SAY ‘10,000 MAY GO’

Doukhobors explain why they
want to return to their homeland

HOUSANDS of Dukhobors
will leave Canada to live
in the Soviet Union if given
permission by the USSR to re-
turn to their homeland, a re-
cently-formed “Committee For
the: Return To 'The Mother.
land” asserts. The committee
sent a delegation to Ottawa to
interview Soviet , embassy of-
ficials last month and reports
that its plan for a mass immi-

gration waS sympathetically
listened to.
Initiative in forming the

committee came from the Sons
of Freedom sect, but support
for the move is growing
among all Doukhobors, and
committee members privately
estimate that “up to 10,000”
might apply to move to the
Soviet Union.

In an appeal issued by the
committee this month, the
grievances of Doukhobors
against Canadian authorities
are listed, including the seizure
and holding of Freedomite
children at New Denver ion the
grounds that their parents re-
fused to allow them to attend
school.

“We are accused of rejecting
schools and literacy,” says the
committee’s document. “But
the essential fact is, that our
children were taken away not
because of the literacy issue.
Everyone knows that we asked
for, and proposed that we be
allowed to teach our children
in the Russian and French
languages — but in this, too,
we were refused. So it is evi-
dent, that it was not because
of literacy that our children
were taken away.

“The real reason: enforced
assimilation . . . so the child-
ren would not know how to
speak Russian, which is now
being forbidden them at New

DRAMA

Workshop

ORKSHOP ’57 made a suc-
cessful debut into Van-
couver’s circle of amateur
theatrical groups with a
dramatized playreading of
Leon Feuchtwanger’s The
Devil in Boston at Clinton Hall
last Friday evening.

The cast included several
teenagers, who gave credible
performances in roles which
would have taxed the abilities
of more experienced actors.

The Devil in Boston covers
the same events dealt. with in
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible,
the Salem witch hunts in the
latter part of the 17th century.
Miller‘s play is “better theatre”
but Feuchtwanger probes
deeper into causes and is his-
. torically more accurate.
Charles Fleming as Cotton

Denver.”
am 503 503

The appeal recalls that the
Doukhobors left Tsarist Russia
because they were denied re-
ligious freedom there. Canada
promised them that freedom,
but the promise has been
broken time and again.

“With great pains we clear-
ed the wild prairies and bush-
lands (of Saskatchewan) which
at the time (half a century
ago) nobody wanted.

“And when much had been
achieved — villages built and
the land cleared — then, by
government instruction, the of-
ficials proposed that we accept
their law, including all that
was refuted by us in Russia on
the basis of our faith and the

. teachings of Christ.

“We refused, and for that
reason all the fruits of our toil
were taken away from us and
we were left only with our
bare hands.

“And so in order not to lose
the one treasure — our faith
— for which we had already
suffered hundreds of years, we
were forced to forsake Saskat-
¢chewan and crawl across the
expanse of Canadian territories
and wilderness searching, like
ants, for a place where we
would not be molested and the
land would not be forced upon
us under conditions of private
ownership, that we become pri-
vate landholders — farmers.

“Such a place we did find
in British Columbia, among the
lofty cliffs and mountains,
covered with tall timbers and
other vegetation. We bought
the land on credit, and with
indescribable effort began to
clear and prepare the land.

“And then, when everything
was brought into fruition —

large, orderly villages erected,
orchards planted, gardens and
factories — the government
again began to encroach upon
us, this time with their state
schools, in order that we be-
come assimilated.”

xt tt xt <=

The document goes on to des-
cribe how the land was taken
away; the founding of the Sons
of Freedom sect; the seizure of
the children and their incar-
ceration in New Denver; and
the current preparations to
leave Canada and go to the
Soviet Union.

“We will be told that where
we want to go, life is hard,”
the appeal continues. ‘Let them
say that to those who find life
in Canada easy.

“Another scare will be
thrown at us: ‘You will be sent
to Siberia, to the unbroken

lands!’ Our reply will be, Si-
beria is also Russian land, and
the unbroken lands, perhaps,
will be kinder than B.C. op-
pression.

“We will be toid that in Rus-
sia we will not get our relig-
ious freedom. But the fact is
that we haven’t got it here in
Canada...

“We are being assured that
the people who live in Russia
are suffering. And if that is
true, we in turn assume that
they are fighting for something
better. We, too, must take a
part in that, make our Douk-
hobor contribution.

“Friends, we do not need
shining cars, refrigerators and
nylon clothes. We. still want
and seek religious freedom and
rights of man. We want that
our children be with us, taught

under our own _ jurisdiction,
and not be state chattels of the
capitalists.

“OQ Motherland, take us in!”

.

'57 scores in debut
with reading of Devil in Boston

Mather Was adequate in an
extremely difficult role, while
Maxine Gadd as Hannah Par-
rish, a youngster used by Ma-
ther to facilitate his witch-
hunting, turned in a sparkling
performance.

Others in the cast were
Quinn Halford as Dr. Thomas
Colman; Yvonne Desnoyer as
Abigail Mather; Morry Hestrin
as Richard Mather; Ernie
Perry-as Rev. Samuel Parrish;
Jean Stewart as Bridget
Oliver; Bernie Zuker as Judge
Sewell and Don Savien as
George Burroughs.

Set design for Cotton Ma-
ther‘s study, by Fred Douglas,
was excellent. Costumes, by
Maxine Rigby and June Phil-
lips, were simple and appro-
priate.

While a dramatized reading

has some obvious drawbacks,
it also has certain advantages
in the case of beginners, giv-
ig them assurance that would
be destroyed by _ constant
prompting and amateur ad lib-
bing. Pruning of some of the
long’ speeches would have
tightened up the pace, which
lagged in spots.

Workshop ’57, in the short
period of its existence, has
grown in numbers and is at-
tracting many high school stu-
dents and young people inter-
ested in the stage. Future pro-
ductions of the group, which
is sponsored by the Socialist
Youth League, will be looked
forward to with interest.

BERT WHYTE

BOOKS

Pioneer recipes in
centennial cookbook —

fot! you take a clean dish,
[Lev es 0 eg

As the story goes, the Tore
River gold prospector read just
that far in the
threw the whole cookbook
away — they were making
things too tough right from the
start.

It posed a much worse prob-
lem for him, in his rough and
ready diggings, than that other
old cookbook saw, “First catch
the rabbit ...” The proviso still
stands, however, in a cook-
book to be .issued next year
that spans a century of cook-
ing in the province.

Members of the 243 Women’s
Institutes in B.C. have taken
as their centennial project for
the year the compilation of
recipes mirroring the tastes of
British Columbians in the var-
ious regions from 100 years
ago to now. :

All the hundreds of recipes
are in now, to be whittled
down to about 360, for the
“Adventures in Cooking” book.

It is to be ready next May
when the Women’s Institutes
‘hold their provincial’ conven-
tion at the University of Bri-
tish Columbia.

Mrs. Stella Gummow of Vic-
toria, superintendent of the
Women’s Institutes in B.C., re-
ported this on her recent re-
turn from a three-week tour of

- districts in the Interior. Mrs.

Gummow was accompanied by
Mrs. R. Palmer of Okanagan
Mission, provincial director,
and Mrs. R. Doe, of Port Co-
quitlam, provincial secretary.

On their tour, they met Mrs.
Clyde White of Willow Point,
near Nelson, who is convenor
of the: cookbook project, and
heard of the progress made.

ibe xt xt

The book, will be divided
into 18 sections. There will be
a section for each of 16 dis-
tricts, each district having a
short history and a picture
preceding 20 recipes.

From the cattle - ranching
Cariboo, for example, will
come the meat recipes. The
women of the Central Interior
will handle wild fowl, fish and
game, in their own special way
of making the best game taste
better.

North Vancouver Island got
the candies -and icings and

south Vancouver Island the tit-
such’ as_ canapes,

bits, hors

recipe and:

2

d’oeuvres, sandwiches and ap-
petizers.

And so it goes — the Arrow
Lakes. district has been respon-

sible for soups and stews; the
Bulkley-Tweedsmuir area for
breads, waffles and pancakes;
the Douglas district for poultry
and dressings; Fraser Valley
North for vegetables and sea
foods; Hopeline for salads and
salad dressings; Kootenay East
for pies and tarts and Koote-
nay West for desserts and
sauces; Kettle River for slices
and cookies; Okanagan North
and Salmon Arm for cakes;
Okanagan South and Similka-
meen for jams, jellies and pre-
served fruits; North Thompson
for pickles and relishes, and
Peace River for supper dishes.

Then there will be one sec-
tion devotéd solely to old-time
and pioneer recipes, like cook-
ing a partridge in ashes or
making beaver stew, to.novelty
recipes from the past.

The remaining section will
be on quantity cooking.

“We felt this might be espe-
cially important,” Mrs. Gum-
mow said. “It could provide
much very handy advice, and
suggestions for preparing cen-
tennial banquets and other
cooking for centennial celebra-
tions. Also, women’s groups are
constantly putting on large
dinners.”

The cookbook will include a
short history of Women’s In-
stitute activities over the last
100 years. It will be given in
six different categories—agri-
culture, citizenship, cultural
activities, home economics,
social welfare and the more

recent United Nations and
international exchange _ pro-
grams.

Missing features

AL .GRIFFFIN’S col-

umn, which has been
a regular feature on this
page for the past three.
years, will appear only”
occasionally during the
summer months while
the Pacific Tribune, for
reasons -of economy, is
reduced to eight pages.
Other features and re-
views, including R. Car-
lo’s column, Speaking
Briefly, are being drop-
ped for this period. --

<>