15 yegierlees Per eT i Speak meson sae WaVNeee merece Suir tre enra nN . EDITORIAL PAGE ction needed now! HE ranks of the unemployed - are increasing. Layoffs in B.C. shipyards and other key industries are announced almost daily. Car- penters in one local union already count their jobless members in 500 and up. Similarly with ship- yard workers. In Burrard Dry Dock workers punch out for good at a weekly rate of one hundred or more. A warship, HMCS Columbia, is commissioned at Burrard with ail the usual pomp and ceremony. The deputy minister of national de- fence comes all the way from Ot- tawa to be guest of honor. The men who built the ship and a big chunk of the office staff that managed technical details, are also “honor- ed”—with an indeterminate layoff: So it goes. City missions send out desperate “SOS” appeals for aid to help a growing army of destitute jobless and their families. Winter cloth- ing, Shoes, food. “Brother, can you spare a dime?” The political Neros at City Hall, in Victoria and Ottawa fiddle as they pass the buck. City Hall is “arranging an emergency shelter” for 500 destitute men or more at the PNE. But no jobs. “We feel,” says labor Alderman E. A. Jamie- son, “that we’re away ahead of the situation last year.” A nice “feel- ing’ that helps the Tory, Socred and Social Democratic politicians get off the hook; but totally un- real. Premier Bennett in Victoria chides Prime Minister Diefenbaker ~ in Ottawa for not funnelling some shipbuilding contracts to the B.C. coast, carefully ignoring the fact that what ship contracts Ottawa has awarded East Coast yards, . provides some jobs but does not solve the problem of growing un- employment in Eastern Canada. A handy excuse advanced by both Tory and Socred Neros is that wage levels in B.C. are too high, and therefore not “competitive” with Eastern Canadian or foreign yards. Premier Bennett says “the peo- ple of B.C. should speak out right Pacific Tribune Editor — TOM McEWEN ' Managing Editor — BERT WHYTE Published weekly at Room § — 426 Main Sireet Vancouver 4, B.C. Printed in a Union Shop Subscription Rates: Ome Year: $4.00 Six Months: $2.25 Canadian and Commonwealth countries (except Australia): $4.00 one year. Australia, United States and all other countries: $5.00 one year. Phone MUtual 5-5288 now” on this Tory preference for the East against the West. We agree the people should speak out, but not on that score. The political buck-passing and and using a growing army of job- less workers as a pawn in the game of power politics, must end. In fighting the growing and per- manent menace of unemployment, Labor must get “away ahead of last year” in deeds ‘as well as words.. During the past years it has evolved some fine “programs” to win security for workers dis- possessed of the opportunity to earn a livelihood through no fault of their own. It is time such pro- grams were given real content, with increased unemployment in- surance benefits, commensurate with earning power, paid to all job- less workers from the hour they are laid off or deprived of their job until they return to work. Then, and then only, can any so- called labor alderman or any other specie of politician say “we are ahead of last year.” The only thing we are “ahead” in at the moment is the certainty of a growing army of jobless workers, and the windy platitudes on their plight. Action is needed by all ranks of Labor—and now. Tse onsite: Cana ‘ HE ghost of Suez stalks the . Panama Canal Zone. American armed guards. patrol the Canal Zone with sub-machine guns, mor- - tars and tear gas, “quelling the mobs.” The “mobs” are the Pan- amanian people who wunt to regain full sovereignty in the manage- ment. of their internal affairs — and to regain their property, in this case the Panama Canal. In Panama City last week anti- American sentiment boiled over with demonstrators tearing down the U.S. Embassy flag and ripping it to shreds; a “very grave’ inci- dent; according to Washington. What is of course more grave is continued control of the arterial Panama Canal by the U.S. govern- ment, a control allegedly “leased in perpetuity” to the U.S. away back in 1903 at U.S. dictation. A lot of water has flowed under - the bridge or through the Panama: Canal since that time. The Pan- amanian people haven’t forgotten that the lives of thousands of their people went into the building of this canal through a fever-ridden territory, and the Panamanian