BEHIND THE HEADLINES How daily press tried to smear Dean of Canterbury's peace tour TORONTO, ERE’S how the war-mongering daily press and radio Cin Canada set out to do a hatchet-job on the Dean of Canterbury. It’s a story that shows why peace supporters have unleashed a big word-of-mouth campaign to make the biggest’ peace demonstrations yet held out of the Maple Leaf Gardens rally May 7 and the other meetings across © Canada where the Dean of Canterbury and Dr. J. G. Endicott will speak. News that the Dean would fly here was released the first week in April. ‘The, first rule applied by Canadian @Press and the dailies and radio stations across Canada. was: not a word must hit the aimwaves or the ‘public print about the tour or the Maple Leaf Gardens Tally. Instead smear items began to appear from Australia. — “Coo} reception for Red Dean” was the Toronto Globe and Mail’s headline for a story which admitted that the Dean “was cheered today at the Australian peace conference.” j The story said Melbourne ‘Clergy were cool to the Dean, It suppressed the news that the Dean was house guest of the primate of all Australia (equivalent to an archbishop) and that he preached a guest sermon in the cathedral at Sydney. It was also silent on the fate that the Dean spoke to the biggest post war gathering Mel- bourne has seen, attended by over 12,000 people. Finally, April 23, the CBC Trans-Canada Network bristleg@ with news about the Dean’s visit to Toronto: a false news report that the visit had been cancelled. True enough that the US. had refused the Dean transit visas for San Francisco and Honolulu. But the Dean had already cabled to Toronto word that he would Make the arduous trip to Toronto via London, England, to keep his May 7 engagement. “The U.S. doesn’t own the world yet,” commented Peace Congress secretary ‘ Mary Jennison in making the announcement to the press, ba ios i \ an announcement that landed in editorial wastepaper baskets. _ Three days later came another story on the Dean: a report from New Zealarid repeating the story that he would not be coming to Canada. Canadian Press could report from 9,000 miles away that the Dean was not coming, but hadn't been able to . report from a few blocks away that he was coming. 1 _ This time Peace Congress chairman Dr. J. G. Endi- eott broke through. On his firm insistence, Canadian Press and one nto newspaper carried a correction; yés, the Dean would come. | ‘ But only. a fraction of the people who ‘heard the original reports heard thé correction. : : And the smear campaign continued. Did the Dean _ speak to a huge open-air rally of 7,000 in Sydney (after all halls were closed to him)? Reuters says, “‘Face- slapping and fisticuffs marked” the rally. (One heckler shouted “go back to Russia”, got his face slapped and his ears boxed — that was the “outstanding” thing about the rally to Reuters). ; It’s standard usage to ‘speak of the “Red” Dean. were. are other typical phrases used: “. . . Greeted with the _ Communist clenched-fist salute.’ @ “. .. Raised a storm of jeers and whistles,” @ “A Communist body known as the Australian Peace _ Council” (the Australian Peace Council embraces people of all’ political beliefs and religions engaged in combat- ting war). : @ “The Dean will speak... theater.” ‘ = Thi campaign to discredit the Dean and smother his peace message is galvanizing peace supporters to action. By phone, leafiet, poster, pbulletin and thousands of con- versations they're breaking through the dollar press cur- . tain. Their postcards say: “The Dean will be there. Won't in a second-class movie : on | LONDON LETTE 2 “ John Strachey’'s somersault’s 2 LONDON merly food minister and now war minister, in Prime Minister Attlee’s labor government, and the London Evening Standard with regard to ‘Strachey’s Communistic past is both amusing and instructive. — There is >a certain poetic justice in Strachey | being attacked for his erstwhile Communistic views, which he is now trying so hard to expiate by attack- ing the Communists himself. — lesson in opportunist attitudes. : Strachey found himself opposed to Communism ‘the London Daily Worker were being generally at- ‘tacked before Russia's entry into the uae a ca ; ! tatement of justification to the Lon a ean he ake ather plaintively that in ( the Lott Nowa for March, 194, he bad. Said the supporters of the Communist party were utterly and finally hopeless and useless people. ’ ~ He ‘does not mention that he once again changed his mind in August, 1941, when Russia’s struggle against Nazi Germany was gaining the reluctant admiration of the capitalist world and Communism the main stres wou immense benefit both to it and to them!” x ‘Books about Russia and socialism became Sf profitable. 