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Labor Wants No Return To ‘Hungry Thirties’

Tim Buck Extends New

Nineteen Forty-four is the year-ef victory. On that, all democratic peoples are a
in Moscow, Cairo and Teheran were di

to follow that up in swift battle for the a
ity of the United Nations

Allied leaders
1944 and

of the second front, which shook the solidar
victory, has been settled. The decision is no

the command of the United Nations.

With that decision in mind, the
peoples are awaiting the fury of
battle which is to come with the
invasion of Europe. They know
it’ will demand of them greater
Sacrifices and effort than - ever
before, in the factories and mines,
and on the fighting fronts.

The lTabor-Progressive Party
calls on all its members, friends
and supporters, and upon the
whole labor and farm movements,
to place the achievement of com-
plete and speedy victory above
all other considerations: to ensure
that the labor and farmers? -Or-
ganizations make their fullest
contribution in the great struggle
for victory in 1944, and to east
out all complacency.

We call for strengthened unity
Within the labor movement and
greater national unity to this end.
We eail upon the federal proyvin-
cial and municipal governments
to *give that war leadership and
produce that wartime organiza-
tion® which our country ‘sorely
needs to carry out its duties in
this eritical year.

Labor is that force in the
nation which resists all tempta-
tino to srow lax in the fight
against fascism. It is the force
which has constantly advocated
those measures of offensive
Strategy against the Axis which
alone can bring victory. It was
and is the champion of United
Nations solidarity and the second
front which is now the basis of
military operations in Europe. .

It is the force which fights for
those measures of domestic re-

form which are required to re-

lease the full fighting power of
our country. It is the sworn enemy
of national hatreds and the advo-
fate of the closest unity between
French and English Canadians,
between the Canadians of all re-
ligious and national origins.

tt is the vigilant Suardian of
Canada’s democratic institutions.
It is that Stroup which sees in the
glorious declarations of this peo-
ple’s war, the Atlantic Charter,
the Washington Agreements, the
British-Soviet Pact and the Tehe-
ran Declaration, the hope for
world peace, and for a better
post-war world.

Great Issues

This New Year’s Day witnesses
in Canada a Srowing conflict
around the great issues of the
War and the peace.

©ur country is being torn in
Its hour of crisis by the great

Capitalists and __‘ their. agents.
Drew of Ontario, Duplessis of
Quebec, John Bracken, Arthur

Meighen, Gladstone Murray, the

Union House J. Mirras, Mer.
Meet Your Friends at the

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40 Years

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Toronto Telegram and Globe and
Mail, the Monireal Gazette, are
organizing now a great conspiracy
to subvert the normal processes
of Canadian democracy, in order
to preserve Canada and its gov-
ernment as the exclusive mon-
Dpolies of “free enterprise.”

In all this, these elements have
the aim of seizing the govern-
ment of Canada at the next fed-
eral election. As part of their
plan, they are waging a strong
campaign in the municipal elec:
tions, where their power and
money have already brought set-
backs to the labor movement.

The program of this reactionary
bloe is already plain to us. Be-
Cause victory is now assured the
United Nations, and precisely.
because Canada faces the last
and final bloody military battle
against the Axis, they are already
unleashing an attack upon the
people under the banner of “free
enterprise.” “Free enterprise,”
in their eyes, means the freedom
of capital and the enslavement of
labor.

tt means a return to the an-
archy of the “Hungry Thirties.”
It means the resumption of the
State of affairs where profits
alone determine whether or not
Canadians haye employment and
the farmers a decenf income. It
means the abolition of all war-
time controls such as the limita-
tion of profits, the excess profits
tax, and price control. It means

the refusal, in the interests of ©

“private enterprise,” to engage in
great public works such as hous-
ing and land rehabilitation.

Phe Tories are determined to
get the government, and to make
sure that Canadian democracy,
tepresented most of all by the
CCF, the Labor - Progressive
Party, the trade unions and the
farm organizations, shall not win
the war, but that Capitalist an-
arehy shall triumph in Canada.

Reaction’s Plans

The Liberal government step
by step gives in to this campaign
of reaction, this revival of the
regime of R. B. Bennett. Inside
the Liberal cabinet are men like
Howe and St. Laurent, who speak
the same words and have the
Same policies fundamentally as
Meighen, Drew and Duplessis.

Mackenzie King follows his tra-
ditional policy of giving in to the
demands of big Capital. He has
refused to institute the full mob-
ilization of manpower on a selec-
tive basis.

