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AMERICAN CHILDREN ‘AT PLAY’ —

Here's what war comics do

THIS PICTURE and the
one alongside are shocking.
The picture of the children
“at play” is what the Ladies
Home Journal used in describ-
ing the daily lives of children
in the United States. The
other is the cover of a U.S.
comic book, a sample of the
kind that floods Canada,

A Senate committee in Ot-
tawa is hearing the ‘protests
of Canadians against the U.S.
crime comic propaganda. Re-
cently in Toronto, the LPP na-
tional cultureal confeernce
adopted a special resolution
denouncing crime, war and
sex comics and calling for a
nation-wide campaign against
them, Delegates from the
provine of Quebec in particu-
lar reported that the cities in
French Canada were being in-

‘undated with the most lurid
forms of comic books and they
brought samples to prove the
point,

The picture above of the
children “shooting”? blindfold-
ed prisoners (with real but
unloaded guns) was made’
shortly after publication of
pictures showing North Kor-
eans being shot. Scores of
“comic” publications have
been featuring such scenes.

GUIDE TO GOOD READING >

Sachs’ book, seized by Malan gov't, appears simultaneously in Britain

E. S. SACHS, general secre-
tary of the South African Gar-
ment Workers’ Union, was ar-
rested twice last month in Jo-
hannesburg for trying to make
a speech.

His book, The Choice Before
South Africa, published simul-
taneously in South Africa and
Britain, has been seized by
the Capetown customs after an
earlier attempt to impound the
manuscript.

It is against this background
of. growing fascist repression
that one must consider the book
itself.

During the last 20 years the
Union of South Africa has been:
undergoing a tremendous indus-
trial revolution, Agriculture and
mining have been declining while
manufacturing industry has been
expanding. :

‘With the advance of manufac-

turing industry a new force of
workers has been created, ‘more
than two-thirds of them non-
Puropean.

Hitherto, in ‘South Africa

“ the mining industry has had a

virtual monopoly of urban Afri-
can labor. ‘“‘With a callous dis-
regard for the welfare of the
people and the future economic
and social dévelopment of South
Africa,’ says Sachs, ‘‘the mining
magnates introduced, from the
very. commencement of the in-
dustry, the system of cheap mi-
gratory labor.’ i
The policy of employing cheap
African labor, which the Malan
government pursues with even
greater zeal than did its pre-
decessors, weakens the country’s
economy more at the present
time than ever it did before.
The expanding manufacturing
industries, unlike mining and

agriculture, cannot support a
large proportion of unskilled la-
bor.

“There can never be normal
industrial, economic and social
development so long as abnormal
conditions are imposed upon the
native people to ensure a ready
supply of cheap labor,” says

. Sachs.

He therefore calls for the
abandonment, “‘even if in grad-
ual stages,” of the migratory na-~
tive labor policy. He demands
that the mines be compelled to
employ more modern techniques
with better-trained, better-paid,
more stable labor.

By doing away with the policy
of employing, cheap African la-
bor and by admitting Africans
to skilled grades, the growing
manufacturing industries of
South Africa would not only be
provided with a better supply of

CALL FROM LPP CONFERENCE:

Fight U.S. drive to stifle |
Canada's democratic culture

IN THE Soviet Union and the
People’s Democracies the age-
old battle for what Marx called
“bread and roses’’ has been won,
Stanley Ryerson, LPP national:
organizer, told the third nation-
al cultuyal conference of the
Labor-Progressive party, held in
Toronto May 24-25. Ryerson re-
turned recently from an extend-
ed tour of the USSR and Europe.

The 150 delegates from three
provinces—Ontario, Quebec and
British Columbia —— noting in
their resolution ‘“‘a new spirit
of Canadian democracy arising
in our land, qa new stirring of
Canadianism, a growing opposi-
tion to-the economic, political
and cultural domination of Can-
ada by the war-minded Yankee

’ jmperialists,’’ defined their own

contribution to the struggle in
Canada in these words:

“The LPP will do all in its
power to help in the’ building of
a broad movement of all patri-
otic Canadians in English-speak-
ing and French Canada, united
around the fight for Canadian
democratic cutlure. Such a cul-
ture will revive the democratic
heritage as a weapon in the
present struggle for peace and
independence.”’

