Duplessis flaunts Quebec laws
| in Jehovah Witness persecution

_ MONTREAL—Total disregard of ordinary court procedure and elementary Canadian
justice is seen in the flagrant abuse of political power by the Duplessis government here
in its continued: persecution and arbitrary jail sentences of members of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Last week Recorder Jean

_ Mercier declared he consider-
ed life imprisonment too good
for Witnesses appearing in his
court. He refused to permit J.
M. How of Toronto to enter a
defense and gave him a six-month
sentence when he appeared for
trial.

The prosecutors in court even
disregard the very wording of
the by-laws under which the wit-
nesses are prosecuted. This week,
A. L. Stein, counsel for Carolina
Skrowbaska, charged with dis-
tributing pamphlets without a
license which required a $100, an-
nounced that the very by-laws
“under which you are now prose-
cuting this woman definitely gives
the privilege of distributing pam-
_phiets to religious organizations.”

To the curt reply by the prose-
cutor’ who argued as in former
cases that the Witnesses have not
the support of the by-law “because
they ‘are not of this province,”
Stein quoted its provisions: “This
does not apply (the $100 fine) to
bakers, milkmen, nor to new ven-
dors, nor shall it apply to per-
sons employed by a temperance
society /or a religious society of
this province, to peddle and sell
temperance tracts or other moral
and religious publications under
the direction of such a society.”

This week Senator Telesphore
Damien Bouchard, famous Liberal
in Quebec, added his voice to the
mounting storm of protests against
the arbitrary sentences. given
to the Witnesses. He said:
“For the sake of Canadian

unity and as a Catholic I de-

fend the rights of the Jehovah

Witnesses, though I disapprove

of their doctrines.”

Interviewed by a newspaper-
man he said: “If we have no
dictatorship de jure we have a
de facto one. Premier Duplessis has
not yet gone so. far as to ban
meetings of the opposition party
but that will come and probably
under the excuse that these will
be Communist assemblies.”

Meanwhile, meetings held by
the Civil Liberties Association are
attracting Liberals, CCF’ers, La-

Strike strategy

SHANGHAI—A ‘new wrinkle in
Strike techniques was introduced
_ by clerks of the Sun Sun Co., one
of Shanghai’s large department
stores. Instead of walking the

picket line, the clerks remained
behing their counters, but in-
structed customers to shop at

other stores.

e

WEDY protests
Greek gov't ban

’PARIS.—The World’ Fed-
eration of Democratic Youth
is sending a delegation, in-
cluding legal experts, to Greece
to prevent the government from
dissolving EEPON, the country’s
largest youth organization with
300,000 members. The world youth
organization has also lodged pro-
tests with the United Nations,
charging the Greek government
with violating the UN charter.

EPON is scheduled for trial un-

not in conformity with it proclaim-
ed aims. Actually, the reason for
the crack-down is the opposition
of the Greek youth to the present
dictatorial regime.

‘PREMIER M. DUPLESSIS
“ . . a defacto dictatorship”

bor - Progressive members and
labor leaders who are rallying
their forces in defense of civil lib-
erties and against the Duplessis
government’s strike-breaking and
persecution of religious societies.

The government will probably
attempt to set up a new youth or
ganiaztion manned by leaders fa-
vorable to it, the pattern it used
when it abolished the democratic
unions,

QUEBEC CITY — In a ‘trial
that mocked democratic court pro-

der the pretext that its activity is]

The first ton of coal to move from the Hickman, Pa.

mines following the coal miners’ strike.

Although the

miners went back to work, their bitter resentment against
government use of the injunction and fines, continues un-
abated. In spite of all propaganda to the contrary, the
miners’ wages are far below living costs.

cedure, John Maynard How, a
Jehovah Witness member, was
last week fined $100 and costs
or three months in jail and de-
nied permission to submit his de-
fense.

How, who had already been
sentenced to two months in pris-
on for “disturbing the peace,”
was arraigned a second time be-
fore Recorder Jean Mercier on
a charge of distributing literature
without’ a municipal license. On
the ‘disturbing the peace’ .charge
Recorder Mercier had already
shown there was no _ possibility

of a fair trial by telling How | yesidents has long since been mar-

he wished he could give him | yg by dumps and junkyards and
‘life. f ; tin-shack industries.
Recorder Mercier again sen-

In one of the oldest and most
dilapidated of these houses on
Bast Eighth Avenue Mrs. Mary
Hutchison lives with her’ seven
children, They have been there
for six years, paying $25 a month
reni, and they have not com-
plained too much _ because the
place is cold and hard to heat.
They “have tried to ignore the
squares of cardboayd in place of
broken window panes. In these
times it was at least a place to

tenced How but refused to hear
his defense, stating no defense.
was necessary and that he con-
sidereq all Witnesses of Jehovah
guilty and intended sending them
to jail whatever they said. How
is now in the Quebec prison where
he will stay unless his appeal
to the Superior Court is sus-
tained. Following the ‘trial’ of
How, Recorder Mercier asked
newspapermen\ not to give the
case publicity. ‘

live and the best they could af-
ford.

