Review * EDITORIAL PAGE x

Te ISSUE being fought out in

far off Newfoundland is of the
utmost concern to Canadian labor
everywhere. It is the right of work-
ers to choose and build their own
trade unio& organization (in this
case the International Woodworkers
of America), to bargain collectively
for higher wages, shorter hous, im-
proved working conditions, with the
right to strike and picket in de-
fense of these basic principles.

These elementary rights have
long been established in the rest of
Canada as in every civilized coun-
try. Won through many long and
hard struggles, they will not be
lightly abandoned — even at the
yapping of a backwoods Liberal
premier or powerful monopolies,
who rely upon armed police, viol-
ence, and prison compounds in the
hope of turning trade unionism in
Canada back to the days of the
Tolpuddle Martyrs.

The extreme and violently pro.
vocative language used by Premier
Smallwood of Newfoundland in his
press and radio fulminatons against
the IWA strike at the Bowater and
Anglo-Newfoundland timber com-
panies, merely emphasizes to what
lengths the political stooges of
monopoly exploitation will go to
smash a bona fide union, and im-
pose company or “corporate” unions
in their stead. Hitler had no origi-
nality or monopoly in that game.

The essence of Smallwood’s at-
tacks on the IWA is the destruction
of free trade unionism in New-
foundland, by restrictive legislation
if possible — by violence if nec-
essary!

Wor is it a mere coincidence that
while Liberal Premier Smallwood’
is fulminating against the IWA in
his island fastness, out here in the
British Columbia legislature, Socred
Works Minister W. N. Chant is
blasting'in a like vein against the
trade union movement of this prov-

ince. Aimed to cover up his real ee x gpe pads mnnaesicaet he leaves one wondering just what history.

intent, that of fitting B.C. labor with Sb den a a, Rr boee oa brand of politics stunted its The world has changed since
. md “< yom bs a : . é th # oe :

a Nepiatative doe seoliae © Chant that aperature to ascertain if pie aoe but one ae

raves his baseless accusations
against B.C. unions of being the

Pacific Tribune

Phone MUtual 5-5288

Editor —-TOM McEWEN
Managing Editor — BERT WHYTE

\ ‘Published weekly at
Room 6 — 426 Main Street
Vancouver 4, B.C.

Subscription Rates: >
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and ajl other countries: $5.00 one

year.

BA Chant

‘ domain” of gangsterism, gambling,
hoodlumism, and worse, with not
cne iota of proof to back up his
wild ranting.

‘Like Smallwood in Newfound-
land, Chant and his Socred col-
leagues hope that by putting a res-
trictive leash on organized labor,
monopoly will find it easier ‘to ex-
tract an extra pound of flesh. Small-
wood’s aim is to restore company
unionism and industrial slavery in
Newfoundland — to make the prov-
ince’s resources the unchallenged

_ preserve of monopoly.

To survive. all Canadian labor

must meet this challenge, unitedly,’ °

and ready to do battle.

Any thinking on the part of
Canadian Labor Congress leader-
ship that the issues now being
fought out in Newfoundland, im-
plicit in the IWA strike and the
government-monopoly attacks on
the embattled union spearheaded by
can be settled by court action, is
dangerous thinking.

Only a maximium unity of all
Canadian labor in, solidarity actions
with their Newfoundland brothers
will decide the issue — in the’ in-
terests of labor.

‘Comment

Scrapping the Arrow

HE Diefenbaker = government’s

final decision last week to scrap

the Avro Arrow program, was an

act without parallel or precedent for

its cynical and brazen disregard for

Canada’s peace, indépendence, and
economic wellbeing.

Its immediate effects may be
summed up thus; it tossed over $400
million of the taxpayers’ money
down the drain in the production
of a military plane, condemned
before it ever went into production.

It tossed some 40,000 skill-
ed aircraft workers and technicians
into the ranks of the unemployed—
to swell an already three-quarter
million jobless army, which Diefen-
baker promised “would never suf-
fer” under him.

Worst of all, in substituting a
made-in-the-USA “Bomarc” nuclear-
carrying missile for the Ayro, the
Diefenbaker government promoted
the U.S. military machine as the
official nuclear trigger men in Can-
ada’s ““Bomarc” defense.

