration policy; a policy based upon the ability of the nation to absorb new workers upon a high ecohomic standard, rather than upon the concept of cheap semi-slave labor. ‘costing the people approxima™ indignation, a ‘royal’ commission o some public body will be struck off to probe the situa- tion. A body of men will ex- amine the problem in all its as- pects, detail their findings in 4 voluminous report — often with — 2a. number of very laudable re- commendations for improvement appended. The report is carefully ‘filed’—to be studied by the gov” ernment ‘in. due course’. Thé commission collects its not im- — considerable fee from the public treasury—and the whole matter is happily forgotten. Periodically some alleged au- thority on a ‘Borstal system’ will give voice to a series of prison reform ideas, get his name in the papers, and depart. Every- thing is quiet—until the next prison scandal blows-up, when the merry procedure starts all over again, Our Canadian prison system, stemming from and preserviNg all of the medevial routine ahd custom of 16th century England, — is not based upon the concept of reform. The structure, Tour tine and training of prison ad- ministrative personnel is based upon the punitive idea. Adminis- trative ignorance and brutality substitute for the science Of — psychiatry. Solitary confinement (‘the hole’), the paddle and lash_ substitute for reason. Vermin and disease infested cells, plus ‘food — that any self-respecting pig would walk away from are suppose® — to impress the law-breaker that ‘crime does not pay’. Young ‘first offenders’ aré pitched in with confirmed crim imals, and aged offenders ofte® get their first lesson in crim — inal depravity from juvenile kooligans. Certain types of police and prison officials derive 2 sad-— istic enjoyment in ‘workingover” prisoners, and particularly if the — latter happen to be designated as ‘Reds’. If anything serious happens—and it often does, well, as the English poet Wilde pul’ it in his ‘Ballad of Readiné Goal’, the walls shut out those sights which “Son of God or 802 or man, should ever look upo?- Every so often we hear police magistrates and other so-called authorities on. crime, extolling the lash or other forms of ¢O™ poral punishment. We have § scores of’ men come back from the lash room, their bodies one ; to ribbons like a raw pound beef-steak, but we have yet see one who came back from ™ torture chamber in a mood penitence! Our whole prison system rotten from the foundation — .. . from the initial ‘bull-pen’ the local hoosegow to the Pe? tentiary. True, it protects ats ciety— temporarily— from ent social elements, but at 4 ¥ heavy price to society, since the process it incubates crime. As a necessary instill tion, which should command © fullest application of scie?! study and treatment in th imination of crime, it conU®™ to operate on ignorance and prov tality. Our prison reforms (8 as the recommendation Archambault Royal sion) remain in the archives our prison population grows — — alarming proportion in you! offenders. Our government partments and police offi cath wield the whitewash brush W superb dexterity, and our 2 fusal to face a basic social PF’ » lem of prevention and crime becomes a fine three times the amount spent all other social security, PACIFIC TRIBUNE—P: