slltaDl alll

British in Palestine

Editor, Pacific Tribune:

Sir: The following letter was
submitted to the Vancouver Sun
June 7, in answer to one who
signed himself “T.ES.”,. but, has
not yet been printed:

There is hardly a race in exist-
ence that hasn’t at one time or
another propagated the idea of
the “chosen race.” Centuries after
this foolishness has been rejected

White
by us, it was still being advanced
by a very few gentile Bible stud-
ents as well as others. We prac-
ticed this egotistical outlook with
harm to no one, but some British
practiced it with overbearing ar-
rogance and the Germans with

tragic consequences to the rest
of the world.

I am afraid because of the Brit-
ish record in Palestine the over-
simplification is on the part of

SPEAKING OF CIRCULATION

Irishman standing there

for nearly four years. Rain or
shine, he’s always at his corner.

Ralph works all week for the
city and is well liked by his gang.
Every week he takes a bundle of
papers to them and he says that
even the foreman buys a paper.
Lots of good discussions develop
over their lunch pails from ar-
ticles read in the P.T. The' fellows
have confidence in Ralph and
have elected him as their shop
steward.

Ralph is a seasoned labor fight-
er, having seen action’ on the
picket line during the foundry and
typo strikes in 1946. Twenty-four
hour shifts were not unusual for
him to work between the foundry
and ITU picket lines, between
whiles collecting food and dona-
tions for the foundry workers’
-. kitchens. :
Tt is because of these exper-
iences that Ralph sells the P.T.
every Saturday—his day off—to
strengthen labor by bringing to
‘the people a fighting, working
class paper, a paper that brings

Tribune. And if you stop to c
is Ralph Hamilton and that he’s

The corner salesman

IF YOU CHANCE TO stroll down Hastings Street to
Carrall any, Saturday afternoon you'll see a six-foot smiling
holding up copies of the Pacific
hat you'll learn that his name

been selling the P.T. there

them the truth and gives a lead
on the important questions of the
day. He feels that many more
people should be out on this work
and says that if every downtown
corner was covered, street sales
would be sure to go up.

If you stand back and watch
for a while you'll see workers
coming from the job, or making
the weekly shopping tour with
their families, stopping to buy the
paper and maybe chat for a few
minutes. You'll appreciate then
the value of the work Ralph does.

The progressive working class
movement was built,not only on
the “nickels and dimes” of the
workers, but the hours and min-
utes devoted to, it by people —
workers such as Ralph. One of
our biggest jobs is getting the
paper to the people. It sounds el-
ementary, but the only way we
‘can-do that is to sell it to them.
How many papers do you want,
and which corner will you be on
next Saturday?

Ralph will be out there. How
about you?—FEL ASHTON.

A charge of 50 cents for each
Insertion of five lines or less with
10 cents for each additional line
is made for notices” appearing in
this column. No notices will be

of the week of publication.

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What you Pleate.

Mr. J.H.S. If Mr. J.H.S. wishes
further information on the pro-
tective qualities of British official-
dom in the Near East, I can sup-
ply him with enough indisputable
factual information, some of it

admitted in top secret British
government files, to make his
stout chauvinist heart quiver

with disillusionment.

Here is a little quiz for Mr.
J.H.S. to ponder over:

1. Why did the British forbid
fraternization of Arab and Jew-
ish progressive leaders and trade
unions? 2. Why did the British
pay a stipend to the Mufti, origin-
al organizer of anti-Jewish senti-
ment? 3. Why did the British
make no move the squash the 1936
rebellion even though they knew
of it months in advance? 4. Why
did the followers of the Mufti dur-
ing this rebellion shout in the
streets to the rabble that the gov-
-ernment of Palestine was with
them? 5. Why did the British or-
ganize the Arab League of reac-
tionary feudal lords? 6. If the Pal-
estinian Arabs were so resentful
ot Jewish presence in Palestine
and their revolt was spontaneous,
why did the overwhelming mass
‘of Arabian peasantry carry on
with their usual occupations heed-
less of the turmoil? 7. If the 1936
rebellion was an uprising of Arab-
ian nationalist sentiment why did
the Palestine feudal lords import
cut-throats of Syria, Lebanon and
Egypt to bolster the dwindling
ranks of their insurrection? 8.
Why did the British by their at-
titude and masked half-admis-
sions acquiesce in all this?

Mr. J.H.S. states that a Jewish
state will not make for happiness
in an Arabian world. Since when
has poverty, illiteracy and disease
tended to create happiness in the
world? Certainly sanitation, mod-
ern science, education and west-
ern civilization in general is a
great advancement in the pursuit
of happiness, Since when have
feudal leaders incapable of even
the most elementary freedoms
fought for the development of hu-
man happiness? Yet the, British
sponsor this feudal class and are
therefore directly responsible for
the conditions of this support.

