Whither Britain ? Editor, Pacific Tribune: Any analysis of the situation ‘in Britain gives an amazing pic- ture these days. We—on the side lines—can get a fairly clear View, even if not a ‘close-up’ view of conditions. One capitalist zombie corre- Spondent after another sends us their views and we must Temember that they send the “best possible of it bad. The real conditions in Britain _ are now trickling through, For stance, a merchant seaman Just back from Britain says that they are now eating cats and dogs (unconfirmed) and that for years the ruling class in Britain has’ frittered away the resources of the country for profits abroad. We begin to see the magnitude of the crisis. For instance, .her coal supply is Setting closer and closer to zero, even if modern machihery is introduced, because the pits are getting too deep and run- ning out. ‘ ’ _ We also remember that Bri- tain can only grow enough food to feed one-thirg of her popu- lation. Then, due to the contra- dictions in the capitalist system the rest of the capitalist world _¢an only go so far with the helping hand, and also because -Britains credit outside of Eur- ope is becoming eatremely Shakey, : 2 Does this mean that within the next ten years at most, ap- proximately twenty million peo- ple in Britain are condemned to death through starvation? The Prospects of migrating are not very bright, chiefly because of lack of funds and the tight immigration laws of _ other countries, The defense of the Empire “8nd the unwarranted intrusion in other countries calls for a large army and this accentuates & man power shortage in Bri- tain, which adds to the diffi- _ culties of postwar reconstruc- tion, . ; x Signs are many that the peo- Ple are awakening fast and furious to what is taking place. Have *they any remedy for the ®pproaching disaster? Not under Capitalism. Thus a revolutionary situation may be developing in Britain. “Hey have positively no other Cut, only mass death. In such an event Britain’s Would lie in the East — with news-—and most’ salvation then. What You Pleat Russia will shortly be able to supply both surplus food and raw materials to all her neighbors. ' The present ruling class. of Britain will hang on to the last ditch, but the workers will find the revolutionary way out of the crisis which now grips them. Russia. SAM REYNOLDS. Vancouver, B.C. . “BCER and health Editor, Pacific Tribune: Vancouver has seen another National, Health Week come ang go without the Vancouver Health League protesting the crushing continuance of those sereeching, shrieking, shatter- ing, rumbling, rocking and roll- ing engines of health destruction ~-the BCBHlectric street cars. Dal Grauer of the latter company has stated that pri- vate enterprise has its faults. What faults they are too, these juggernauts of devilish discord, with their closely packed masses of humanity, who are tossed and flung around, so that disintegra- tion of the human frame sets in as though resulting from the concussion of atomic blasts. Just imagine the shock to the systems of old age pensioners and others suffering from mal- nutrition, when the blow of this atom bomb _ shattering noise hits them: Conditions of proper relaxation for all of the people would prevent and curb. -much of the disease now on the increase. A drastic change, among other things, such as economic security would bring us a noiseless. street transit system. The. people’s_ health comes before the BCElectric’s wealth! j E. MARSH. Vancouver, B.C. : Time for action Editor, Pacific Tribune: Since the beginning of Decem- ber the Tenants’ and Home- owners’ League have worked to prevent the eviction of Mrs. Mary Hutchison ard her seven children ranging in age from three to sixteen ‘years, from 1250 East 8th Avenue. This let- ter is written with the hope that organizations interested in the welfare of the children of Vancouver will sit up, take no- tice and “stop passing the buck” ~ and get busy forcing the city, provincial and federal authori- ties to accept authority and Picket line. Southam behaviour.” A two-way correction bad typographical error got into an editorial note in last week’s issue of the Pacific Tribune. Having quoted from the ITU strike bulletin of Feb. 16 which said: “If the Southams were in Saskatche- Wan they would be compelled to bargain with the _ITU, but in British Columbia the Southams can do as they damn well please. . .”, we observed that: “. . . in British Columbia the Southams can do as they damn well please because union men do not respect the ITU That fact, and not the green utopian fields of Saskatchewan is the determining factor in We regret the careless error which garbled the editorial note and robbed it of its point. We make the Correction in detail in this issue, because the ITU Strike bulletin of Feb. 24 again serves up this ‘cuckoo’s egg’ omelette from Saskatchewan to its readers. We are more than happy to see CCF leaders Winch and Turner raising