Much still to do

Cun

On the eve of our first 100-years we can of course
boast of tremendous progress in all fields of human endea-
vour, technology, science, education, etc. But alongside
this phenomenal progress and growth, some grave and fun-
damental problems remain unsolved.

birthdays are invariably joyous events. Can-
birthday on July 1st will be no less so.

The future and unity of Canada as a two - nation
French and English-speaking people within a new Confed -
eration guaranteeing full equality and rights to both; or a
“fragmented” and divided people — an easy prey to US.
dollar “expansionists’ and resources grabbers. A big prob-
lem for birthday reminiscences—and looking ahead.

Closely linked to that major worry is the status of
Canadian labor on this 99th birthday. In this new techno-
logical age the modern financial and industrial powers,
and the Tory and Liberal governments, which their
money and power has elected to serve them since 1867,

still regard labor as a “commodity”; something to be

- bought and sold, hired or fired at will, and in accordance
with profit requirements and ownership “rights” much as
they did in the early days of Confederation.

Through long years of effort and struggle, legislation
has been won establishing recognition and “rights” of labor
in the scheme of things. Yet at the end of 99-years, at the
stroke of a “judicial” pen by an obliging judge in the serv-
ice of Big Business, labor’s “rights” are cancelled out by
ex-parte injunction, backed by all the “force and violence”
of the state to enforce its anti-democratic provisions.
This, at the end of 99-years of progress!

The U.S. monopoly “take-over” of the bulk of Can-
ada’s economy—largely with our own money from the fab-
ulous profits extracted, plus the political “direction” of
our internal and external affairs by Washington and its
high-priced agents in the ranks of organized labor, com-
the accumulated problems of 99-years of a “made-
in-the-U.K.”, and “remodelled” in the U.S.A. “Confedera -

tion”.
On this 99th birthday we have much to celebrate,
much to be deeply proud of—and much to be gravely con-
cerned about—if we are to make peace and sovereign inde-
pendence the foundation stone of a new Confederation of

free peoples.

|

THE Comme swe th 1

Fine animal we got here .. . keep filling the trough.”

A bridge to peace

T he visit to Canada this week of Soviet Deputy-Prem-
ier Dmitry Polyansky and a group of Soviet parlia -
mentarians, is an event of no small import. Polyansky is
not only the first highest-ranking Soviet leader to visit
Canada, but comes just a few days after the signing of a
new Canada-Soviet trade pact; an agreement for the sale
of $800-million worth of Canadian wheat and flour over
the next three years. This wheat sale agreement, signed
by Canadian Trade Minister Robert Winters, is reputed
to a the largest single deal ever made in international
trade.

This is the sort of international relationships which
provide a ready bridge to peace, international cooperation,
and an end to the coldwar mania—with which much of of-
ficial Ottawa (in both Liberal and Tory ranks) are still af-
flicted.

In fact it was Vice-Premier Polyansky’s first message
to the Canadian people upon his arrival. “Let us work to-
gether to safeguard peace . . . to strengthen the important
task of safeguarding and consolidating peace and prevent-
ing another war.”

While Canadian enterprises for “U.S. needs in Vietnam”

-won’t see much in this new Canada- USSR deal coming

their way directly, Canada’s working people on farm and
in the factory will hail it with gratitude .. . not only as an
economic booster, but as a strengthened bridge to peace.
An $800-million trade bridge. .

workers, Bob has often strong
words to say about the PT; ‘*why
didn’t you say this — or that,

do that kind of a job for a “dead
duck!”’ :

he financial drive to keep this

-@ paper rolling, wound up two

weeks ago some $700 or more
short of the $18,000 target.

Overall the campaign was a
splendid effort, but in the sum
total of that effort glaring dis-
crepencies showed up in the re-
sults turned in, as between indiv-
-jduals and press clubs,

These varying discrepencies
provide something of a barom-
eter in the problem of building a
mass circulation for a Com-
munist press in B,C, For one
+ thing, as the results do establish,
the Pacific Tribune now in its
81st year of publication in B.C.,
is by no means the “dead duck,”
as some few attempted to des-

_eribe it.

