Review

“= WO Cuban trade union leaders,

© invited to attend the 18th An-
nual Convention of the United
Fishermen & _ Allied
Union whih opened Saturday, have
been refusea permission to enter
Canada.

A curt telegram from the Exter-
nal Affairs Department in Ottawa
notified the UFAWU that the
Canadian Embassy in “Havana
has been instructed not. to issue
visas for Cuban citizens named”.

No reasons given, no explana-
tion, no specious excuses: just a
typical Tory lowering of Canada’s
Iren Curtain on fraternal trade
union delegates from the Republic
ef Cuba. This while our ageing
External Affairs Minister Howard
Green is in Geneva orating about
disarmament, peace, and the ur-
gent need of international good
fellowship in order that a nuclear-
tense world should breathe a little
easier.

by
Deeds vs words?

Workers’

Many Canadian trade unionists
have visited Cuba during recent
months. ‘Fhere they found no ob-
stacles to free entry into the coun-
{ry and were treated with warm
hospitality, respect and friendship.

Canada trades with Cuba, (de-
spite open and arrogant U.S. op-
pesition) and perhaps not as much
as the Canadian people wish, but
at least we trade. The Cuban
people are not regarded as enemies
of Canada, or vise versa. But when
{he issue of international working-
«lass~ solidarity and _ fraternity
crops up. down comes the Tory
Iren Curtain.

Since this sort of thing has he-
come common practice of the Dief-
enbaker government, it is high
time organized Jabor demanded the
removal of this shameful Iron
Curtain for good. It is not only an
insult to workers from other lands:
but Canadian workers as well.

Editorial comment...

REEDOM of the Press”? How.

often have we heard that cry
from the monopoly press when
seme minor governmental edict.
got in the way of their scribbling?
And how often do we hear them

lamenting the loss of ‘freedom of.

the press’ in the countries of So-
cialism? Or, as the Vancouver Sun
is now doing in its ‘inspired’ series
en Cuba; exercising its ‘freedom
of the press’ in cynical distortion
and misrepresentation.

When however, New York editor
of The Worker, James E. Jackson,
is thrown in prison for a six
months term for defying the U.S.
fascist McCarran Act, these ‘free-
dom of the press’ champions ob-
serve a deathly silence.

“Dees the editorial policy of
The Worker reflect the viewpoint
of the Communist Party of the
USA ... and do Communist lead-
ers ever suggest the subject mat-
ter of The Worker editorials?”
barks the McCarran Inquisition,
ane answers its own questions with
a six-month prison sentence.

One might as well ask does the

Everyone will agree with
Khrushchev wken ho said this
week, “disarmament is the only
sensible defens2 agains! rockets.”

Pacific Tribune

Editor — TOM McEWEN
Associate Editor—MAURICE RUSH
Business Mgr.—OXANA BIGELOW

Published weekly at
Room 6 — 426 Main Street
Vancouver 4, B.C.
Phone MUtual 5-5288

Subscription Rates:
One Year: 4.00 — Six Months: $2.25

Canadian and Commonwealth coun-
tries (except Australia): $4.00 one
year. Australia. United States and
all other countries: $5.00 one year.

Anthcrized as second class mail by
the Post Office Department, Ottawa,
and for ehexment of pestage in cash

editorial policy of the Vancouver:
Sun or Province reflect the view-
point of Big Business, and does
BB ever suggest the subject, mat-
ter of their editorials?

_ Why question the obvious, even
when the similarity ends there?

Today it is The Worker that is
being gagged. ‘Tomorrow, with
such a monopoly-dictated ‘freedom
of the press’, it could be the Pacific
Tribune. The lesson is crystal clear
——meore steam in the ‘PT’ drive.

EDITORIAL PAGE

‘Union picket,

*

S. seaman Clayton Stratton,

obviously a “goon” with 2
murder assignment in Canada, was
shot and killed by his victim, 62-
vear-old Gustav Strathie. A jury
ruled the thug killing “justifiable
homocide”’.

At the time of his death this
U.S. goon was facing a charge in
Vancouver of assaulting a Retail,
Wholeszle and Department Store
then engaged in
“picketing” the Teamster Union
Hall. When arrested for this as-
sault, Stratton was bailed out by
Seafarers’ International Union
(SIU) port agent Rod Heinekey.

-Aside from his alleged SIU con-
nections, the Port Angelus, Wash.
police were aware of Stratton’s
Eossession of a gun. Moreover, it
would appear that this armed goon
managed to pass a Canadian Cus-
toms and Immigration check point,
not only armed but with a quantity
at dynamite and detonator caps in
his car, later discovered by Van-
couver police in Stratton’s room,

From this it would seem that
eur much-touted “unde fended
border ’could do with a bit more
defense against. the entry of U.S.
gunmen and goons into Canada!

