CO

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“No. 10.

ee /ol. Il.

Saturday, March 11, 1944

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ef

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a ' In his keynote speech to the first provincial
“= convention the provincial leader of the Labor-
=) Progressive Party points the way to unity and

f

cies and programs.

"he reeent national committee
‘ting of the Labor-Progressive
ity werked out policies which
the needs of Canada’s peo-
met in the new situation now visu-
i:@hed for the -postwar period.
“@ provincial convention will
®@ her enrich our program in its
)yincial application
ie , suring the past four years the
, @encies of war have wrought
— iendous changes in the econ-
of British Bolumbia. The
ands of war have resulted in
px “sforming our province from
status of a producer and ex-
Fer of raw and semi-processed
‘@erial to an industrial and
fe ufacturing area of first-rate
tig srtance.
is. addition to supplying a #ood
i ion of the 340 fighting ships
Ftructed in Canadian yards,
has delivered over 65 per
of the 230 or more cargo
Fels produced in Canada. This
= wartime industry of ship-
Fiing, together with susidiary
bee Stries, such as foundries and
fee Neering shops, today provides
‘(@loyment for an estimated
tt0 6©B-G. workers, both men
(ie) women. Another 10,000 peo-
i are directly employed in the
A@ecaft manufacturing establish-
ts producing the’ sinews of

jhile creating these new in-

= ries, B.C. has not only main-
te Ged but even imereased the
jee of the output of the prim-
| #@ industries of lumbering, min-
dij fishing and agriculture.
Wiese achievements are all the
‘© noteworthy when it is con-
ired that an estimated 70,000
Ties Columbia’s sons and
pobters in the armed forces of

| country are engaged on the

j= ous fighting fronts in the pre-

epic struggle from which.

© ocracy will emerge with new.
ngth and vigor out of the de-
-ction of fascist savagery.

c *itish Columbians “welcome
»e€conomic ehanges in the life
our province achieved as a
sit of the implacable demands

var. For over half a century
sens of B.C. have expressed in-

# sing alarm over the depletion
ur rich natural resources on
'basis' of a national economic
cy which relegated B.C. in
ly respects to the status of a
erland engaged almost ex-
ively im the extraction and
fort of raw. or semi-processed
Berials.

A

g TYSIOGRAPHICAL and cli-

“(matic conditions have com-
2d’ te endow B.C. with an eco-

progress for the people of British Columbia. —
By FERGUS McKEAN

"HE deliberations of this first annual convention of the
| Labor-Progressive Party, B:€. Section, will be conducted
che light of the new world perspective made possible by the
"eement reached at Teheran between the three great powers,
tain, the USSR and the United States. This historic agree-
pot For full military and’ political collaboration until victory
® achieved and friendly cooperation for the preservation of
“ee, reconstruction and expanding world trade in the post-
* years requires that all political parties revaluate their

nomic wealth which has already
enabled its citizens to achieve
the highest standards of living
in the Dominion. In addition to
this, however, its strategic geo-
graphical location on the Pacific
slope of the continent which
faces, across the Pacific, the
world’s greatest potential mar-
ket, the emancipated millions of
Asia, opens new and wunprece-
dented vistas for its future eco-
nomic and social development.
This development, ‘however,
must be predicated, first, on con-
servation of its forests and fish-
eries; second, on development of
its potential 8,000,000 h.p. of hydro-
electric power resources, its great
mineral wealth of copper, lead,
zinc, goid, nickel, tungston and
coal its mineral springs, and
other tourist attractions, and its

fertile agriculture areas; and
third, and most important, on
the retention and further de-

velopment of its expanded man-
ufacturing industry.

This same natural endowment
has also determined the direction
of its future economic develop-
ment. Of the total land area of
the province, 31 percent is tim-
bered while only 2 percent is
arable land. The balance, though
rich in mineral resources, is un-
suitable for either forest crops
or agriculture.

While weleoming the degree to
which the natural resources of
our province have contributed to
the economic might of the United
Wations in the overriding task of
the defeat of the Axis powers,
the people of B.C. are deter-
mined there shall be no reversion
to’ prewar conditions of unem-
ployment and economic stagna-
tion. They wish to see the pre-
sent degree of-economic develop-
ment not only maintained but
further expanded. They realize
the fulure prosperity and well-
being of our people is based pri-
marily on the full employment
made possible by progressive
economic expansion.

British Columbians know that
the unprecedented levels of pro-
duction our province and coun-
try have achieved in the course
of the war have only been made
possible by the high degree of
national unity attained, a unity
embracing all sections and classes
of the population in the stern de-
termination that yictory in the
war must take precedence over
all other considerations.

The Labor-Progressive
declares, at this, its first B.C.
provincial convention, that this
wartime unity must not only be

Party

Fergus McKean

victory is
into

continued until final
achieved, but carried over
the postwar period.

This convention announces its
unswerving adherence to the
Dominion program and policies
of the Labor-Progressive Party
as the program and policies best
suited tor the achieyment of early
victory in the war and the eco-
nomic and social development of
our Dominion in the new era of
Gemocratic social advance which
victory will open up to the peo-
ples of a suffering, war weary
world.

The stern necessity of national
and international unity to achieve
victory in the war has not only
resulted in the realization of that
unity for the period of the war
but has now made possible the
continuation of that unity into
the postwar period. Without this,
the perspective of democratic
economic and social development
could not be realized.

HE Teheran declaration, sol-
emnly subscribed to by the
world’s three most powerful
states, Britain, the USSR and the
United States and endorsed by
Prime Minister Mackenzie King,
has opened the door to a new
epoch in world history an epoch
of peaceful economic and- social
progress never before visualized.
The program of complete mili-
tary collaboration achieved at
Teheran between the socialist So-
viet Union and the world’s two
most powerful capitalist states
was only made possible by the
accord reached on the respective
influences to be exerted in shap-

ing the character of the postwar
world and the future relationship
between the two different social
systems. There is, of course, an
alternative to the postwar per-

spective envisioned by the Teh-

eran concord, but that alternative
is one of economic stagnation and
civil wars, culminating in a new
world war which could set civili-
zation back for decades.

On the basis of the programs
already announced by the leaders
of the people’s movements in the
occupied countries of Europe it
is now clear they do not have
a perspective of establishing so-
cialism in these countries imme-
diately the fascist forces of occu-
pation are defeated. Indeed, the
high degree of unity achieved,
embracing all classes of the pop-
ulation in the struggle against the
hated fascist invaders, could not
have been realized on the per-

‘spective of such a controversial

issue as the immediate establish-
ment of socialism. Neither could
the military and postwar agree-
ment reached at Teheran have
been possible on the issue of
Whether postwar Europe should
be socialist or capitalist.

The issue confronting the peo-
ple of occupied Europe in the
postwar world is not socialism
versus capitalism, but the eco-
nomic reconstruction of a devas-
tated continent, rehabilitation of
a war-weary people and sweep-
ing democratic reforms which
will modernize and democratize
even the most backward states of
Europe.

While the basic economy of the
ececupied countries of Hurope

A Program for the People

will undoubtedly be capitalist,
the governments that will admin-
ister these countries in the post-
war world will not be narrow
class governments in the tradi-
tional sense but broad demo-
eratiec bodies representative of all
classes in the given country.
They will be governments of a
new type.
@ $

HE reconstruction of the de-

vastated areas of Europe, Asia
and North Africa provides both
the necessity and the opportunity
for postwar cooperation between
the socialist USSR and the other
countries of the United Nations,
particularly Britain, the United
States and Canada.

The war has resulted in a tre-
mendous expansion of the indus-
trial capacity of these countries.
Since the war the number of
workeres employed in Canada’s
manufacturing establishments) —
650,000 was the prewar figure—
has been doubled: This industrial
expansion has only been made
possible by the influx of hun-
dreds of thousands of women into
industry so that today, 26 percent
of all industrial workers are wo-
men. A similar industrial expan-
sion has taken place in Britain

_and the U.S.

In our Own province of B.G.
the number of workers employed
in industry rese from 88,000 in
1939 to 144,000 in 1942 and now
far surpasses that figure. When
the fighting stops B.C. will be
confronted with the task of pro-
viding employment for 50 percent
of our industrial workers in the
production of commodities re-
quired for a peacetime economy
as well as providing jobs for a
large number of the 70,000 B.C.
men and women now serving in
the armed forces.

The Teheran agreement for the
Maintenance of world peace and
international cooperation in the
postwar for reconstruction pro-
vides’ the possibility not only for
retaining the present level of pro-
duction in Canada but for further
economic development.

Progressive elements in all
countries and among all Classes
have recognized the economic
problems that will confront us
in the postwar period and have
realized that a democratic-pro-
gressive solution is possible. Fur-
ther, there have been several eco-
nomic plans of a progressive
democratic character partially de-
veloped.

In dealing with the tasks and
problems confronting us in work
ing for the victory still to be
achieved and in securing peace,
economic advance and social se-
curity in the new. world to be
realized, there is no room for
pessimism and defeatism.

The Labor-Progressive Party
categorically rejects the perspec-
tive of economic decline and
mass unemployment after this
peoples’ war has been won. Such
a@ perspective is contrary to every
concept for which the war is be-
ing fought with its tremendous
human and material sacrifices.

We declare that on the basis
of the agreement reached at Te-
heran the same unity of Canada’s
people nationally and provincially
which has enabled our country
to achieve so much in the course
of the war can be extended into

—Continued on Page 10