MASSEY COMMISSION

T! Rt. Hon. Vincent Massey, whose Royal Commis-
Sion on the development of the arts and ‘sciences
4m Canada has begun its hearings in Ottawa, says he
doesn’t like the word “culture” used in connection with
iS commission. “It suggests something highbrow and
Temote,” he said. “That is not the sort of thing we
intend to conduct.” (Readers may also recall that it
Was Massey who said, “Beware of voices that cry.
Peace, peace.’)
The WUniversity of Toronto chancellor is to be con-
Sratulated in hig determination not to conduct some-
thing “highbrow and remote.” It is almost. certain that
at least some of the briefs he and his four associates
eval hear, will be down to earth. Whatever conclu-
ons the commission arrives at, the material prepared
Y many and diverse groups in every part of the
Country for presentation, will provide not only a valu-
Able survey of the cultural life of Canada and its
development—or lack of development—over the years,
_ Put the possible centre around which a strong, pro-
Sfessive cultural movement can be developed.
Massey has set down a six-point program for the
Commission. It will study scholarship and research;
the relationship of the Canadian government to UNESCO
United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Org-
nization; museums and public archives; plans for
& National library and the problem of public records;
ations of the government to voluntary organizations
W receiving grants; broadcasting and television.
_ There will be sittings held in most Canadian cities
T the next months, although there is no indication
© commission ‘will visit any rural areas for first
Nd\ information,

‘elt it what some of the essential cultural needs of
© nation are.
Back in 1944, the House of Commons set up a
Committee on Reconstruction’ and Re-estab-
On June 21 of that year, the 16 leading
‘ groups pooled their resources ands pre-
Senteq a brief. Their recommendations were specific
8nd, for the most part, realistic.
b The first dealt with the need for a government
. Srey —the setting up of a governmental body for the
—“UPervision of all cultural activities.” Opinions varied
' tO the exact nature of such a body—and still do,
88 is evident in resolution of the Canadian Arts Coun-
farlier this year. But that some democratic govern-
enter arts authority should be set up is the almost
oe opinion of the cultural bodies. as
,. che second recommendation called for the “wide
“stablishment ur community centers.” It urged the
& ernment to set up a fund of $10,000,000 to arr
tha mMunities or parishes. It outlined in some detai

\)® &reat worth to the community such centers could
= Providing they were properly organized and demo-
tically operated.

ye the third major point was headed “The Arts in
national Life” aH called for housing and town plan-
..8) land improvement such as national parks and
meen: a national orchestral training center; state
tion €r; national library and national art gallery; 5
aig: “archives; extension of the Film Board; financ l
€ni to chartered cultural organizations and ea aig Me
ig ement to the improvement of industriel e-
“Cal : development and research—in crafts, technologi-
schol etch and experiment related to art in serued
larships and national prizes in all fields of
* & public information service “for the mplighieen
of ed the people about cultural matters, the Spee
bt ead in Canadian achievement and the stimula

Bey” |

Misgit, Sear ) that the Massey com-
cely to be expected tha

See can do Mech better than that; nor can it be

“ipated that the government would do anything —

but ay :
“SU file : it said that much.
it in the same pigeon-hole if The recom-

fight.
Meng at was lacking in 1944 was @ the
: ations : out of the effort,

Can were made and tithere the matter

ering Arts Council was born, Bu

compe thaps the government now want

ign Sitieaata it can implement, reco
do ©h more in keeping with presen
an pita and foreign affairs (UNESCO ,has. nee
lay USttument for the: propagation of American
; mare!) recommendations t
mov jpect:. to the coming assau
ee a : ted will cer-
Me Zovernment as presently constituted w

ah Not .tolerate a Sta for the liberalization ane
rat; °r the National Film Board; or any Fah rean>
veg °, 2tt8 program—not unless there can be orget
sy gg. & broad scale, inclusive of the labor mov
 “SSential,-a fight for it. ;

id

Actually, the government needs no commission to:

By JOHN STEWART

Fight for cultural development
a part of wider struggle

What price Aluminum?

66"E HE Aluminum Company of Canada has an-

nounced a further layoff of 175 employees.
This is in addition to the 150 employees laid off
two weeks ago,” reads a news item from King-
ston, Ont. : ;

And it looks as if the people of British Co-
lumbia who voted Coalition last June on the strength
of Premier Byron Johnson's high-blown plans for
establishing an aluminum industry in this proyince
were sold another false bill of goods.

“It’s aluminum or poverty,” asserted Attorney
General Gordon Wismer. And between layoffs:
and demanded pay cuts in the lumbering industry
on the Coast and layoffs in the aluminum indusiry
back East, it appears that what he should have
said was, “It’s the Coalition and poverty.’ That's
what the Pacific Tribune said.

For Massey’s special benefit ,since he shies away
from the word “culture,” here are definitions which
indicate ‘strongly that true culture is neither highbrow
nor remote; only the ruling class under capitalist so-
ciety makes it so. (Dr. J. C. Webster of the Canadian
Historical Society, in a paper on the development of
Canadian culture some years ago, said the reason our
culture had failed to develop as in most other coun-
tries, was because we lacked, prior to Confederation,
a “leisure class’. rich enough to-be cultured!) . :

The Oxford dictionary puts it neatly with th
words: “The application of labor or other means to
jmprove, correct, train or refine man’s physical or
mental condition .. . civilization.”

The Handbook of Philosophy, recently published,
puts it more clearly: “The complex of material and
spiritual goods created by the activity of mankind in,
the process of its social development; often used as

‘synonymous with civilization... Culture in a class

character. The direction of its development is deter-
mined by the interests of the ruling class.”

Thus, the fight on the cultural front for a demo-
cratic cultural program for Canada merges with the
general struggle for democracy and peace on the politi-
cal, on the trade union, on all other fronts. It is in-
separable from the general struggle, ;

~The Financial Post
admits it now!

HE Financial Post finally admitted last week what _
labor and progressives have been saying for over —
a year now, about the effects of the Marshall plan on—

Canadian exports, only to encounter—until now—the
scorn and derision of the big business interests for which
the Financial Post speaks. All along they have con-
tended that the Marshall plan assured Canada’s pros-
perity. :

But now the Financial Post says: ““. . . up to the

end of June, ECA has authorized more than $760 mil-
lions (U.S.) for European countries to spend in Canada.

. .. In the 12 months starting this July, which is the
period covered by the new Congressional appropriations,
it does not seem likely that Canada will receive more
than half this amount in ECA, funds. . . .

“Well over $400 millions were spent on Canadian
wheat before the United States government had to recog-
nize officially that wheat was in surplus in the U.S.,
thereby automatically cutting off authorizations for pur
chases in Canada. . . . :

“ECA will be quite unable to authorize any Euro-
pean country to buy what it needs in Canada if they
can get the same thing in the U.S. Already protests
have been heard from U.S. lumbermen, and a similar
outcry will certainly follow if any other commodity be-
comes exportable from the U.S.”

_ special privileges from the Middle Ages.

THE NATION By TIM BUCK

Vatican drive and
the Protestants

HREE weeks ago, I devoted this column to some

comments upon the sweeping Vatican decree order-
ing excommunication of all Catholics who were ad-
herents, supporters or followers of policies based on
Marxism. I pointed out that the clearly stated terms
of the decree made the parish priest the judge of
whether or not a practising Catholic should or should
not receive the rites of Church and the instructions
of the Vatican were that he should judge every parish-
ioner by his or her politics. In countries -such as
Poland, Hungary or Czechoslovakia, the decree even
empowered every parish priest to excommunicate any
Catholic who obeyed the government. I pointed out
that this must make it evident to thinking Catholics
in North America that the Vatican is seeking to ally
the church with the anti-democratic forces striving for
reaction and war.

