OPEN FORUM

New thinking

OLD TIMER, Vancouver,
B.C.: Hurrah for our side! The
politicians and newspapermen
at last knocked Humpty
Dumpty off the wall ,never to
be put together again.

Prime Minister St. Laurent
and his cabinet admit that it
is going-to take some hard
thinking on their part to get
back into power.

We, on the progressive side,
have got to do some new think-
ing to stop the two old parties,
both believers in “uncontroll-
ed profit motive’ from ever
getting a majority again. It
took Britain more than 40
years to do it but we can do
it in 10.

The old age pensioners and
workers are keeping 50,000
young men and women in the
air force alone, making para-
sites of them whereas they
should be disbanded and placed
into productive and construc-
tive work without further. de-
lay, given priority before im-

migrants. The money thus
saved together with money
uselessly Spent on _ planes

would more than double our
pensions.

Right is Left?

CANADIAN CITIZEN, Van-
couver,. B.C.: Just a few re-
minders about this June 10
election.

The unions are limited in
what they can and cannot do
for the people. They can pos-
sibly get-a raise in pay for
their members, and stop a cer-
tain amount of managerial ty-

ranny; but they can’t stop in-
flation after their demands
have been won. There has to
be a left wing government to
consolidate their victory —
that is, to control prices.

We read in the so-called pop-
ular press, and hear over the
radio, appeals not to vote for
“splinter” groups, but to keep
th two-party system, in opera-
tion, the Liberals and Con-
servatives.

The Liberal, Conservative
and Socred office seekers are
the .right wing in politics,
while the CCF and LPP are
the left wing or true opposi-
tion. For how can a rightist
be an opposite to a rightist?
The opposite of right is left.
But the demagogues try to tell
us otherwise.

Trade with China

BEN LLOYD, Saskatoon,
Sask.: Every candidate run-
ning for election should be
asked to answer this question:

“In order to facilitate the
export of our surplus grain,
lumber and other products, if
elected, will you advocate that
Canada follow the: steps al-
ready taken by the British
government?”

Thousands have been un-
employed in B.C._ yet all of
British Columbia’s | surplus
lumber could be used in
China’s .building program.

Canada holds nearly a bil-
lion bushels of wheat. “Uncle
Louis” says the government is
not pressing for new markets
in socialist lands.

Millions of bushels could be
sold to China. The threat of

famine exists over a wide
area due to floods, drought and
a disastrous typhoon. Food™is
badly needed. There can be

no delay in making the sale
of our wheat, no delay except
the recognition by Canada of
the People’s Republic of
China. Thereafter, arranging
terms of sale would be a rou-
tine affair. ;

Recently, Lester Pearson has
shown Canada can take its
stand as an independent sover®
eign nation. Here is a golden
opportunity to continue that
precedent. It is only necessary
to follow the lead of Britain
and. recognize China, and open
trade.

Reply on new party
C. J., Nelson, B.C.: Regarding
the letter written by Beryl
Wheeldon on a new socialist
party, Lenin reminds us that
every institution is upheld by
some class base. A new social-
ist party? What class base?
The CCF claims that it is
a workers‘ party and compar-
ed to the scientific socialists a
democratic socialist party.
But as an old Yorkshire ac-
quaintance once said, ‘The
proof of the pudding is in the
eating.” In West Kootenay
working people are eating bet-
ter as a result of Mine Mill
organization in Trail smelter.
Now the CCF had wide pop-
ular support in this district. It
was well represented in the
Canadian union movement but
Trail remained a company
union town till Arfhur Evans

and later Harvey Murphy led

Prizewinning letters

Each week the Paci-
fic Tribune will present
a book to the writer of
the most interesting, en-
tertaining and. topical
letter published on this
page. Contributors are
urged to keep their let-
ters to ‘a reasonable
length,

The prize-winning let-
ter in our last issue was
written by F. H. Kam-

loops, B.C.

the organizing of it and in
addition to establishing a real
union brought a measure of
the democracy some of these
political pie cards enthuse
about and the lack of which
they innocently and blithely
ignore.

Later,-to the accompaniment
of full page advertisements re-
garding the company position
on Communists, the CCF—in-
clined Steel union carried out
a raid which is still disap-
proved by the} local supporters
of the CCF (although I do not
know of any public stand in
favor of Mine Mill) by the CCF
MP, who was an honorary
member of the union).

The Columbia River power
issue was first publicly raised
here by the Labor-Progressive
party during a visit by Nigel
Morgan in November, 1954.
This is on the record and it is
by no means a local pheno-
menon. .

-Already the international
labor movement records a
number of examples of Marx-
ist-led workers
concluding the great struggle.
Is it less obvious that in Italy
and France, for example, the

various socialist parties are a

positive hindrance?

successfully

eralism”’. He

Hal feat

hea so often Jim Nesbitt, the Van-
couver Sun’s political commentator at
Victoria; chides the Liberals for their re-
luctance to recognize Amor De Cosmos as
the real “father of British Columbia lib- &
obviously

feels that the Liberals could

® enhance their own shrunk-

en provincial stature by
claiming the mantle of the
man who led the struggle
for responsible government
in British Columbia and
then the movement tc take
the colony into Confedera-
tion.

There are many reasons
why the Liberals are. not
anxious to claim De Ces-
mos’ legacy, apart from the
‘fact, which Nesbitt over-
looks, .that De Cosmos rep-
resented Victoria as a Con-
servative in the House of
Commons from 1871 to
1882. One reason’ is linked
to a proud eeremony which

took place in Paris last
Sunday, the annual com-
memoration of the heroes
and heroines of the Paris
Commune of 1871 at the
*. Wall of Martyrs in Pere-
Lachaise cemetery.

It is difficult to imagine
Art Laing, provincial Lib-
eral leader, or any other
Liberal, sending flowers to
honor the memory of the
men and women who held
working class power for

two months and died de- -

fending it. It would be
equally futile to expect the
Liberal party, as the ardent
prosecutor of the cold war
against socialism, to ack-
nowledge “the glorious har-
binger of a new society,”

as Karl Marx described
the Paris Commune.

Amor De Cosmbs, living
and writing at the time’of
the Commune, welcomed it
with a fervor that would
have caused his reluctant
politica] heirs to open a new
‘RCMP dossier.

$e 50 xt

In his Victoria Standard
of April 19, 1871, De Cos-
mos wrote:

“If any rational conclu-
sion at all can be drawn
from the Paris revolution,
it is that the principle of
the revolutionists wil! soon-
er or later succeed...

“Bad as the conduct of the
Parisians may appear to-
day, yet they are really ed-

ucating all Europe up. to
the higher notions of the
true principles of human
government. The anarchy
will be suppressed, but the
principles of the anarchists
will live and make converts
in every nation in Europe.
The world will yet have
much to thank the French
revolutionists for, though it

may generally condemn

them.”

In the May 2 issue he re-
turned to the theme:

« ~.. Revolutions don’t
go backwards nowadays.
Hence the future will bene-
fit by the terrible struggle
Paris and France are now
going through.”

De Cosmos’ most forth-
right comment on the Com-
mune in the Victoria Stan-
dard of May 31, 1871, had
a prophetic ring:

Pe LAS names of
Rouge, Red Republican,
Communist, scare men, not
only in France but abroad.
But the day will come when
the principles of the ill-fat-
ed rebellion of Paris will
be extolled to the skies.”

And Nesbitt expects. the
leaders of the Liberal party, ~
whose vision is so obscured
by fear of the future that it
has refused for eight years
to recognize the Chinese
Revolution, to accept the
legacy of British Columbia’s
second premier who saw
the shape of the future in”

the Paris Commune.
e

“AND BESIDES. .*+

Speaking |
_ briefly

ACTIONS SPEAK
LOUDER

«_. In London, 30 of the
world’s top oil industrialists
gathered at the urging of
Standard Oil... They talked
privately, partly because they
had to be wary of defying U.S: ”
trust laws and partly because
they’ have learned that in the
Middle East their aims are |
sometimes best achieved by
not loudly proclaiming them.”
—Time Magazine.

BOE ike eres
CAMEL’S MILK

Listening to the Liberals and
Conservatives each trying 10
out-promise the other about
what they will do if they aré
elected, and each dodging the
question of how they will re-
lieve us of the unwanted ta%
burden of the cold war, re
minds us “of the story of thé
two Arabs in the desert. |

One Arab approached the
tent of his neighbor and asked
if he could borrow the neigh:
bor’s new rope for a few: day>

The other Arab said he
would like to, but he needed
it himself to tie up the camel's
milk.

Amazed, the first Arab asked
him how he did this. ?

“When you don’t want to 40
something, one excuse is
good as another,” said the first”
Arab. Fi |

% % Bo

SH-H-H

With big daily papers mers”
ing and the “free” press com
ing under tighter monopol of
control, it’s a good time to T& |
member the old saying: “whe?
money speaks, the truth. 15
silent.”

Rita Ber it
TOO TRUE

If Lester had a better Peat
son to person relationship wit”
the Canadian people, he might
realize it was time to lower oul
own iron curtain and Te”
establish our cultural relation
with the socialist world.

x 503 x

“TOKYO (AP) — Japan
cabinet. warned today thal
Britain’s break with the U2
on China trade threatens ff
world cooperation ... The c@ f
inet said it is worried abo?
a possible division among
Western powers and the thre?
of competition from Britain %
Japan’s historic China marke
—Vancouver Sun. 3

R, CARLOS —

JUNE 7, 1957 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE