reer

Vs

Review. *

The supreme issue

ae opens January
14. The prime question be-
fore this session is how it will re-
spond to the supreme. issue of
peace or war; to continue along
the path of a suicidal arms race
with its inevitable disaster, or pro-
vide leadership to Canada — and
the world — in blazing a new path
to total disarmament and lasting
peace.

Among all the big problems
facing this session of. parliament,
this issue is by far the most vital,
now, and for the future. The pro-
posals for peace contained in the

appeal of the Supreme Soviet of
the USSR to the parliaments of
the world, and implicit in the far-
reaching proposals for total dis-
armament made by Nikita
Khrushchev in his historic address
te the United Nations Assembly,
point the way.
That is the prime issue before
parliament. All others are secon-
dary. If courageously and sincere-
ly sought, in keeping with the will
of the Canadian people, the road to
total disarmament and peace can
and must be found. Any other path
leads to nuclear destruction.

Those ‘days lost

HRISTMAS week Labor Min-
ister Lyle Wicks gave out
with the customary tabulation of
“days lost” through strikes in B.C.
in 1959. It was all very interesting
and confirms the Chamber of Com-
merce viewpoint that if there were
no unions and no strikes in B.C.
this province would be a monopol-
ist’s utopia. Even with these “days
lost,” under a Socred government,
it almost is.

In his “days lost” dithyramb,
however, the minister forgot to
say anything about the days,
weeks, months and years “lost”
by B.C.’s jobless army, now rated

at 60,000 more or less, and ‘still:

growing.

The “days lost” hunting for a
job that doesn’t exist; the “days
lost” waiting for Tory and Socred
promises of “prosperity” to hatch
out; the “days lost” for the jobless
standing in long lines around city
missions, flop houses and similar
“charity” dives, waiting for a
handout to assuage hunger and
cold. A situation in which not only
days are “lost,” but working class

‘morale, dignity and independence

to boot.

In every major Canadian city
thousands of jobless line up daily
for some small measure of relief
to keep body and soul together.

Pacific Tribune

Editor — TOM McEWEN

Managing Editor — BERT WHYTE

Published weekly at
Boom § — 426 Main Street
Vancouver 4, B.C.

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Phone MUtual 5-5288

Over the Christmas week Toronto
alone reported some 25,000 spend-
ing “lost” days for a handout. .

It is a fair guess that for every
day “lost” through strike action,
ten are lost through enforced un-
employment, because the mon-
opoly system the minister speaks
for finds it most profitable that
way. Perhaps it would be best were
the minister himself to “get. lost”
during these annual dissertations
on “lost days.’

D

| EDITORIAL PAGE * -

‘m=F{E} Supreme Soviet of the
aS USSR hopes that parlia-
ments and parliamentarians of all
countries will, on their part, do
everything possible to rid the peo-
ples of the horrible scourge of the
arms drive, achieve disarmament
and open to entire mankind the
path to eternal peace.”

While holidaying at Augusta,
Georgia, with his top economic
and military advisors, U.S. Presi-
dent Eisenhower issued.a grave
public announcement. Made in the
dying hours of 1959, when voices
everywhere were being lifted in
hope for the victory of peace in
1960, the, U.S. president said: “We
(the U.S.) are free to resume nu-
clear tests at any time.”

The period of “voluntary sus-
pension of nuclear tests” agreed
upon by the U.S., Britain and the
Soviet Union,-covering a period of
14 months, terminated on Decem-
ber 31, 1959, and with it came the
Eisenhower threat “to resume nu-
clear tests at any time.”

Such a statement, coming when
it did among Christmas “Peace on
Earth” festivities, and just two
weeks before the Big Three power
talks on a nuclear ban agreement
is due to open in Geneva, is not
only a grave threat to the world’s

Ike's nuclear threat

peoples, but comes as a form of
political blackmail to stymie and
obstruct successful nuclear ban
talks in Geneva. In essence U.S.
imperialism is saying: “If you
don’t accept our formula we'll re- —
sume nuclear tests, and to hell —
with you.” 3

In Britain the U.S. president’s
nuclear threat has caused grave
concern in parliamentary and
labor circles. Some have described
it as “a provocative coldwar blast”
aimed at scuttling successful Gen-
eva and summit talks. Labor MP
Konni Zilliacus declared that if the —
U.S. resumes nuclear tests “the

Americans will brand themselves ~

as the global Herods of the mod-
ern world.” :

How sharp in contrast this nu-—
clear threat of Eisenhower’s to
resume H-bomb tests when they
feel like it, and the patient, con-
sistent and tireless efforts of the
Soviet government and its leading —

“spokesmen for a world-wide pro-.
gram of total disarmament, and
an end to the manufacture, testing
and use of all nuclear weapons of
destruction.

It is time Ottawa began express-
ing strong opposition to this brand —
of “freedom” which, aside from ~
obstructing peace, could incinerate —
our people.

Tom
McEwen |

HE year 1960 begins a momen-

tous decade in the history of
mankind. Of that we can be very
sure, even if we are unable to
forecast details.

In all the vast network of pub-
lic information (and misinforma-
tion), TV, radio, press, news com-
mentators, heads of state, high-
placed personages of one sort or
another, right down to the all-im-
portant ‘‘man-on-the-street,” peace
was the all embracing thought for
1960 and the decade ahead.

The hope that, . whatever else,
mankind would find in the emer-
gence of the 60’s the fulfilhment
of a centuries-old idéal.

Not all the “analyists” spoke a
common language, but many, com-
pelled by the universal “magic”
of the common people to talk of
peace, referred to the birth of
1960 and a new decade as _ the
“year of great indecision,’ the
“year of peace with strength,” and
so on. Thus, garnishing their fine
words with the evil dressing of

-coldwar, but spread a shade more

thinly as they move hesitatingly
- towards that historic first Summit
of the ’60’s, and where all human-
ity can see them in all their glory
—or nakedness, in that epic
' struggle of the peoples to banish
war from the earth forever.

If the question were put square-
ly, “What is the weakest link in
Canada’s fight for peace?” the
answer would have to be just as’
forthright. Not a Diefenbaker, a
Bennett, a Winch or a Coldwell,
but a million-strong labor move-
ment, deliberately barred from
taking its rightful place in this
titanic struggle.

Read the pages of numerous in-
ternational trade union journals
published in U.S. headquarters. In
editorials, news cartoons, etc., the
Dulles-Truman-McCarthy opium of.
coldwar is deeply embedded. It is
the official voice of scores of high-
salaried bureaucrats whose living
standards, modes of life, and ideas,
long ago separated them from the
wage workers they presume to
lead.

On the pages of these journals
one sees the anti-Socialist class
bias of a corrupted hierarchy
depicted in vicious and hateful
crudity, the facts of history distort-
ed, and a ready acquiesence with a
‘ruling caste H-bomb mentality.

For rank - and - file organized
labor the lessons to be derived
from such journals is qa simple and
direct one; fhe need to get into

the struggle for peace in the’ 60’s
—a struggle upon which all else
inseparably hinges. The need to
purge this coldwar poison from
the body politic of labor, by active
participation in this most decisive
of all struggles.

To put it in a nutshell for 1960,
labor must cease to be a bystander
(even a “sympathetic” one); and
begin down in its own grassroots,
in its own right and_interest, ‘to ~
see peace as a changing economy ~
in which the labors of man can be
put to useful, creative, objective -
and prosperous use.

A new era dawns with 1960, the -
era of the “decisive 60’s” for
peace and human wellbeing. An
era seen long ago by the English
poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley in his
Queen Mab:

“KR brighter morn awaits the hu-
man day,

When every iransfer of Earth’s
natural gifts

Shall be a commerce of good

words and works; .
When poveriy and wealth,

thirst of fame,

The fear of infamy, disease and
woe,

War with its million horrors, and
fierce hell

Shall live but in the memory of

Time,

Who, like a penitent libertine,
shall start,
Look- back, and shudder at his

younger years.” 6

the

January 8, 1960—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page