the issue of the ITU strike im the provincial legislature, but we still insist that _ Southam behaviour will only change, and victory for the ITU will only come WHEN UNION MEN RE- SPECT THE ITU PICKET LINE. > eee ‘linger Mines, _ FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1947 Gnainent start erecting low rental homes this spring. Mrs. Hutchison and her family are typical examples of the victims of the lack of acceptance of responsibility by every member of the city coun- cil, provincial and federal gov- ernments, and there can be found many ‘more examples which are at present unknown to the general» public in Van- couver. ; This deserted mother has wor- ked to provide food, clothing and shelter for her family while battling against sickness, the dread of the hérror of eviction and fear for the safety of her children who, whilst she was absent on one occasion, were menaced by the landlord in- vading her home and terrifying | the small children by his threats. Christmas Day for this family meant a christmas tree with no gifts, for upon an investigation by representatives from two or- ganizations on the afternoon of that day no toys were seen and fuel just sufficient to last two days during the bitter wea- ther. When are we, the women of Vancouver, going to cease be- ing hypocrites, throw off our inertia, come out of our com- fortable homes and really do something besides talk to force the beginning of a building scheme which will prevent such a disgraceful scene as was wit- nessed in that little home from occurring again. Women of Van- couver! How about a public meeting on this question, If you are interested, telephone me at FRaser 1317. EFFIE JONES, President, Tenants and Homeowners’ League. ‘Little woman’ is wise Editor, Pacific Tribune: Recently, the Independent Smelter Workers’ Union, a com- pany union, put out another of their fly stickers in Trail. Finks being always behind the times, do not know that fly stickers are becoming outmoded. Recent- ly, Mr, McLean, a company of- ficial, brought in the suggestion that the ‘little woman,’ mean- ing the miner’s wife, was asking her striking husband at Nor- anda, ‘Why are we striking?’ The very fact that Noranda miners went out on strike should make it quite obvious to Mc- Lean that the ‘little woman’ at Noranda is not a fink wife but a union wife. She knows that without union security there can be no domestic security. She also. knows that the only union security is to be found in a genuine trade union. ‘ She sees 2,500,000 acres in Ungava, Quebec, the rich nor- thern territory of her province being handed over to the Hol- an American-Ca- nadian monopoly firm for a mere $100,000 a year and a seven percent levy on_ profits. It is quite obvious to her that the bosses believe in Interna- tional unions of big business for the further exploitation of the workers. She and her: Am- erican sister know that by fighting together alongside their men in the unions, so much the sooner will there be domestic se- curity for the ‘little woman,’ her good man and her children. The miners’ wives, along with their menfolk have learned to distinguish between a bona fide fighting union like the IUMM& SW, and ‘the boss-sponsored set- up mentioned above. MOLLIE CROWE. Rossland, B.C, : é. Short Jabs by Ol’ Bill URING one of the meetings of the foreign secretaries, the splen-~ etic Byrnes made a speech, supposedly related to the matters under discussion. At its conclusion, he challenged Molotov to have it published in the Soviet pfess, an absurd and egotistical demand Deadly Parallel the Soviet Union, but if. ever there was one. Notwithstanding, it. was published, word for word, the following day, not cnly in the leading newspapers of in the local papers throughout the country: also. At the same time Molotov made a speech in which he exposed’ .and blasted the chauvinist imperialist content of Byrnes’ proposals. The N.Y. Times published a partial report of Molotov’s but not. another capitalist paper on the American continent printed it so- that Molotov’s arguments could be understood if they were printed~ at all. News agencies sent out to their affiliates, bowdlerized and, head-writers supply with misleading and distorted headlines. But no outline of the speech which might convey the meaning. of Molotov’s words to the American people was published anywhere » until the Soviet Information Bureau sent out copies of it in a: bulletin. Such is one difference between the capitalist press and the sec- tion of the press that does not do the bidding of Big Biz. There. are many other differences, which, taken collectivély, make their function essentially different, which in one case is to bolster reac- tion and in the other, to destroy it, Eddy Gilmore, A.P. correspondent in Moscow, saw the physical difference so clearly that he was compelled to write about it. “The Russians,” he writes, "do not have newsboys on the streets yelling out headlines, and