4 " : ae book, Why You Sh st. -Hig chapter on Russia was headed “I the future and it wor giant strength of Russia is built. « +8 foundations of a socialist economic system. Ses "He would not last one yainute in ae Cabinet if he went around saying such spd ae only a few years later. So he tells the HE recent dispute between John Strachey, for- @ And it is an object — ‘almost overnight, when the Communist party and hi le. igs _ was becoming aimost fas ona News, advocating — nists into the — eatedly on public platforms By MICHAEL RAPOPORT repudiated the Communists and attacked the Russian government.” i To make himself finally acceptable to the capi- ‘talists, he goes on to quote an article in the Tribune, February 23, 1950, “in which I wrote of Russia in the following terms: } 4 , “All the nightmare aspects of the Soviet regime weally stem fromthe gigantic error of having maintained, by brute force, far toe highly devel- oped an economy among & population, the rela-— tive maturity of which was totally inadequate to sustain it, ; ; “ft igs our contemporary tragedy of history that this attempt ever came to be made... _ Now this supremely disastrous achievement of holding a totally’ unsuitable economic and social ~ system in place by sheer force would have been unthinkable if Russia had possessed the safe- — _ guard of democracy — in the simplest sense of _ . the existence of responsible and ‘representative government. . a. i : But why does Strachey now peddle just this view? He put the situation very clearly when, in writing — of the British Labor renegades, M , Snow- don, Henderson, and Thomas, he said: “It was inevtable that such leaders should either consciously or wl i more the mere class of their real masters, the Thank you, John Strachey. — position quite clear, : - and. conditions judge. : ning Standard: “I have ? LABOR FOCUS By G. SINFIELD | Too much truth -in this survey A by the British and American govern- ments to hide the truth about wages and conditions in colonial countri¢és must be challenged immediately Some weeks ago they ganged up to prevent a discussion on those vital questions at the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. - “une World Federation of Trade Unions, Which had submitted an extensive survey of the problems, was rudely told that it was concerned only with “propagan- da.” And the WFTU, contrary to custom, was denied presentation when the Council discussed trade union rights. : : The truth. is, this hostile attitude in the UN and the attempt made last year to’split the WFTU are part of the same campai che campaign to split the world inte _ two camps; and above all to prevent mutual understand- ing between the imperialist world and the anti-imperial- ist, which includes the colonial peoples themselves. When they applied for recognition by UN the spokesman for the splitters’ international setup in op- position to the WEFTU last year claimed ‘that the WFTU no longer represented world labor. The fact is the wr TU represents world labor too well to suit some gentle- The survey of colonial working conditions pro- f men. duced by the World Federation is dynamite. Look for an explanation of American, British and ~ French hostility. e . Here are some of the facts brought to light by that report. _ : eae “The cruellest discrimination is found first and fore- most in the U.S. and in countries with colonia] possess- ions,” the survey emphasises. ’ “We learn that discrimination against Negroes in the U.S. has grown in recent years. They are not in railway administration, as engine drivers, telegraph- ists, printers or librarians.” Jim Crow sees to it that - Negroes are kept in their “proper place.” Europeans in the Belgian Congo, says the WFTU, ‘earn an average of 10,000 francs monthly, but native workers average only 2,000 francs. In Kenya, top-rated Europeans earn three-and-a-half times as much as ~ African natives on similar work. at Some months ago, the daily press in Canada, the U.S, Britain and other countries was publishing lurid — acounts of alleged forced labor camps “behind the iron — ‘curtain’. But the same press has seen fit to suppress the evidence supplied by the WFTU on foreed labor in the British Empire. . Forced labor, according to the survey shunned by ‘U.N. hangs as a threat over all Tanganyikans who are — too poor to pay taxes in cash. Recruiting of strong young men in Central Afica for the mines down south is carried on by tribal chiefs under the supervision a colonial officers. And the survey draws attention to the ‘“Gndeseribable conditions” in the mines. In one place, Moroka camp, nine miles from Johan- nesburg, 100,000 Africans live in shacks made of sacking; boards and metal sheets. There are no real sanitary — : facilities. “The concentration of human beings in these frightful conditions leads to disastrous materia], and / moral degradation,” says the WFTID. 5 Graphic examples of oppressive, legislation in South — Africa are also quoted. A Negro with no definite oc- ‘ cupation or “having insufficient m ‘ ce may be directed to work for a sti ted time at wages — determined by a : ae Prisons, states the WFTU, are packed with African workers who form the main source of unpaid manpower _ on the big estates. “Discrimination in its extreme form leads to the reiustitution of slaver” In Vietnam, workers recruited for the plantations and nickel mines are housed in huts and given numbers “just as in German concentration camps.” ; = ‘The color bar, the survey points out, is not an in-— evitable thing, and it directs attention to the Soviet. Union as a Society “all workers take a*pride in.” re Oppression can be eradicated and mutual trust and cooperation achieved only wh€re exploitation of man is abolished. ae i : é Sadie BET kas be At the same time, emphasises the World Federation — of Trade Unions, the worst features of the present — situation' could be removed by agreed measures. En couragement for free development of trade unionism — is suggested as a start,” oh 5S ee ee : ti only strong trade union organization stands a chance of successful struggle. against the “despotic .