By refusing to grant the just
demands for national equality on
the part of the French Canadians
he has permitted the Quebee re-
actionaries, the °Bloc Populaire
aud Duplessis, to run riot in Que-

ec.

He has placated finance cap-
ital, and outraged and insulted
the working class and farmers,
above all in his recent speech on
inflation in which he abolished
the cost of living bonus, froze
present inequalities:e weléduced

the Labor Code “to another
promise.
His minister of agriculture,

Gardiner, has confused and en-
taged the farmers in the matter
of hog raising, and has cut the
bacon exports to Britain, despite
the fact that the world faces a
food shortage, already heralded
in the horrible famine in India.

The Liberal Party, by this means,
has lost the confidence of the
Majority of Canadians. The Tories
are fighting to become the next
government, by the use of de-
ceit and bluff and by taking full
advantage of the divisions in the
labor movement.

%

and 1943,

They are attacking the demand
of the Canadian people for a
Sweeping post-war program of
employment and national growth
and for great national reforms to
put a floor under Wages and a
ceiling upon hours, by raising the
ery of “socialist regimentation.”

Bank presidents, publicity
agents, chambers of commerce;
hewspaper editorial writers, poli-
ticians, are all engaged in a well-
financed drive to represent the
after-war desires of the masses of
Canadians as “socialism.” They
are claiming that socialism means
the destruction of the home, the
regimentation of liberties, the
dictatorship of the state, the end
of the constitution. They put no
limit to their lies and misrepre-
sentation, because they are anxi_
ous above all to stampede the
farmers, middle class people and
Sections of the workers ‘izto sup-
porting their “free enterprise”
program, the real aim of which
is to destroy the unions, reduce

Wages, and lay off hundreds of:

thousands of war workers.

Basis for Unity

The Canadian labor movement
has the power to stop this reac-
tionary drive, which hinders the
war effort, delays the victory and
threatens violence and catastro-
phe for Canada. But to do that,
unity of purpose and unity of or-
ganization are indispensable. But
as yet, the labor movement lacks
this unity—to the great benefit
of the Tories and the right-wing
Liberals.

The Canadian labor movement
must unite around two simple but
all-embracing points:

1. To carry through the war
to victory in 1944 by redoubling
the energies of the people in
the front line and in war pro-
duction; to smash Hitler on the
Continent this year, and to pro-
ceed quickly to the destruction
of the Japanese fascist-militar-
ist empire and the liberation of
the countries occupied by

Japan. :

2. To put the home front in
full battle order, by conducting
and strengthening the fight
against the Tory plot and Lib-
eral misleadership, in order
that the ground may be pre-
pared for great social and eco-
nomic progress in the future,
under the leadership of a CCE-
labor-farmer government.

These are the realistic paths
Canada must follow in the im-
mediate future. Around these two
great aims labor can unite and
rally the majority of Canadians
to defeat the recationary attack.

They are tasks demanding the
utmost unity in the labor and
farm movements. They require
that the CCF shall drop its preju-
dices against other sections of the
labor movement, concentrate on
the one great job of marshalling
all the strength of the labor and
farm movement into a mass
labor-farmer party for the elec-
tion of a CCF-labor-farmer gov-
ernment whenever Mackenzie
King chooses to eall a Seneral
election. The first step towards
this is to drop the present im-
pediments to affiliation to the
CCF on the part of the trade
unions, and to lift the ban upon

the Labor-Progressive Party’s
affiliation to the CCF.
The main opstacle to the

achievement of this unity is the
attitude of the leaders of the CCF.
They are persisting in outworn
concepts and worn-out opinions.
Instead of rising to the oppor-
tunity which presents itself today
of ousting the old-line parties
from office and electing a ma-

jority of CCFlabor-farmer mem-
bers to the House of Commons,
they continue to divide the work
ers_and farmers by setting the
CCF against all left-wing forces.
We must not muff this great
Opportunity. We must Grasp it ~
boldly, and take full advantage of
it. To fail to do so is not only
to risk the future of the labor
movement, but to place our
country’s destiny in the hands of
those reactionary forces whose
misleadership in -the Past has
brought this crisis upon’ us.

Given this united movement of
Canadian labor and the farmers,
and emboldened and lifted up by
the possibility of such a govern-
ment in Canada, the trade unions
would rally around a mass labor-
farmer party. The farm organiza-
tions, for whose Support the Lib-
erals and Tories are now making
a supreme bid, would come close
to the labor movement. ‘The
middle class, now seeking lead-
ership, would join its forces with
labor, and our country would
move ahead to the victory and the
peace mobilized. and organized by.
the most vigorous defenders of
Canadian democracy.

1944 Tasks

These are the tasks for 1944:

Victory and a just peace.

Victory against fascism, and the
liberation of the nations pinned
under the jackboot of the en-
Slavers!

-Victory against Tory reaction
and Liberal ‘cowardice and peace
and prosperity for the common
people!

We must unite and make pos-
sible the coming together of all
democratic peoples in a great
labor-farmer Party., This means
we must stop allowing narrow
Partisan aims to utilize prejudice
to split our ranks to the joy of
reactionary campaigners who are
desirous of splitting the labor
movement as a prelude to de-
stroying it!

We must be Worthy of the
Teheran Declaration, which is one
of the historic documents of all
mankind’s history, and not get
bogged down in academic debate
and abstract quarreling within the
labor movement by which only
the reactionaries profit.

The CCF leaders must epen the
doors of their Party to the sreat
mass of the working people on
the basis of a great crusade for
victory and prosperity and de-
mocracy in the peace, or will they
persist in giving arguments to
the “anti-socialist” campaigners
by keeping up their “red-baitins”
against the Communists?

These are the great tasks of
1944 for Canadian labor.

Soon the battle orders will be
given. Soon Canada will feel the
full force of war after four and
a half years of relative quiet.

Soon the casualty lists will mount |
as the Canadian Army Overseas ||
will follow our glorious RCAF:

and RCN into full action, me
Soon Hitlerism will be smashed =
the trumpets of victory will sound |

to take shape. : :

Canadians! Prepare for | the 4
last great battles against fas <
cism! Spare nothing for the Wal
effort. Increase your output i |
the factories and mines! a

Smash the - Tory conspiracy |
against our homes, jobs and |
democratics rights! = §

Join- ranks together in the)

trade unions! el

labor-management:
committees, a labor code and
the raising of
wages! oe

Let French and English Can-
adians unite for national reform)
and justice for Quebec!

Fight harder than ever for™

‘Unite for independent work |

ing-class political action!

Urge the CCF leaders to re- ‘f

spond to the mighty and srow-

ing demand for unity to win the |

federal government in the com-
ing general elections!
Prepare now, in the midst of

war, to win the peace by your .

organized strength and united
leadership, ; :

Layoffs
Protested

Frank Carlisle, business agent
for Plumbers and Steamfitters
Union, expressed concern this

- week over the announcement that

the first major layoff in Van-
couver plants doing subcontract

- production ‘|

Sub - standarg | j

pera uieasas

i

work for steel shipyards Will take |

place within the next two weeks. }

The announcement was made by
C. W. Leek of Leek and Co., Ltd),
who stated that about 130 of his"
employee are to be laid off. His
firm is handling pipefitting worlk

for North Van Ship Repairs and. ;

other yards in British Columbia.
“There are prospects that only.
a few of these men will be ab-

sorbed into other jobs,” said Gar.

lisle.

“There are difficulties arising
because there is no cooperation
between Selective Service, War-
time Shipping, and the employ-
ers. Selective Service apparently
did not know anything about this
until the day before.

“No one seems to know any-
thing about these layoffs except
that layoffs have to take place.

‘No plans are made to absorb the a
men into other work. Then when i
the announcement does come we ©

have to rush around and see what
can be done about it.’

The tayoffs are seen as a direct
result of the slowing in freighter
Jaunchings to 100 days, and it is
expected further layoffs will be

necessary. in subsidiary indus-

tries.

CLASS

IFIED

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Sertion of five lines or less with
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is made for notices appearing in
this column. d

Regular meetings of the Hast

ings East LPP Branch are held
at 8 p.m. on the first and third
Friday of each month, at 2443
East Hastings. E

NOTICES

West End LPP Branch needs
a piano. Will buy or hire but
preferably borrow. Any offers?
Phone John Goss at MArine 5143.

If you have a spare copy of
Builders of British Columbia by.
Bill Bennett, published at Van-
couver In 1937, The People can
use it in its library. Send it to
The People office.

Canadian Aid to Russia Fund,
Auxiliary No. 1, wants sewers and
workers. Send used clothing of
all kinds to 835 West Pender.
MArine 2744.

Regular meetings of the South

Vancouver LPP Branch are held | i
at 8 p.m. on the second and fourth

Monday of each month, at Nor-
quay Hall, Kingsway and Slocan.

gos BD) om ee Cr ey ei pe ier