if they did, the headlines would not be startling enough to halt a passerby as in would probably be about a new who had over-fulfilled his plan in a factory.” the United States. The headline blast furnace or some _comrade ~castrated reports which re-writemen could mangle some more and. 1 4 Now, isn’t that terrible. No murders; no sex crimes; no hold-ups or gang wars; no lynching of colored ‘people; no Bilbos; im fact, - no news. And on top of that the Soviet papers do not carry, displays of. advertising, no 95-cent days, no end-of-the-month sales; a few notices of what is on at the theatres and picture shows or the aorse races, that is all in the way of ads. ; 4 There is no sports section; no real estate supplement and no ‘business chances’ page for the slicksters whose efforts are bent. towards gypping the vets out of their dearly earned gratuities and the war-workers of their hard-won savings and, tell it not in Gath, no comics, no Li'l Abner, no. Alley Oop, no Dick Fracey, no Blondie, no nothin’. What a dreary outlook! Journalism without a soul, © what? And yet, says Gilmore, only the shortage of newsprint prevents . the Soviet press from: being “the biggest press in any land” but i with the supply of newsprint growing it may soon become “the world’s largest in a matter of. years.” But even without the great drawing cards of the American ; press the Soviet newspapers are read avidly. That is because it’ is the people’s own press, deals with their own problems and does: not have the obstacles to overcome that confront a workers’ press in a capitalist country. . mention of: paper shortage by “Gilmore signifies something different to what it does in the United States and Canada. An. American paper, ‘The Catholic Worker,’ comments on this news print question in a recent number: The paper maintains that there is a sufficient Paper Shortage manufactured to of all publ supply of newsprint being meet the reasonable needs ications in the U.S., but because of the lifting of controls which had assured all publications of a fair share of paper at a fair price, the existence of small papers © is now threatened by the hogs in the publishing business. These people who clamored for de-control, are now, in the name of ‘free enterprise,’ not only grabbing existing stocks of newsprint, but buying in advance, paper that has not yet been manufactured and at exorbitant prices. Two hundred large publications in the U.S. control 85 per- cent of the newsprint available. About 17,000 smali papers have to be content with the remaining 15 percent. At the end of November last, newsprint was selling in the States for $84 a ton. A month later, the price had risen to as high as $225 a ton, Only the wealthiest papers could buy paper at that price. This is only one of the methods by which the moulding of pub-— lic opinion is kept in the control of the monopolists—shutting the small papers out by making it impossible for them to carry on. And that moulding of public opinion!!! A recent plebiscite taken | among Canadian telegraph editors, named the four individuals in: Canada who had received the greatest space coverage in the Can- adian press during the year 1946. Russian traitor; Prime Minister The four were: Igor Gouzenko, W. L. Mackenzie King, Justice Minister St. Laurent and Mrs. Evelyn Dick, at the time under sen- tence of death for murder. Let us hope Prime Minister King and. his Minister of Justice felt proud of their place and the company in which they found themselves a j ournalistic selection. But that is how public opinion in the capitalist countries is moulded, space, space, and more space, and the public opinion formed is good or bad according to what goes into the space, and which is deter- mined by the class that owns and’ controls the press. If the capitalists control the paper the space will be utilized to further their interests. If the workers own the press it follows that the space will be useq in their. interests. Under the conditions out- lined above, however, the space the workers get will be smaller and must be used more thoroughly and every effort made to inorease it, not only to get a bigger share of the paper when there is a shortage but to get a bigger share of the space when there is no ' shortage of paper. That is why during the next two months the Pacific Tribune is engaged in a drive to raise $10,000 and $5,000 in subscriptions to make sure of that place in the hattle for space. . Our column has always done its share in this task of assuring - the continuation of our paper. The job used to be spread over two: drives at different times of the year; it is now centered in one drive and looks twice as big as before. That just means that we will do twice as much in this drive as in others. So all you people. ‘who are not on other committees, get in ‘with us some of the others how it is done. PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 5 - and let’s show _ ’