OPEN FORUM

Goodnight mayor!

A.B., Vancouver, B.C.: I hope
this poem, which I have entitled
“Mayor Harrison’s Dream,” makes
clear the thoughts that inspired
it: .

MAYOR HARRISON’S DREAM

In Victoria, B.C. ,
Mayor Harrison had a dream,
He dreamt he met McCarthy
Walking on the scene.

McCarthy shook his hand

And on the rocks they sat,
Witch-hunting in our fair land
The subject of their chat.

. McCarthy said, “Experience,
Of that I’ve had plenty,

Vm sure you‘ll find Canadians
As. easily fooled as any.”

Harrison said, “What can we do
To make Canadians hate

The principles of democracy

At this late date?” .

“Tell you what,” McCarthy said,
“That book-burning stunt is grand
Old Hitler tried it with success.
Let's try it in your land.”

Mayor Harrison mumbled in his
sleep,

He thought it pretty good,

And straight away he fried it

In his neighborhood,

And now as anyone can see
He’s shivering in his bed;

He found that we Canadians
Were not so easily led.

.

This brilliant dream has turned
into

A politician’s nightmare

That promises come voting day

To make him the ex-mayor.

Of this and. that

R. MASSE, Nakusp, B.C.: I sug-
Sest that the Pacific Tribune car-
Ty an article: soon exposing a
Phony pamphlet that is being
widely circulated, called The
Russians Call it Socialism.

That’s a good letter-on chiro-
practors by Jack Phillips. Let’s
have more letters from our read-
ers, and how about more articles
about’ the Interior? One would
think, sometimes, that the PT is
only for Vancouverites.

Best regards to all the staff and
may our paper raise its banner
higher as the standard bearer for
all working people. !

More on chiropractors

H.P., Vancouver, B.C.: Re the
correspondence on chiropractors.
-Many people, myself included,
are prejudiced against them. How- -
ever, there is no valid reason why
one should be, unless you expect

them to be cure-alls. I believe
they should be quite reliable in
matters of bone adjustment, but
that is a matter of opinion.

Until recently they were not ac-
cepted by the Workmen’s Com-
pensation Board and workmen

wanting to go to a chiropractor -

had to do so at their own expense.
As a first aid man, one can Te-
commend workers to go to a chiro-
practor now, although I never
have; but if the patient wishes to
go to one himself, he is entitled
to do so, and come under the WCB
regulations.

As to their political conscfous-
hess, one should not pre-judge
them on that, since all first aid
men or doctors are not politically
conscious either. We should judge
them purely on their own merits
in their special line of work.

One must remember that many
new ideas have been condemned
without trial, and proved in the
end beneficial to mankind. ,

ANDREW ROTHSTEIN REPORTS ON USSR

Prices go

of the things that strikes

you most, revisiting the So-

viet Union after three years,

is the greater cheapness, abun-

dance and variety of consumer
goods.

In December. 1950 good-
quality men’s shoes, with leath-
er soles, cost 385 roubles. In
December 1953 we saw them
at Minsk priced at 200 roubles.

In 1950 fine worsteds for
men’s suits scarcély existed.
Today you can see big rolls
of them—and people buying as
fast as they can be served.

“We ordered too many 300-
rouble crepe-de-chine dresses
this year,” Mrs. Nichipor, Vice-
Minister for Consumer Goods
Industries of Byelorussia, told
us. “It was a mistake; the
public want a better article
and won’t buy cheap lines
now.

Ten days later we were in
a country cooperative storé in
the little South Russian Re-
public of North Ossetia. An
old peasant lady had six yards
of bright cotton-print at eight
roubles 80 kopeks at yard cut
off for her.

“Wouldn’t you like some of
this too; it’s the latest?” the
manager asked the next cus-
tomer, a younger woman.

“No, what have you got in
pure silk?” she replied — and
down came a big roll (we didn’t
see one in a big city dry goods
store in 1950).

We asked the manager:
“What do you find goes best,
and how does it compare with
prewar?”

“Tt used to be cotton goods
chiefly, round here,” he re.
plied. “Now it is fine wollens
and linens they want.”

Food is substantially cheaper.
Before me lie canteen menus
I collected at the Kolomna
Loco Works in November 1950
and at the Minsk Auto Works
in December 1953—very com-
parable plants.

