' Oust the

coalition

~The fight |
to elect 8
CCF government

Condensed from.

a report by

NIGEL MORGAN»

EACTION is on the offensive in British Columbia today.

The Johnson-Anscomb

Coalition, completely under the domination of the big monopolists in the lumber,
mining, hydro-eiectric, and petroleum industries, has virtually tossed to the winds the
The same monopolists who are pressing the provocative
and aggressive plans tor world domination and if necessary war, the same monopolists who _ ‘inance-capital.
are hastening another depression through their ruthless profiteering are the ones who

‘wital interests of the people.

are cailing the shots for British
Columbia’s reactionary Coalition
government, Big business daily is
getting a stronger hold on the
legislative controls of this prov-
ince, and is exercising that hold
in a more and more reactionary

and arrogant way against the

people’s interest.

First, in 1947, it was the in-
famous, repressive Bill 39 and the
virtual giving-away in perpetuity
of our great forest resources at
the legislative session last spring.
Then came the government's re-
fusal to meet the highly justified
demand for school tax relief for
the inequitably overtaxed farm.

and rural population that follow-

ed a still-mounting list of be-
trayals to the big monopolies in
civic transportation, light, gas,
milk, insurance, fuel and petro-
leum fields, through the allowance
of unwarranted and unprincipled
price-gouging. And now, the most
far-reaching of all, the proposed
introduction of a  three-percent
sales tax, which actually means
another slash in wages and farm
income, another direct cut in the
aready meager pension allow-
ances.

It is clear that the important
and drastic changes that have
taken place in the national po-
litical arena and on a world scale
are finding full reflection in this
period of sharpening reaction in

our province, It is a matter of

fact and no longer of speculation
that the return of the Coalition

government in the last provincial

election, with increased Tory
strength, signalized a sharp turn.
to the right and the yunleashing
of a determined attack against _
the living standards, labor and

_ civil rights, and the welfare and
- security of our people. The Coali-
 tion’s return for another five

years after the next election must
be prevented.
Unity is clearly the imperative

3 need, if defeat of the reactionary

Coalition is to be achieved within
the next two years. No serious
apponent of anti-labor legislation,
no serious advocate of taxation
and social reform, and no serious
opponent of the subjugation of
British Columbia’s workers and
farmers to Wall Street's exploita-
tion and its war-mongering plans.

‘ean afford to ignore that fact

Unity of labor and the people
against reaction, that is the way —

PES

to democratic advance in the
province in 1948, and stop the
dangerous drift toward reaction,
fascism and war.

That is why we say that every
other consideration must be sub-

ordinated to the question of de-

feat of the Johnson-Anscomb Co-
alition and the repudiation of its

reactionary policies. That is why

the Labor-Progressive Party will
do everything possible to further
united action with the CCF, whose
electoral supporters represent the
most numerous group of progres-
sive-minded British Columbians
opposed to the Johnson-Anscomb
Coalition and its big business pro-
gram. -

That is how we can most real-
istically and most effectively act
today to solve the immediate
economic, social, and political

problems, and bring ever wider

masses into motion to reaize, on
the basis of their own experience
and through the vanguard role of
our party, the socialist way for-
ward to the highest stage of dem-
ocracy and progress.

e ‘

Johnson-Anscomb = Coali-
tion represents British, Colum-
bia’s fifty big financial moguls. It
was created to hold the line for
them politically and block the
achievement of a people’s p
gram. It must be replaced.

Let no one underestimate the

real dangers to labor and our
democracy inherent in the ex-
tremely reactionary Bill 39. No
one should treat lightly the men-
ace to living standards entailed in
the policy of granting untrammel-
led free rein to the “private en-
terprisers” to intensify their mon-
opolistic price-gouging.

Nor should any one pass over
with indifference the threat to
democracy contained in the in-
intensified red-baiting attacks on

the trade unions, the CCF, and

LPP, which have been used by
Coalition spokesmen in the recent
byelections, as well as in the leg-
islature and in newspaper and ra-
dio campaigns. Used -to becloud
and confuse real issues, to weak-
en and isolate the left-wing move-
ment, it is aimed at cutting back
drastically the wartime economic
and organizational gains of the
labor movement.