It would be morally and politically wrong as well
as ridiculous to evade the fact that this is a culminat-
ing step in a lengthy and carefully measured re-orient-
ation of the general world policy of the Vatican,, the
aim and purpose of which is to place it squarely in
the camp of international finance capitalism against
the peoples who are building socialism in their own
countries.

In this connection, it is necessary to point out
that the change of Vatican policy necessary to place
is squarely in the camp of the imperialists headed by
Wall Street was a major operation. At the beginning

.of the Second World War the Vatican was officially

and publicly committed to the support of fascism—
and specifically of the fascist and Nazi governments.

The Vatican was allied by formal treaties with
the fascist government of Italy and Hitler’s govern-
ment in Germany. The Vatican had supported Mus-
solini’s war of imperialist aggression ag t Ethiopia.
When Hitler’s armies marched, prelates the Catholic
Church in Germany issued a pastoral letter to all
German Catholics in which they. placed themselves on
the side of Hitler in the following unmistakable words:

“In this decisive hour we admonish our Catholic
soldiers to do their duty in obedience to the Fuehrer
and to be ready to sacrifice their whole individuality.
We appeal to the faithful to join in ardent prayers
that Divine Providence may lead this war to blessed
success.” ‘

Immediately after the defeat of Hitler the Vatican
started to develop its new politica] line of alliance with
western finance capital (toward which it had previously
maintained a negative position) against the’ rising
forces of the people in Europe—particularly in coun-
tries such as Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary im
which the church had retained. unlimited .power and _

It was correct for me to draw attention to the
significance of the fact that the Vatican is making the

‘Catholic Church more and more an open instrument

for political action. It was correct for me to point .
out that one inevitable effect of using the Church so |
directly as a political instrument would be to open the
eyes of and to arouse large numbers of thinking mem=-
bers of the church, a tes é

What I did not realize when writing that column
was the fact that the desire to organize action against
the spread of the idea of peace and socialism it find-
ing powerful expression in the Protestant church also.
Some Protestant spokesmen are even calling for a
united front with the Vatican in its war against social-
ism—which means in support of the drive for war
against socialism. :

Dr. C. E. Sileox has recently issued ® public call
to non-Catholics to join in the Vatican’s campaign. In
an article in Toronto Saturday Night, Dr. Silcox en-
dorses the Vatican’s drive and declares that the Pope’s
decree and instructions “draw the line of battle.” He
glories in the hope that the papal pronouncement may
produce “tens of thousands of martyrs whose blood
may again prove to be the seed of the church.”

Dr. Sileox states his central thesis in the following
revealing example of modern philistinism: “In the early
days Christianity was ‘the heresy challenging the orth-
iodoxies — Jewish, Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Asiatic —
prevailing in the Mediterranean world and inevitably
risking the fate of all heresies which challenge estab-
lished beliefs and practices. But today Christianity
is the established orthodoxy challenged by the heresy
which, tragically enough, has seized temporal power
in a group of countries.”

“... Christianity, in its social teaching, must re-
pudiate the chimera of class warfare and the insistence
on a future equalitarianism. 4

“, .. If any ideology ignores this, it must expect
conflict—even at the barricades! The Cross is in the
field.” '

Every thinking Canadian will decide for himself or

“herself which side to be on in -the present historic:

struggle to determine whether mankind shall have
“Peace and Progress” or “War .and Reaction.” Just
as thousands of earnest Catholics will ignore the Pope’s
threat of excommunication, so the overwhelming major-
ity of democratic Protestants will ignore the fascist
pro-war appeals of ‘Dr. Silcox. But to simply ignore
the efforts to unite the churches in active support of
the warmongers will not prevent them from accom-
plishing their purpose. It is clear that Protestants no
less than Catholics who want their churches to stand

clearly on the side of peace and people’s progress will

have to act to defeat the warmongers within the church.
Dr. Silcox boasts that “the Cross is in the field.”
Democratic Protestants cannot evade the responsibility
for deciding which side it is to be on. ,

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—AUGUST 19, 19483—PAGE 9 __