Mr. J.H.S. speaks of assimila-
tion. Many Jews in Germany as-
similated, yet Hitler declared
them Jews when their origin was
completely unknown even to
them. If an Englishman has a
right to lead a life as an English-
man—a Jew has a right to lead a
life as a Jew, but let us unite our
differences, each learning one
from the other and make this in-
deed a world of peace, security,

freedom and plenty for all peoples,

regardless of race, creed or color.

The British did not establish the
Jewish people in Palestine. Jews
fought and died in two world
wars on the side of freedom for
the privilege of building and es-
tablishing a free land in Pales-
tine under their own efforts with
the fruits of freedom embracing
the Arabs in full equality.

4 SAM MORRIS.
3435 W. 8th Ave.,
Vancouver, B.C.

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“Magic Seed,” the second picture on the bill

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narration.
first time.

Both films are being shown in Vancouver for the

GUIDE TO GOOD READING

“Novel of the people

THE TOWN BELOW is a phenomenon in our litera-

ture.

Since it was published in French four years ago by

Editions de l’Arbre, of Montreal, it has been the subject

of much controversy.
true French novel written
numerous, furiously denounced it
as disrespectful of “our tradi-
tions,” anti-clerical, subversive. In
a pious review, a priest advised a
young correspondent to burn his
copy of The Town Below .. . or
suffer the pain of mortal sin. The
priest of Roger Lemelin’s parish
in Quebec declared from the pul-
pit in one of his sermons that the
author “of this diabolical work
has received Moscow gold in ot-
der to besmirch our’ province.”

When the CBC presented a
radio version of this work last
year over its French network,
there was a deluge of protest. Re-
ligious and civic organizations of
Quebec circulated petitions calk
ing for suspension of the broad-
cast. The protest \even reached
the city council of Quebec--where
fortunately the hysteria was
stifled.

Reaction sometimes judges its
allies quite badly. It is rarely
mistaken about its opponents. It
judges correctly in seeing in The
Town Below a work which ac-
complishes a true revolution in the
literature of French expression in
Canada. ;

In Lemélin, French Canada at

last has a writer out of the work-
ing class. For the first time, the
life of the French-Canadian work-
ing class forms the. base, the cen-
tral theme of a literary work.

This is nothing less than a
revolution.

: mr x *

es

NOW PUBLISHED in English
by McCleNand and Stewart, The
Town Below is not the common-
place love story which runs
through it and up to a certain
point gives it its unity, It is rather
the profusion and diversity of the
images which form a sort of Bal-
zacian fresco in the daily life of
a parish in the “lower city” of
Quebec. In this regard it is an
incomparable document.

Quebec is divided geographical-
ly into two very distinct parts.
The upper city, built on the
heights, where the bourgeoisie has
installed itself, and the lower city,
where the working people live. In
contrast’ to the upper city (where

Some have welcomed it as the first

in Canada. Others, more

the snobbish outlook of the petty-
bourgeois provincial dominates),
the lower city has its own stirring
and colorful life, life difficult and
tragic, of the working class. For
those ‘who want to study living
conditions in the towns of Quebec
The Town Below carries almost
everything — the daily struggle
against poverty and exploitation,
the role of the Roman Catholic
clergy, the petty intrigues ‘and
maneuvers of politicians.

It is a human document that
lays bare the evils of a system
which holds systematically in a
state of inferiority and ignorance,
in order to better exploit it, a
whole section of the population.

There should only be one reser-
vation to make. The hero of The
Town Below doesn’t seem to find
any escape from the problems
which confront him other than by
fighting ... in order that some
day he will take the part of the
bourgeoisie whose role he still re-
cognizes. He wants to snatch him-
self away from his class, to di-
vorce himself from it, because he
doesn’t recognize in it the re-
serves of force and the promises
of the future.

This could have been dangerous.
But Lemelin himself has recog-
nized the falseness of this position.

_ And in his new novel, The Plouffe

Family, to be published this fall,
one finds the same person becom-

ing the victim of a very signifi-

cant degeneration (after having
heen a rabid nationalist, he ends
by becoming a, police informer.)

. Great credit is due to the trans- ©

lator, Putman, who knew how to
preserve in English all the flavor
of the expression and of the par-
ticular style of Roger Lemelin,
The Town Below is a book which
will certainly mark an era in the
history of Canadian literature.—
PIERRE GELINAS.

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JULY 2, 1948—PAGE .10