In B.C, the trade unions have

issues, to distract attention from

been singled out for special at-—

tack. Red-baiting is designed to
break up labor’s ranks on false

the growing grievances of the
people and dhe drive to war, and
to make it more difficult for the
unions to battle for higher wages
today and against mass unem~
ployment tomorrow.

It is certainly true that today —

more millions are aware of and
interested in socialism than at
any time in human history. The
idea of socialism is a world-wide,
enormously powerful ideal, which
is mgving millions, and will in-
spire nation after nation to
mighty achievements, Hence the
need for trying to discredit so-
cialism and recreate the vile
spawn of fascism, domestically as
well as internationally.

Not all the red-baiting in the
world will stop the march of
economics, ideas and _ political
movements, But a vital part of
those advancing movements is the
necessity of fighting red-baiting
and race-baiting, warning the
workers against it, showing its
real objective, and particularly
exposing its effects inside the la-
bor movement.

The current dangerous drive to
set worker against worker and
farmer and veteran against union,
to cover up the monopolists’ big
steal and as a prelude to plung-
ing nations into war again must
receive more careful considera-
tion in British Columbia.

Aut the reactionary measures

of the Coalition government
are bound to worsen the economic
position of the masses of work-
ing and farming people, by reduc-
ing their income and increasing
the inflationary pattern being

«

sive drive of the Anglo-American
imperialists for world domina-
tion which threatens the peace
and creates an unstable world sit-
uation, hampers the development
of world trade and restricts the
opportunities of Britésh Colum-
bia’s industry and agriculture in
the world markets,

It is these policies which are
responsible for the sudden de-
cline in important Canadian man-
ufactures on announcement of the
Abbott Plan; for the loss of im-
portant lumber orders from Brit-
ain, which market formerly ac-
counted for about one third of
B.C.’s lumber production; for the
loss of the British apple and egg
market, which has necessitated
an order cutting agricultural pro-
duction in the former field by one
quarter; for the loss of important
outlets for our fishery. products,
which brought about reductions
by as much as one half in prices
for certain types of fish last sum-
mer, and today threatens the
whole future of the vital salmon
canning industry.

By eliminating the possibility:
of selling the more valuable man-
ufactured product, the Abbott
Plan creates the very thing which
the King government pretends it
is trying to eliminate in its so-
called dollar-saving program.

The move towards freeing trade
is a correct move, but it must be
based upon reductions in duties
on manufactured goods or it
means the further shackling of
industrial development, the im-
mediate loss of vital flelds of em-
ployment, and a “colonial” role
for the Canadian people as the
“hewers of wood and the draw-

ers of water” for Wall Street

In the decisively important
lumber industry (from which
three out of every five of the

. people in B.C., directly or indirect-

ly, derive their livelihood) the ex-
port quota of logs has been dou-
bled by a recent concession of the
King government to the U.S. state
aepartment. Of the new quota of

100,000,000 b.f.m., 17,500,000 b.f.m.

is fir and 82,500,000 bf.m. is to
consist of hemlock for pulp man-
ufacture.

According to a survey of the
Bureau of Economics of the De-
partment of Trade and Industry
at Victoria, the number of man-
days of direct labor required to
convert 1000 bf.m. of standing
timber to exportable products is
as follows: For logs—1; newsprint
4; kraft paper—4%; and paper
bags—10.

Thus, as a result of the govern-
ment's doubling of the export
quota of pulp logs and the con-
sequent decrease in the export of
finished materials, B.C. is losing
123,750 man-days of employment
for not converting it into news-
print here; 144,375 man-days for
not converting it into kraft pap-
er; or 371,250 man-days because
of failure to manufacture it into
paper bags. a

And 371,250 man-days of em-
ployment means jobs for over
1200 B.C. workers on a basis of
$00 working days a year on this
cne item alone—the increase in
the export of hemlock logs.

These are decisive factors in

the future of British Columbia's —

economy, which is so completely
dependent on the basic industries
of lumber, agriculture, mining and
fishing. . They are factors which
are hastening and deepening the
already-maturing cyclical econ-
omic crisis. These are the factors
which are contributing to the re-

woven by the profiteers. All 'this cently announced 24,000 jobless—

ean only hasten and intensify the
economic crisis, the first pains of
which the people are already feel-
ing. ,

This process is already to be
seen in the economic sabotage of
the monopolies, which restricts
production and drives monopoly
prices skywards—together with.
the intensified offensive of big,
business\upon trade union rights,
and standards of the masses,
which reduces the people's in-

come and narrows the home mar-—

ket.
It is to be seen in the aggres-

a 14 percent boost in unemploy-
ment in B.C. over the last year
at the same period.

‘. e ‘

so-called “aus‘erity”’ pro-

posals of the Abbott Plan
have already resulted’in an imme-
diate and severe reduction in liv-
ing standards for the people. Of
greatest importance to the strug-
gle to stave off economic crisis
and halt inflation is the campaign
by labor for wage increases, and
‘by labor, farmers and the people
for price controls.

Soaring prices, particularly in
foods (over 82 percent) and cloth-
ing (nearly 60 percent) make this
struggle an urgent necessity. An
arrogant federal government, and
an unconcerned legislature have
both ignored the people's need,
condoned and in some cases or-

dered price boosts, in spite of the

fact that more than half of the
wage and salary earners in Can-
ada are so poorly paid that they
are below the income-tax-paying
category.

The level of production in 1947
was the highest in Canadian his-
tory; so were corporation profits.
Prices and the cost of living are
rising faster than at any time
previously, and in fact, in the last
three months of 1947, the cost
of-living index rose as much as
during any full year since 1921.

Inflation, ruthless profiteering
and austerity are all ushering in
a new wave of economic and po-
itical struggles.

. The Abbott Plan, and not only
the obvious shackling of our in-
dustrial development and elimi-
nation of needed market outlets,
but the very political and mili-
tary alliances with Wall Street
imperialism from which it flows,
spells ruination for British Co
lumbia.

‘HE fight of the Labor-Progres-
sive Party nationally is not a

‘fight to press King to carry out

his discarded promises to the
Dominion - Provincial Conference
in 1945. It is a fight to rid Can-
ada of the King government, and
the reactionary domestic and for-
eign policy it has become idtenti
fied with.
Likewise, in B.C., it would be
entirely wrong to have any illu-
sion that by mobilizing the energy
of the labor movement there is
even the slightest possibility of
getting the formerly more liberal
elements of the Johnson-Anscomb
Coalition to carry out the prom-
ises which were deceitfully ad-
vanced in the last provincial elec-
tion campaign on social and
labor legislation, reconstruction,
public works, the development of
a steel and other long-needed in-

dustrial projects. For in spite of
some petty quibbling and oppor-.

tunist manoeuvering on the sur
face over leadership and cabinet
advantages, there is not a tittle
of difference between the Liber-

als and Tories of B.C. on political —

-perspectives or basic policies.
They have chosen the same re-
actionary road as their federal
parties under King and Bracken.

Defeat of the Liberals and Tor-
ies provincially would have im-
portant national repercussions.
The fight now is to defeat the
old-line party spokesmen and by
every seat in municipal, provin-
cial and federal arenas we can

achieve their replacement, we will _

lessen the stranglehold of the big
vested interests and Wall Street
imperialism on the people of this
province. :
Clearly the people’s needs,
gently demand broad popular
unity at the polls. The coalition

representatives of big business ca
can and must be defeated. That

is why we say holdly and with-
out reservation every other con-
sideration must be subordinated

to the question of the coalition’s —

ouster.

_ It is because of these consider- —

ations we propose that in the
event of a provincial election
‘during 1948 the LPP will: :

@ Subordinate all other con-
siderations to the pressing need

to achieve unity of action at the
polls to defeat the Tory-Liberal

bloc and to elect a CCF govern-
ment. , :

@ Call upon the people and