Had the Diefenbaker govern-
ment been concerned with Canada’s
wellbeing, it could have spent the
taxpayers’ dollars to better purpose.
Well aware in advance of what was

contemplated, the  govel

could have put the giant Avro
and subsidaries to work —

production of jet aircraft for
aviation.

Militarily, the Arrow jet was
a good plane. There is no reasom
believe the Avro plants co
have turned out an equall
craft for civilian and com
uses, and thus kept its 40,0007
ed workers on the job.

But that wouldn’t have fitted '
with Washington’s plans to m#
Canada a U.S. backyard mis
launching platform for nuclear W
maniacs — a scheme in which
Diefenbaker government slavish
plays the role of Faust to a Yat
Mephistopheles! =

On the Avro Arrow there is 0
one decision to be’ made; open ®
Avro plants to civil and commeté
aircraft manufacture, and otf
metal products which this indust
is quite capable of producing
doing so a made-in-the-USA “chi
reaction of disaster” can be broke
and Canadian workers freed ft
the evil effects of this latest Te
betrayal.

) Tom
McEwen.

Ps

N THE premises to fix a

faults) drain, the plumber
and his helper were greeted by
the mistress of the house, a lady
with a highly polished “upper
erust’” accent. To confirm her
opinion on the area of the

you too can detect an obnoxious
effluvia emanating.”

' Being an Aberdonian and

therefore not conversant with
the finer semantics, the plumber
turned to his helper to inquire
“Fat did she say laddie?” Trans-
lated, the helper replied: “Put
yer nose at that hole an’ see
if there’s ony stink comin’ up.”

“Well, weel” said the man
from Aberdeen, “why theil

didna she say so in the first .

place?”

The same query struck me
when I read the petition now
being circulated by the B.C.
‘Federation of Labor for 100,000
signatures to help the Bennett
government face up to its res-
ponsibilities and accept the fact

y @

tnat unemployment in this prov-.
ince (and country) has reached
emergency proportions.

Why doesn’t this petition, pre-
sumably circulated on behalf of
tens of thousands of jobless and
destitute workers say so in
simple , direct, and _readable
language?

It is inconceivable that a
great body such as the B.C. Fed-
cration of Labor should seek to
weaken or undermine its own
efforts in such a cause, but this
petition, both as to the legai
jargon of its wording, and its
six-point type which renders it
unreadable except under strain.

One can understand insur-
ance, loan sharks and other such
speeie having their policy scrolls
or other prospectuses done up |
in pin-point type to fool the un-
wary victim, but Labor should
know by this time at least that
simplicity of visual type on a
petition of this nature is half
the battle for its success.

Most signatories to a  peti-
tion (any petition) like to be
acle to read, easily, and without
an Aberdeen plumber’s handi-
cap.on language, what they are
requested to sign. And on -the
capitalist crime condemning
countless thousands to a ¢ondi-

‘tion of jobless. destitution aid

degradation, they are prepared
to sign with a lot less “prayeth’-
ing, “sheweth”ing and other

“comings in jargon amd type set-

_legal jargon cluttering up this —

petition; terms which in essencé,
provide it with third-rate dentat —
piates in place of good sound
teeth. :
When this writer led the first
yobless delegation to Ottawa in
the early days of the Hungry
Thirties) to beard Tory “Iroa
Heel” Bennett in his den and
ergue the plight of a millon
jobless workers, we did dammed
little “prayeth”-ing or sleweth’-
2ng; on the contrary, we de-
manded, in language well under-
stood by all concerned, “work
and wages” and ‘unemploy-
inent insurance.’ The rest is

hasn’t changed —¥ the hardships
and suffering of a jobless work-
er and his family, condemned
to live on a substandard charity
level. That is why this petition —
of the BCFL, with all its short-

ting, must achieve its target of
100,000 signatures or over. To
let the Socred government know
that even with handicaps of its
own making, Labor can be
mobilized ic fight -hunger, un
employment — and derelict gov-
ernment. - :

(All petitions must be in tne
hands of B.C. Federation of La-
bor’s executive by March 5. The
target is 100,000 or more signa-
tures. Let Labor “shéweth” Ben-
nett if means business, even
with a legal lisp.)

a

February 27, 1959 —~ PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAG