| Toronto women stage peace parade

Seventeen mothers and 21 children—some in prams, some in strollers, some with doll carriages
—paraded along Toronto’s Bloor Street recently and collected hundreds of signatures to the world
peace petition, the campaign for which is now in iis final weeks, with half a million signatures

the aim in Canada.

TEA HELD TO HEAR LPP LEADER

| Women leading in fight for peace
_ throughout Europe, says Tim Buck

THE FINEST birthday gift
- ONe could receive, according to
Tim Buck, \LPP national leader,
- when he attended an informal
tea held in his honor here on
Monday this week, was the fact
that 6000 signatures had been
Sathered for the Stockholm peace
Petition by the 75 women present.
They pledged an additional 2000
Names before the conclusion of
the campaign and presentations
Were then made to the three
Women present who had collected
the greatest number of signa-
tures to date.

Tim Buck emphasized the role
that women naturally play in the
Peace campaign and pointed out
the amazing work carried out by
Women’s organizations through-
Out Europe which he was able
to see at first-hand during his
recent visit there. The women of
Prague sparked the campaign in
Czechoslovakia and in seven days
seven million signatures were
Collected. In order to accomplish

this, each woman was asked to.

devote one hour a day on the
Street corner or at a_ factory
and by everyone doing her share

they were able to collect an aver-,

ge of a million signatures a day.

At a meeting of several hun-
dred women in London at which
the question of peace work was
being discussed, one prim little
lady of 82 years stood up and
~8Mnounced that she was in com-

Plete agreement with the idea

but—wasn’t it time to start fight-
‘ing for it?
This same woman was one of
hose who padlocked herself to
the iron railings of the Parlia-
ment buildings at Westminster
Uring the struggle for the wom-
£n’s vote, When police arrived on
© scene she promptly swallowed
he key to the lock and it was
two hours before the police were
le to saw through the lock.
She was marched off to jail for
nine months but upon her release
She padlocked herself to the top
f a bus. This time when the
Police arrived she was a little
ter prepared, Beneath her
She had a.syphon which she
ae to great effect when they
€mpted to release her. .
ni hat same jndomitable spirit
Gene in that woman as she
tay in the packed hall, clutch-
eh her black umbrella and ask-
ine’ . Isn't it time to start fight-
8 for peace?”
* * xe
: al DISCUSSING some of the
se ms of women in our own
Samar Tim Buck pointed out
with, every housewife is faced
ne »,the constant battle of keep-
& her family healthy and well

clothed
prices.

It the beginning of the last
war, wages were frozen and the
fight then was to enforce price
control. Today the problem is
very different. Wages have not
kept pace with rising prices, If
price controls are established at
present levels, wages most cer-
tainly will be frozen. This means

in the face of rising

that 75 percent of our population

now earning enough to feed and
clothe their families adequately
On. their present wages will be
faced with an insurmountable
problem.

“Our fight must be for higher
wages and against the terrible
profiteering being carried on at
present. Let the government re-
impose the excess profits tax, and
in this way, at least, relieve Ca-
nadian families of an ever-in-
creasing tax bill and discourage
the profiteering of big business,”
he said.

This, then,

was Tim Buck’s

message to the women of B.C.—.

fight for peace, for higher wages,
and expose the profiteers who are
reaping greater profits today
than in the entire history of Can-
ada,

LAST SUNDAY morning I was rudely wakened by the shrill
sound of little John crowing “‘Cockadoodle doo” at the top of his lungs.
Before I could yelp out my protest against this flagrant violation of
Sunday morning extra shut-eye I caught the following explanation of
tis demonstration, He explained to his sister that he was a chicken

coming out of its egg. Naturally,
Katy with her three years’ sen-
iority over her brother, informed
him that when chickens came out
of eggs they are tiny little chicks
capable only of faint cheeps, Not
to be outdone, John came right
back with, “But this was a great
big egg!”

Thinking over this little epi-
sode I was struck by the similar-
ity of Douglas Abbott’s “baby
budget”—for a baby it sure has
far-reaching effects, and what
can we expect when Abbott de-
cides that it’s time for baby to
grow up! One thing is sure, in-
come tax is going to go up to
pay for war materials (including
the Vancouver shipyards’ big
profits when they were awarded
the contract for five warships).
A wage of a dollar an hour once
sounded wonderful, but today one
dollar will buy only one pound

- of coffee or one pound of meat.

Surely a man’s work is worth
more than. this.
Considering today’s prices, and

I don’t mean the price of fur

coats or diamond rings, a wage
earner supporting a family needs
twice the wages he was earning
in 1939, yet in thousands of cases
across the country working peo-
ple are getting the same pay as
in the first days of the war. Just
take a glance at the Help Want-
ed Female ads. Some firms have
the audacity to ask a single girl
to work 48 hours a week for $80
a month! It’s high time workers
throughout Canada got busy and

demanded a decent living wage
and this applies to women es-
pecially, for they are notoriously
underpaid.

* * <

I WOULD like to quote Irene
Epstein who has an_ excellent
article, “Woman Under the
Double Standard” in the October
issue of Jewish Life.

_ “Capitalism is confronted with
an irreconcilable contradiction:
its need to keep women in dom-
estic subjugation clashes with its
need for cheap labor. Because of
this contradiction, the struggle
for women’s emancipation is in-
volved with that for the libera-
tion of all workers and all ex-
ploited and oppressed peoples,
under the leadership of the work-
ing class. From this we can see
the basic difference of the Marx-
ist view of the woman from the
feminist position, which holds
that the male as such is the real
enemy against whom women
must direct their efforts to at-
tain equality.’ Reaction tries to
convince people that it is the
“real nature” of woman to be
submissive, passive, undemand-
ing, incapable of any training ex-
cept in a few skills reserved to
them alone. Capitalism can thus
keep women in the status of a
vast reservoir of cheap labor.”

More than ever before women
are needed to help in the fight,
around the three main issues

today—Peace, Pay, and Prices.—
B.G.

A BETTER BUY
THAN THE BCER!

SEE .WHERE the BCER,

having boosted fares and
cut services, is now presented
as a ‘poor buy’ for the city,”
says Little Peetee. “Perhaps, if
the city decides not to pur-
chase, ll offer Grauer a dollar
down and a dollar a week for
his transit system. Nothing
ventured, nothing gained, and
I have a sneaking huneh that
BCElectric is a long way from
the poorhouse.

“Speaking of investments, the

Bi best one I know of is a $2.50

investment in the Pacific Tri-
bune. You receive weekly divi-
dends in the form of truthful
news that the dailies dare not
print. Have you renewed YOUR
Sub yet?”

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPTEMBER 29, 1950—PAGE 18