On the contrary, with few ex-
ceptions, the results show thatin
the ever-present necessity of
_ “change,” and the plans already

Tom
Mc EWEN

underway to make our press more
attractive in format, content and
impact in the rising struggles of
today, a large and growing base
for the mass circulation of a
Communist press in B.C, al-
ready exists. :

For instance, the returns from
two important Vancouver Island

press clubs, which managed only _

one-half or less of the quetas
they set themselves, would indi-
cate an early demise for the PT,
plus an equally uncertain future
for its continuation in any newor
improved form,

On the other hand take the Van-
couver East press club. There
with some 30 members anda hefty
quota of $1,430 to extract from
our “affluent” society, it suc-
ceeded in almost doubling that
amount with $2,116.36, An
achievement without parallel by
any working class press club in
Canada, anywhere, or atany time
since the advent of a Communist

press 44 years ago, Peopledon’t

Other press clubs in the Van-
couver area also reached or ex-
ceeded their quotas. North Van-
couver went well over the $1,000
mark, while down in Surrey both
clubs not only went “over the top”
but South Surrey by doubling its

quota from $350 to $700,

These returns are not only
indicative of a confidence in what

the PT has done, is doing, and’

seeking out ways and means of

‘doing it better, buta confidence —

and a guarantee, that whatever
new and improved forms our
press of Tomorrow may assume,
its life-blood and its continuity
come what may, will be assured.

And what of those who over
the years in all such campaigns
we have come to designate as
“Honor,” “Premium”
plain “Press Builders,” who
undertake to raise $100, $50,
$25 (or more) in these annual
marathons to keep a fighting
paper articulate,

Bob Towle, an old veteran

_ salesman, booster, agitator, and g
‘ eritic of the PT and the Com-

munist press generally, rolled

up his own individual effort to
$500 and got the bulk of it from
non-party and non-Communist

or just

etc.” or those ‘‘damn headlines,”
etc. But with $500 worth of
“leg work” and solicitous coax-
ing, Bob has earned the right to
be critical of the paper he WORKS
for,

And Rita Tanche from down
Surrey way, still young, but an
“old” veteran in providing blood
transfusions for the PT, rang up
her own individual tally to $475.25
with husband John tossing in
another $100 just to keep the
family tradition — and the *fam-
ily journal” intact. And Nigel
Morgan, provincial leader of the
Communist Party, ill and unable
to get around, still managed to
corral $260 for the PT, with

Pactfie

Editor — TOM McEWEN
Associate Editor —
Circulation Manager — JERRY SHACK

: Published weekly at
Ford Bldg., Mezzanine-‘No. 3, 193 E. Hastings St.
Vancouver 4, B.C.

Phone 685-5288
Subscription Rates:

Canada, $5.00 one yeat; $2.75 for six months. North and South America
and Commonwealth countries, $6.00 one year. All other countries, $7.00
one year. Authorized as second class mail by the Post Office Department,
Ottawa, and for payment of postage in cash.

To be a good politician requires more
than a gift of the gab. It requires col-
ossal nerve, unlimited gumption and
an ability to use a lot of words fo

‘avoid making any definite statements

or promises. Moreover, a good poli-
tician must be a contortionist of no
mean ability. He must be able to
straddle the fence, carry water on both
shoulders, and keep his ear to the
ground at the same time. Plus all this,
he must be able to foo! some of the
people part of the time, most of the
people most of the time—and himself
all of the time.

If he can do that—he can go to Con-
gress, and in due course of time he
may sit in the White House.

—Minnesota Union Advocate.

1 was delighted to hear Indira Gand-
hi saying in New York that she stood
for a Left-orientated government of
the Centre in this country of ours.

The $64-dollar question, however,
is whether a Left-orientated govern-
ment can be left to the stewardship of
Right-orientated people?

—‘“‘Insider’’ in NEW AGE,
india, April 10, 1966.

We are told that Mr. Brown (British
Labor Minister in a Labor Government,
Ed.) has now made a ‘‘concession”,
and no longer proposes to send work-
ers to prison for going on strike or
otherwise acting in breach of his pro-
posed law.

They are to be fined, and the em-
ployers ordered to deduct the fines
from wages. The factory is thus to be-
came a sort of open prison, housing
workers in revolt against the Govern-
ment’s shackles on their freedom to
negotiate the best possible wage they
can command.

—British MORNING STAR,
June 23, 1966.

his wife Mona plunking in an-
other $105 on her own effort!

These are merely examples
of what can be done when “the
will is equal to the desire,’
the ‘*conviction equal to the end
sought.” These and the scores
of other “Press Builders” did a
splendid job, each in their own
way to lift the total to its ‘‘near
hit,” and confirmed for the 31st
year of a Communist press in
B.C. — the guarantee of a grand
future and an ever-widening cir-
culation for a bigger and better
Communist press in B.C,

All it takes is a bit of con-
viction, a modicum of talking,
and.a lot of work — W-O-R-K,
the kind of work that moves the
‘Wheel of History” — forward.

onibune

MAURICE RUSH

July 2, 1966—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 4