One disturbing feature of this
sordid business of U.S. goons and
e2angsters having free access into

 Canada‘is the recent statement by

NDP-CE€¥ Alex ‘MacDonald in the
Legislature, urging a “labor de-
partment investigation” of the in-
cident, and proposing that if any
unions are involved, thee should
have their “certification rights”
cancelled, because in MacDonald’s

A baa ‘ob.

: Comment

opinion, they are “not a legitima
union’. This backhanded slap a
Canadian unions is_ill-considere
and highly unwarranted.

This a case for the unions then
selves te settle, not by outside “
vestigation” or interference, bu
by rank-and-file determination at
decision. Where such outside “i
vestigation” has come into plat
the rare incidence of union g09
ang gangsterism has been utilize
tc smear and attack the who
trade union movement, as union
like the Teamsters, Mine-Mill an
others well know from bitter e
perience.

SIU gangsterism and the evils
which have flowed from it to thé
detriment of Canadian union
would never have gained even #
toe-hold in Canada, were it not f9
the historical fact that the Liberal
zovernment of Mackenzie King
(and Jater the Louis St. Laurent
Pearson twins), together with the 7
powerful Shipping FederatioP |
monopoly, welcomed the SIU and
its hoedlum tactics into Canad
for the express purpose of smash-
ing a militant Canadian Seamen®
Union.

The fact that the bosses and
their xovernments now “deplore
zangsterism doesn’t mean they
dowt appreve of it; but onlv whett
needed to do a smear job on union

The U.S. seaman goon got what
he justly deserved, what he haé
come to mete out to others. If an
further “investigation” is neede
that is a job for the trade unions
--. united in their resolve to kee
U.S. gangsterism out of Canada.

Tom
McEwen

y their most recent dynamiting
B of a vital link in the Kootenay
Lake power installations, (the lat-
est in a whole series of bombings
Doukhobor criminals have created
and arsonist fires), a handful of
widespread loss and hardship to
the people of a whole community.

By this wanton act they have
also struck their own people of the
Doukhobor community of B.C..a
criminal body blow.

Religious fanatics? No. Pure and
simple criminals and provocateurs
who blindly seek redress for long-
standing sccial grievances by acts
of terror and violence against their
fellow Canadians.

It is not the purpose of this col-
umn to recite the multiple injus-
tices imposed upon sections of the
Doukhobor people in B.C. These
are numerous and of long duration.
In attemniez adjustments or “‘solu-
tions” by successive B.C. govern-
ments, each has turned in a worse
perfcrmance than its predecessor,
with the Socreds probably topping
tre lot for shert-sighted stupidity
and bigotry.

It can also be said of the vast
majority cf Doukhobor people
that they have borne injustice and
extreme provocation at the hands .
of constituted authority, with infin-
ite patience and humility. Hence
it is terribly wrong to condemn a
whole community because of the
terrorist and criminal acts of viol-
ence of a few.

In the past this paper has con-

‘sistently defended the Doukhobor

people in their struggles against
obvious wrongs at the hands of
government. We have done so de-
spite strong disagreement with
much of their religious ritual and
customs, and with even stronger
disagreement anent their socalled
“spiritual leaders”, including the
present potentate now living (on
their sweat) in Uruguay. We have
supported the Doukhobor people
in their struggles to have wrongs
righted because they are working
people, hard working people who
have known little else during the
past century save exploitation, per-
secution and hardship at the hands

of tzarist and “Christian” govern-
ments.

Moreover, it should be stated
that had the present Socred gov-
ernment listened to the numerous
pleadings of sections of the Douk-
hobor people about the activities
of some of the criminal minority
in their midst, acting as “agents
provocateur” and worse, some of
the crimes committed by these ele-
ments might not have happened.

An “Open Letter”, dated March
10, 1962, and signed by all mem-
bers of the Fraternal Council of the
Union of Christian Communities
and Brotherhood of Reformed
Coukhokors, was delivered person-
ally to  attorney-general Robert
Bonner in the Hume Hotel, Nelson,
B.C. on that date.

This letter is in reply to Bon-
ner’s appeal for aid or information
which would “help the Kootenays
in the current terrorist problem”, —
and gives the names and addresses
~f{ six persons “responsible for the
depredations in the district.” Copies
of this letter had also been for-
warded to sections of the daily
press, Members of Parliament,
Minister of Justice Fulton and
other public agencies and person-—
ages.

Since the information contained
in this letter, according to the
Fraternal Council, has been for-
warded to the attorney-general on
previous occasions, the strange
silence on its content can only
elicit an inquiring “Why?”, and
which should be heard above the
shattering blasts of criminal dyna-
miters in the Kootenays. At least
the Fraternal Council of the Douk-
hobor people seem to think so.

Surely in a community harassed
and terrorized: by criminal dyna-—
miters and arsonists, the proffered
aid of its people in tracking dow?
such criminals is the best assurance
cf its speedy termination. But at-
torney-general Bonner seems t0
think differently?

i aiarch 23, SSSh Pe eee pide eeeres: