Anscomb and austerity

§ Boe people have still to hear from Premier
Byron Johnson what plans he has for their
future. But his Conservative counterpart in the
Coalition, Finance Minister Herbert Anscomb,
does not show the same reticence, perhaps because
he scorns to conceal his reactionary ideas behind
a liberal facade.

Tt is not surprising that a man of Anscomb’s
limited horizons should see the future red with
the menace of communism. After all, he has been
seeing red for years—a communist to his warped
vision being any one who does not subscribe un-
reservedly to what he exemplifies as “the Tory
virtues and attitudes.”

An examination of Anscomb’s remarks, how- °

ever, will convince most working people that the
threat to their welfare lies not in the efforts of
communists to defend their interests but in the
increased Conservative influence within the Coali-
tion to subordinate popular needs to the insatiable
‘demands of big business.

“Most important of all, we as a people must
re-live the spirit and desire to work and produce,”
Says Anscomb, as though the majority of the
people were now wallowing in luxurious idleness.
“Production and still more production is the only

Yet, if Anscomb were concerned with veracity,
his own department could furnish him with figures
to prove that production has greatly increased—
the logging industry is an example—and that high
costs are closely linked to uncurbed profiteering.
But, of course, Anscomb recognizes no such thing
as profiteering. That is a Tory virtue, the reward
of “free enterprise.”

Austerity too, like peace as it is conceived at
Ottawa and Washington, is wonderful.

“Time enough to complain when we have not -
seen many necessities for five or six years, when”

our children are going barefoot, or our clothes
are patched, our houses cold and our lighting
rationed,” Anscomb says.

There was a time, only a scant few years ago,
when these words accurately described the plight
of thousands of people in this province, although
Anscomb could only know this by hearsay. And,
if prices continue to soar, if austerity is to be the
order of the day, such times will return. Already
many people are going without necessities and
their number is increasing.

We think the people of this province prefer
to fight now to prevent such times from returning.
And to win that fight men of Anscomb’s stamp,
Conservative and Liberal alike, must be ousted
from government. The proof of the need for a
change in government at Victoria lies in Ans-

The world in 1948

‘Two statements will mark the year 1947 in

the history books of the future: the Truman
Doctrine and the Marshall Plan.

Truman’s doctrine was an explicit declaration
of political, diplomatic, economic and ultimately
military war upon the Soviet Union and the coun-
tries to the west of her which had carried through
the struggle against Hitler to the point of estab-
lishing popular democratic regimes, under. the
leadership of the Communists, but as democratic
coalitions.

The Marshall Plan is the modern, post-World
War Two edition of the Dawes Plan of the 20’s
—to reconstruct Germany as a finance capitalist
bastion in Europe (as it was reconstituted after
the defeat of the German revolution in 1919) for
future attacks upon the Soviet Union—plus, now,
the new democracies of Eastern and. Central
Europe.

Counter to U.S. imperialism, and growing in
strength, are the Soviet Union and the new de-
mocracies of Europe, which have proved that
European countries. can re-establish themselves
without U.S. domination, the colonial revolution
led by the Chinese liberation forces; the growing

» answer to high cost.”

comb’s own words.

As we see it

E expected a hair-rais-
ing blurb early in 1948,
but hardly thought it would

break out so soon. Former
premier of Poland, Stanislaw
Mikolajezyk (pronounced ‘mick-
o-lia-chik’) has begun his syn-
dicated thriller on life béhind the
so-called “iron curtain.” Copy-
righted by the King Feature
Syndicate, this serialized yarn
is designed to climax all previous
anti-communist slanders and to
raise this Polish traitor to the
eminence of a Goebbels in his
adopted land. ‘

Mikolajezyk, it will be remem-
bered, “escaped” from his native
Poland some three months ago.
His “escape” was engineered by
the agents of British and Ameri-
can imperialism, as part of their
long-range program of hostility
and provocation against the
Soviet Union and the new de-
mocracies of Europe, which in-
cludes the new Poland.

Under certain ” circumstances
such “escapes” g@vould be brand-
ed as “interfering in the internal
affairs of another country,” but
in the new ethics of dollar dip-
lomacy it is termed “preserving
democracy.”

Mikolajezyk’s account is spread
over the pages of the press. The
Vancouver Sun January 5 edition
carries the first installment un-
der the catchy caption, “Russia
Seeks to Dominate the World.”
Following issues with such head-
lines as “Poland, Test Case of
Red Ambitions,” illustrate the
noble efforts of the kept press to
achieve better Canadian-Soviet
friendship and understanding.

For downright plain and fancy
lying the “story” of this Polish

quisling tops the Gouzenko-
Kravehenko thrillers. Their
business was primarily to slander
and ‘defame the USSR. That is
Mikolajezky’s business also, , but
; to make a real
job: of it he
must also de-
fame the Polish
people, the anti-
‘fascist workers
and peasants
who «never sur-
rendered to Hit-
lerite slavery,
but whose
struggle against
Tom McEwen fascist invasion
and terror was rendered ten-
fold more difficult by the reac-
tionary conspiracies of the Polish
emigre government in London
(during the war years) at whose

head stood the ersatz “democrat,”

Mikolajezyk. :

AT is the nytt of Miko-

lajezyk’s story? There is
no “freedom’ in the “communist-
dominated” Poland of today. The
Polish people are ground down
by ruthless Moscow domination.
Stalin plans to “dominate” the
world, and Poland is but a step-
ping stone to this “ambition.”
All the sacred pacts of Teheran,

Yalta and Potsdam have been ~

annulled by Stalin.
ad nauseum.
Canadians are becoming ac-
customed to the odor of this
provocative stew. The recipe
adds nothing to the ingredients
already well mixed by the Gouz-
enkos, Sullivans and MHladuns.
Like Gouzenko, this Polish
quisling has a commodity to
sell which is highly essential
to the anti-Soviet anti-progres-
sive policies implicit in the
Truman-Marshall plan of world
domination. What matters it
that the commodity sold by Mi-
kolajezyk is patent falsehood?

And so on,

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Published Weekly at 650 Howe Street
By THE TRIBUNE PUBLISHING COMPANY LTD.
Telephones: Editorial, MA. 5857; Business, MA. 5288

Tom McEwen

Pree ee een ee

Editor

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Printed by Union Printers Ltd., 650 Howe Street, Vancouver, B.C.
zed as second-class mail by the post-office department, Ottawa

FRIDAY, JANUARY 9, 1948

By Tom McEwen

Didn’t it serve the purpose of
reaction between World Wars
One and Two, and isn’t it good
material upon which to build
for World War Three?
Regardless and in spite of the
entre of this latest literary Pol-
ish “gentleman” to prime the
anti-Soviet propaganda pumps,
there are a number of eminent
journals whose anti-communist
bias does not blind them to what
is actually happening in the New
Poland. Writing on the recon-
struction of Polish agriculture
and the building of new industry
—plus the very important item
of the levying of a national tax
for reconstruction purposes—the
London Economist recently de-
clared:

“The patriotic attitude of the
Polish population towards the
government (‘communist -con-
trolled’) can be taken for grant-
ed even though the national
tax for the reconstruction of
these territories was imposed
almost simultaneously with the
announcement of the election
date. This was the reverse of
con'ventional political procedure,
which always dictates that new
taxes must wait until an elec-
tion has been safely won.”
Similarly the London Times,
which can never be accused of
communist sympathies, has this
to say of the regeneration of the
agricultural and industrial devel-
opment of the New Poland, and
the rehabilitation of millions of
displaced persons into - gainful
occupation:

“What has been accomplish-
ed in actual settlement seems
little short of a miracle . .. In
its initial stage the resettlement
--.involving the movement of
Over 3,000,000 people with a mini-

_. mum of favorable facilities, the

makeshift repair and organiza-
tion of devastated cities, viil-—
ages, factories and farms, is ar
outstanding feat .of ingenuity
and improvisation.”

Certainly such achievements
could never be attained if the
New Poland remotely resembled
the word picture .being conjured
up in the fevered brain of quis-

ling .Mikolajezyk (at so
much per wdrd).
But the Marshall planners,

whether in Washington); London
or Ottawa, need the Mikolajezyks
and need them badly, just as
Hitler needed his Goebbels and
just as we need our Gouzenkos.
They constitute the “moral”
props in a losing battle . . . the
battld for tomorrow.

stake.

A Reapulr a4

“Explain yourself, my man, How did it get here?”

Writers protest gag

yeN PROTEST against the “immoderate, uncontrolled and

and radically harmful form of censorship now being
exercised on the entire profession of writing by the Con-
gressional Committee on Un-American Activities” has been
issued by the Authors’ League of America.

The leadership of the Authors’ League, representing out-
standing writers in the Authors Guild, Dramatists Guild,
Radio Writers Guild and Screen Writers Guild, does not
deny the rights of Congress to investigate for legislative
purposes, but opposes the Committee’s practices in “deny-
ing to an author the accepted democratic safeguards of
witnesses in his own defense or the elementary right of
cross-examination.” Such procedure encourages “unsup-
ported charges which blacken an author’s reputation.” _This
“censorship by defamation,” the League says, “can affect
all who deal in any way whatever with writing for public
dissemination.”

One important aspect of the League’s protest is that it
points out that in the present case, where 10 writers and
directors have been blacklisted from film industry employ-
ment as a result of committee testimony, “the man hinaself,”
not any specific piece of writing, is condemned. “The whole
corpus of a man’s work, past and present, is thus declared
suspect. It is obvious that any who buy and use the work
of that author are thereby clearly warned that they may be
adjudged collaborators with a citizen so arbitrarily declared
to be subversive, and may thus themselves be subject to.
the same calumny and suspicion, . . .”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 4

awareness among world labor of the issues at

PT ee ae

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