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7" Review

TOM McEWEN,
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| Tom
McEwen

MOSCOW

WAS not long in Moscow before I
took a whirl around the new Metro,
an impressive addition, built since the

War, to the original subway. On this
New circuit the trip took me roughly
two hours.

There are 13 stations on this new line,
but stations is hardly the word. Palaces
Would be a more fitting description, for
that is precisely what they are—under-
Sround palaces, built for utility, for the
Preservation of Soviet craftsmanship in
artistic design, for a future which will
8ive unstintingly of its homage to 4
Slorious past.

Starting at the Mayakovsky station,
One of the last completed on the. pre
War subway, and named after ‘one of
Russia’s greatest poets, Vladimir Maya-
kovsky, the trip was like a journey
through a subterranean fairyland. This
Station, about twice the length of Van-
Couver’s CPR station, is built of red-
flecked: marble trimmed with nickel
Plate on each massive arch. The carv-
€d murals on each pillar depict the cul-
ture and art of the Soviet theatre.

_,.A four-track giant escalator, a full
block long, carries an endless stream of
Passengers to and from the subway

ains, ;
The Byelorussian Station is built with

Snow-white marble. These great cathed-
Tal-shaped pillars form a roof arch, with

4 high cupola between each arch. In

ach cupola is a ten foot brightly color-

. &d mosaic depicting the cultural, indus-

trial and agricultural life of the Bye

lorussian Republic.

Jn the Taganskava station, a deathless
historical theme, dedicated to the sol-

ier, sailor, airman and partisan defend-
ers of the Soviet Union, is wroght in

Porcelain murals framed in blue and

White marble.. At one end of this great

Station is a huge porcelain mural of the

Peoples of the Soviet Union thanking

their beloved Stalin for victory, and on

€ach massive pillar a mural dedicated
to the great heroes among the Soviet

People who died in defense of world
emocracy.

The Red Presnya station is of deep
Ted marble, softened by indirect light-
ing. Here the history of the 1905 revo
lution is depicted in mosaics. At its
€xtreme end stands a massive sculpture
Of Lenin and Stalin, architects of a new
Society.

_ Two other stations that particularly

impressed me are the Botanical Gardens

Station and the Komsomolskaya. The
st is a massive and colorful creation

Of deep red and pure white marble, with

Slazed' pottery murals, bordered in

bronze and copper. Each mural depicts

the floral and botanical profusion of

Soviet landscaped gardens and parks.
The Komsomolskaya station is dedi-

cated to the Young Communists of the

Soviet lands. Great. white marble pil-

lars carry red mosaic murals bordered

in bronze, each shaped like a huge .
Shield, depicting Russia’s centuries-long ~

Struggle for freedom and independence
and strength, devotion and creativeness
of youth as it forges a new world, aided
by the history of past struggles.

Moscow’s Metro is not built upon @
“how-much-will-it-cost” basis, but upon
the principle of bringing service, utility
and culture to the millions who daily
Tide its streamlined trains. _

Vancouver was christened w

here this drinking fountain now stands at Carrall
and Water streets.

Rearmed Germany threatens peace

JF the policy agreed at the Nine-
’ Power Conference is imposed on
Western Europe against, the wishes
of a majority of all its peoples, Hit-
ler’s generals will have a large mod-
ern army and air force and the Ruhr
millionaires will have a huge modern

arms industry.

How will this power be used? For.

ace? All history argues against it.
fitler’s phrases on the lips of his

generals reveal their aggressive de-

een
third world war what they failed to
achieve in the second.

All this makes a mockery of Ex-
ternal Affairs Minister Lester B. Pear-
son’s statement, echoing John Foster

Dulles, ‘I think we have done a good ©

week's’ work for peace.”’ oe
Yet it is only mine years since the
Potsdam Conference decided to dis-

‘mantle the arms industry in Ger-

many, solemnly agreeing, “The

heir hopes of achieving in a

maintenance and production of all
aircraft and all arms, ammunition
and implements of war shall be prev-
ented.”

Now, adopting the Hitler lie of
“defense against Communist aggres- ,
sion,’ the St. Laurent government
helps to tear up the Potsdam agree-
ment.

Control of West German rearma-
ment can be effective only where
there is determination to enforce it.
But the Eisenhower administration
is determined only upon one point,
to rearm West Germany.

Rearming West Germany does not
solve Germany’s problem. It only
aggravates it. It presents an obstacle
to reunification of Germany on a
democratic peaceful basis and creates
new tensions, new dangers of war.

Canada’s signature to the London
agreement does not advance peace, but
endangers it.

The LPP provincial convention

ROM our very beginnings, we
F;; British Columbia have been
aware of our vast natural re-
sources, conscious that from them
we could create a great future for
our province as part of a, great
nation. :

We have seen these resources
recklessly exploited and squander:
ed to the enrichment of a few
monopolies and we have seen.
their development retarded by
these same monopolies. Now,
when these resources, developed
in a pattern of world trade, could
provide jobs for thousands of our
people, we see them being handed
to the ifterests of a foreign pow
er, the United States, by the gov
‘ernments to whom we have en-
trusted them.

No wonder the anger of our
people is mounting as we see our

birthright being alienated. No
wonder the cry is growing for a
halt to this policy which denies
our future.

All of this makes the conven-
tion of the B.C.-Yukon section of
the Labor-Progressive party in
Vancouver this weekend the
concern of every honest citizen, _
for the LPP, alone of all political
parties, has raised its voice against
this treason to the people’s inter-
ests.

Not since the days of the Yale
convention and the fight to bring
B.C. into Confederation has this
province faced a more critical per-
iod. In its deliberations the LPP
will have the support of all those
who look to it as the champion
today of the century-old dream of
British Columbia developed by its
people for its people.

Hal
Griffin

FOR a fascinating glimpse of Canadian «
life and accomplishments over the
four and a half centuries of our history
let me recommend a little book first pub-
lished. in 1947, Unusual Facts of Cana-
dian History ‘by William L. Styles. 4

Here, compiled by a painstaking re-
searcher, are the facts of our past, some
well known and some obscure, some sig-
nificant and some inconsequential, but.
all part of our colorful story.

For instance:

“The beaver was Canada’s first na-
tional emblem. Originally suggested by
a governor of New France (Canada)’ in
1673, the beaver was in use until 1821
when the amalgamation of the Hudson’s
Bay and North West companies caused
a diversion of the fur trade from ‘the
St. Lawrence waterway to Hudson Bay, -
with financial losses to merchants in
Lower Canada. As a result, the maple
leaf came into favor, particularly follow-
ing its acceptance by the influential St.
John the Baptist Society in 1834, with
formal acceptance by federal authorities
during Confederation.”

And elsewhere: :

“The maple leaf, when worn during
the Rebellion of 1837-8, was regarded as
the insignia of disloyalty by those op-
posed to this uprising in Lower Canada.”

The book covers a wide range of sub-

_ jects from the first school in Nova Scotia

(1780) and the first permanent theatre
in Montreal (Theatre Royal in 1825) to
name changes — British Columbia was
officially New Caledonia from 1806 to
1858. ;

is la = Bees 3 ee

One fact which is not in Unusual Facts
of Canadian History but which might

-well have been included is ‘that when

the Treaty of Paris (1763) was under, dis-
cussion the British government serious-
ly debated whether it should retain the
newly conquered French possessions in
Canada or exchange them for the French-
held West Indian island of Guadeloupe.
The thinking behind this proposal was |
expressed by the Duke of Bedford, who
said, “I do not know whether the neigh-

‘borhood of the French to our Northern

Colonies was not the greatest security
of their dependence in the Mother Coun-
try who, I fear, will be slighted by them
when their apprehensions of the French
are removed.”

In the end, the British government de-
cided to retain Canada, but for strategic
rather than economic reasons. Eas

The West Indies were then the mos
profitable of all Britain’s possessions. In
1790 British investments there were esti-
mated to be, £70 million and their trade
with Britain was almost double that of
the fabulous East India Company. The
temptation to add the rich French island

of Guadeloupe to British possessions was »

strong. ‘

The British government wrongly calcu-
lated that the danger to the British Am--
erican colonies from Canada, if restored
to France, was greater than the danger
of a revolt of the American colonists.
And only twelve years later the Ameri-
can colonists proved how wrong the
British government had been.

But in the West Indies, where the
wealthy British planters, unlike the Am-
erican colonists, were an extension of
the British capitalist class and not a
newly emergent rival there was no coun-
terpart of the American Revolution. Only
now is the demand for self-government
and independence coming in the British
West Indies, in British Honduras and
British Guiana. 3

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — OCTOBER 15, 1954 — PAGE 5