The resolution, presented by
John Stewart, secretary of the
LFP national cultural commis-
sion and embodying the conclu-
sions of his main report to the
conference, declared the LPP
stands with ‘all who stand for
the interests -of the people
against the Yankee occupation,
against the seizure of our re-
sources, the domination of’ our
economy, the intereference in
our political life and the attempt
to overwhelm our democratic
heritage.’ The fight for a Can-
adian democratic culture, it
pointed out, “‘is part of the fight
for the people’s .coalition which
can regain our independence and
lead the way forward towards a
Canadian people’s democracy.’’

Welcoming the “healthy resis-
tance” to U.S. crime-comic cul-,
ture in this country, the ‘“‘tevul-
sion against a foreign power that
has the effrontery to interfere
directly in our affairs, that
would include Canadian artists,
writers and musicians in its own
hysterical witch-hunt,’’ the re-
solution sharply denounced the
recent dismissal of six members

‘of Toronto Symphony, Orchestra

and ‘blacklisting’? of the Jew-

badly needed skilled labor, they
would also have the advantage
of an ever-widening internal
market.

But in the fascist police state
of South Africa it requires cour-
age to express views even as re-
formist in character as those of
Solly, Sachs, And of his great
courage there can be no doubt.

* We kh ie

SOLLY SACH’S whole career
in the trade union movement
has been one long fight against
reaction. He has been assaulted,
libelled and persecuted.

Were Solly Sachs’ political
understanding to match his per-
sonal courage he would scarcely
be seeing recruitment to the
South African Labor party from
the mass of the Afrikaner work-
ers as a means of achieving the
democratic revolution which
South Africa. must carry out

PACIFIC TRIBUNE

— JUNE 6, 1952 — PAGE 8

ish Folk Choir among musicians

“because the Washington witch- —

hunt bars the six, or anyone who

plays for the choir, from pe!

forming in the United States.”
* * *

THE CONFERENCE was ad-
dressed by Tim Buck, LPP 14
tional leader, Leslie “Morris and
Stanley Ryerson.

Tim Buck placed before thé
delegates the need for examil-
ing and improving their work 4§
artists, for “‘nurturing every
tender shoot of cooperation
with all who stood for peace am
a Canadian democratic culture
for expressing the working peo
ple through their writing, at
and music,

Leslie Morris urged delegates.
‘to remember that, in workiné
with other artists to defend and
strengthen the people’s democra-
tic heritage, “they also have
opinions and self-respect 42
will make their own contribu
tions. They will be influenced
and convinced by the quality of
our work.”

Delegates listened intently

' Ryerson’s description of the cul-

tural achievements of the Soviet

Union and the People’s Dem
cracies:

“Our concept of culture needs
to be as broad as, in actual life
manifestations of culture are.
begins with the material wellbe
ing of the people which is th?
prerequisite for a thriving cul
ture.

“In the Soviet Union and thé
People’s Democracies the age-old
battle for what Marx called
‘break and roses’ has been Wo”

“In these countries the pote?” —

tial of the possible developmen!
of the individual has been reali
ed because the collective pro)
lem has been solved.

“On the basis of the condition®
for the wellbeing of the peopl
created in the Soviet Union, th®
changing of the world, goes the
changing of people, .And, a& 4?
instance of this changing of Pe”
ple, the creation of the ne¥
Man, there is a new attitude !
work—‘I work for the love 9
it? — because the full creativ?
energies of workers have foul
expression.”-HAL GRIFFIN.

within a generation if it is ad

to become “a nation of ?0
. ”

whites and starving blacks.

The South African Labor Pa!
ty also practises a policy of white
exclusiveness and upholds the
industrial color bar.

The chief hope for South Af”
ca lies in the fact that the Afth
can and other non-Hurope®
peoples have become aware °
many things they did. not know
before,

is their o¥?

Among these il

growing strength, which
presently enforce the practice °

democracy to the lasting adv4™
tage of all the races innabitin® -
the vast area lying betwee?
Table Bay and the LimpoP®”

DESMOND BUCKLE. \