Now, apparently, even this poor
shelter out of which Mrs. Hut-
chison and her eldest daughter
have contrived to make a home
for the family is to be taken
from them. They are to evicted
inthe New Year.

Some time ago, in June or July,
they fell behind in their rent more

ACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 3

os em os
— What'is there to stop us from doming out for the
elimination & wages eritir elye

than the 15 days stipulated by
law. This is not hard to under-
stand when you consider that
Mrs. Hutchison, who works with
her daughter at a paper plant,
makes $19.60 a week clear. After
that the rent was tendered as it
fell due, but the landlord refused
to accept it. .

The owner, of course, was with-
in his legal rights and legal
rights are designed to protect
property and those who own it.
He wanted to renovate the old
house and take advantage of the
present urgent demand for hous-
ing, for “some people any kind
of housing at any price. Under-
standably, a vacant house could
be more easily disposed of than
one occupied by a family.

But for the Hutchisons their
threatened eviction is a personal
tragedy. They have no _ other
place to go. Where, in Vancou-
ver, can you find a house for a
family of eight barely able to pay
their way as they are now? If
the sheriff proceeds with the evic-

,
.

have to be broken up.

tion it means that the family will

‘Happy new year’ - eviction and
broken home faces widow's family

Even on a bright sunny day when the haze hangs over the North Shore mountains and
Vancouver is at its loveliest, East Eighth Avenue is not one of the city‘s-most pleasant
streets. Its houses are old and many of them need repair. The area is shabby and neglect-
-ed and whatever attraction the view across False Creek Flats may have had for the first

Mrs. Hutchison has been told by
Deputy Sheriff Diggle that when
he evicts them he will have to
take the children, ranging in age
from two-and-a-half to fifteen-and-
a-half, “and put them in a home.”

The Welfare Association has
also promised to find places for
the children.

But this‘ is cold comfort for a
mother who insists that she can
provide for her family and has
striven throughout to hold the
family together.

At Christmas the Tenants and
Home Owners League, whose
popular, indefatiguable president,
Mrs. Effie Jones, is taking a per-
sonal hand in helping the Hutchi-
sons,. gave the family a cash do-
nation and a parcel of toys. The
Labor- Progressive Party gave
each of the girls a woollen skirt
and the boys a pair of pants each.
Bob Towle, a member of the local
LPP club, presented the family
with a chicken.

For all these gifts the Hutchi-
sons are grateful. But the finest
gift of all will be the knowledge
that they can maintain them-
selves together. as a family in
their. own home without threat of
eviction. And for this they will
need the support of an aroused
public opinion.

US imperialists —
in Dutch wake ©

SYDNEY — Realizing that the
Dutch haven’t much future in
Indonesia, U.S. industrialists and
financiers are making “unofficial”
trade and investment approaches
to the new republic, according to
Indonesian papers arriving here.

Merdeka, official republican
daily, says that a Detroit com-
pany has offered to repair all
highways in Java within one year;
that the Ford Motor Co. is seek-_
ing a monopoly over the sale of
motor vehicles to republican
areas and that two American rail-
road companies, one of them the
Santa Fe, are asking for con-
tracts to repair and modenize
Indonesian railroads and_ their
equipment.

The republic, Merdeka forecasts
may soon seek a_ billion-dollar
loan from the U.S. to reconstruct
and industrialize the country with
American machines and tools.

Controlling nearly all produc-
tive areas, the republic has big
surpluses of rice, coffee, tobacco,

tea, rubber, cinchona and other
commodities to export in ex-
change for foreign credits to

meet overseas . purchases.

Co-op driver

NEW WESTMINSTER

in smashup _

— Harold Thorsteinson, 917

Seventeenth Avenue, Burnaby, truck driver for the United
Fishermen’s. Cooperative Association, is in Royal Columbian
Hospital here suffering from head and other injuries received

when his truck was involved in
a tragic Christmas Eve collision
which took the lives
persons.

Killed were:

James E. Jones, personnel man-

ager at Fraser Mills,
Jones, of Maillardville.

ang Mrs.

of four!

walk,

As a result of the collision at
the
and Eighth Avenue the auto in
which Jones and his wife were ~
driving careened across the side,
hurling Mrs. McKnight
through a drug store window, —
fatally injuring her husband, strik-

Hugh David McKnight and Mrs.|ing-a third pedestrian and nar-—

McKnight, 834 Thirteenth Street, | rowly
|New Westminster.

missing others. McKnight
died in hospital on Christmas Day. ©

FRIDAY, JANUARY 3, 1947

junction of Twelfth Street —