peo- ple, like the people of Egypt and the whole colonial world demand the content rather than the husk of “independence.” The example of Egypt’s Gamal Nasser in taking over and oper- ating the Suez Canal despite the combined military opposition of Britain, France and Ben Gurion’s Israel, ‘has had a dynamic effect upon the people of Panama; a peo- ple who have learned what we in Canada should also learn — that no government has the right or authority to alienate or give away the people’ s- resources, either for a day or “in perpetuity.” Thus the struggle of the Pan- amanian people for the return of their Canal Zone ownership and authority will continue to grow de- spite the superiority of U.S. arms and’ Washington’s intrigues; a struggle which coincides in great measure to the wider struggles — gripping all Latin America for an end to U.S. monopoly domination, intimidation. and- interference in the internal affairs of their re- - spective countries. On the territory of Panama, the Panama Canal Zone, its manage- ment and its economic importance must be restored to its rightful owners — the Panamanian people. Tom McEwen display advertisement announcing a series of talks under the general heading of ‘‘adult education” to be staged in Port Alberni. The first of these will be by one J. B. Wood of UBC (we don’t know whether Mr. Wood is a professor, a student, or the janitor) who has chosen as his topic “Communism.” The advertisement tells us the speaker will deal with “the USSR, and then survey the organizational, agitational and conspiratorial as- pects . .. of militant international communism ,..” That ought to be good. When some of these McCarthyized lads. get going with their version of “communism” the dime thrillers in the Police Gazette look like stale dishwater by comparison. The ad- vertisement also notifies any pros- -pective audience whith may care to sample this brand of “adult education” that ‘‘to attend you do EADER H. VIGOR of Nanaimo R sent in a Nanaimo Free Press not need a college background. All you need is an enquiring mind and a desire to learn.” With his keen political nose turned upwind, reader Vigor opines that “the old red-herring”’ will be dished out in large helpings. * * a Another consistent PT corres- pondent, Lewis Agassiz, mailed us a clipping from the Vancouver Sun reporting local “public rela- tions” pundits addressing the annual meet of the B.C. Weekly Newspapers Association, and tell- ing all weekly newspaper editors that they should cease being “rug- ged individualists and. smarten up.” Generally speaking, we’ve al- ways had a sympathetic feeling for country editors condemned to a weekly routine of reporting local society doings, church bazaars, obituaries, or Gaglardi’s numerous “sermons on the mount” with or without the customary “sorry for the inconvenience” signs. Despite all that, however, these : weekly newspaper editors are in- variably an “institution” in the community, part of its grass-roots life; sometimes grinding their own little political axes, but invariably grinding for the well-being of the community. Thus when Vancouver’s “public relations’ man Dean Miller tells in their communities, or the big such editors they are “not popular” “public relations’ poohbah of Crown Zellerbach tells them to ‘‘smarten up,” that is a stew pre- pared by a couple of cooks which weekly newspaper editors can well do without. Country editors who veer in the general direction of “rugged individualists” are always preferable to Crown Zellerbach monopoly conformists. * * * The Fiji Islands in the South Pacific, as everyone knows, is part of our “‘free world.” The capital of Fiji is Suva, clearing house for sugar, gold and copra exports. Couple of weeks ago a lad drop- ped into the office and left us the “wage record sheet” of a Suva civic employee (outside worker, roads department). For a 4414-hour week he received the princely sum of three pounds and_ sixpence, which pans out at a little below or above ten dollars, all depending, as our banker said, on whether you- are buying or selling pounds, This lad was doing neither, but selling his labor power building roads for British monopoly for the handsome wage of 25. cents or less per hour. ‘‘Rule Britannia, Britan- nia waives the rules...” with the “free” International Confederation of “Free” Trade Unions nowhere in sight. November 13, 1959—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 4 .