The same substantial dinner

down,

This women’s footwear department of a Moscow shoe factory
is fully mechanized.

which we saw ordinary work-
ers eating on both occasions—
borshch (meat and vegetable
soup with sour cream), beef
cutlets with mashed potatoes
and carrots, tea, with bread ad
lib.—cost five roubles 85 ko-
peks. in 1950 and two roubles
96 kopeks in 1953. Other prices
were cut similarly.

And what a lot of people
asked us sympathetically if it
was true that we were still:
rationed for meat and butter!

Price cuts are the result of
the huge planned increase jn
consumer goods - production,
now visibly gathering speed,
and the steady rise in agricul-
tural output.

At Minsk, Mayor Dlugoshev-
sky told us, new factories for
woollen suitings, watches, cam-
eras and food industries are go-
ing up in 1954,

“Byelorussia’s capital invest-
ments in the textiles, garment,
hosiery, haberdashery, leather
and carpet industries will be

\

quality is up

doubled in 1954, compared with
1953,” said Mrs. Nichipor.

1951 was 11 times the 1940
quantity,
times; by 1956 they will be up
another 40 percent.”

farming republic — we asked
about agriculture, Grain yields
in 1952 already averaged 24%
bushels an acre, against 19%
bushels in 1937 (the best pre-
war year) and under 14 bushels
in 1913.
higher, —

from 20 percent to 60 percent
more numerous than three
years ago. New valuable crops
have appeared since the war.

where they asked us whether
the British people really want-
ed to re-arm the Germans?

© Andrew Rothstein, noted

“Our output of woollens in

and hosiery four

In North Ossetia—a typical

In 1953 they were

Cattle, pigs, sheep were all

Can you wonder that every-

British writer on Soviet af-
fairs, was a member of a
British delegation to the

Soviet Union last year.

By LEN FOX

Australia's centenary

of Eureka Stockade

HUNDRED years ago, on

fiery-eyed Italian stood listening
to a meeting of Australian dig-
gers.

The diggers were protesting
against the heavy gold-license fee.
They were claiming the right to
be represented in parliament. And
they were saying things (not nice

things) about the squatters, a few
hundred of whom owned the

whole colony.

“I understood very little of
those matters at the time,” com-
mented the Italian later. “The
shoe had not pinched my toe yet.”

Somewhere else on the Ballarat
goldfields a big muscular Ameri-
can Negro was toiling under the
hot sun. Like the fiery Italian,
he seemed a stranger, a foreigner.

Yet not many months later, this
Italian and American Negro were
standing side by side, With their
mates, in a Melbourne court, as
champions of Australian liberty.

Thirteen Australians in the
dock — charged with treason be-
cause they had dared defend
freedom at Eureka.

First man tried was the Negro
from New York—John Josephs.
“A man of color .. : a man of
athletic form,” said the Argus.

That’s something worth remem-
bering—that a Negro was the first
of the Eureka heroes to face trial.

And alongside him stood the
fiery Italian, Carboni Raffaello.
The other eleven were Timothy
Hayes, John Manning, Jan Vennik,
James _ Beattie, Henry Reed,
Michael Tuhey, James Macfie

_ Campbell, William Molloy, Jacob
~ Sorenson, Thomas Wignum, John.

Phelan.

If one can guess by names, they
are Scots, Italian, English, Dutch,
Jewish perhaps, native-born Aus-
tralian probably, too.

Thirteen meri facing the might
of the state. But they weren’t
alone. ;

Before the treason trial, a meet-

ing of Melbourne citizens had

unanimously resolved:

“That the constitutional agita-.

tion at Ballarat had assumed its
present unconstitutional form in
consequence of the coercion of
military force, and that matters
would not have been precipitat-
ed to their present issue but for
the harsh and imprudent re-

commencement of digger hunt-

ing during the period of excite-
ment.”

At Ballarat, a jury had ‘stated
that it “viewed with extreme hor-
ror the brutal conduct of the
mounted police in firing at and

cutting down unarmed and inno- |

cent persons of both. sexes, at a

distance from the scene of the ©

disturbance,
1854.”

on December. 3,

Bakery Hill at Ballarat, a.

: with red hair

“diggers as a

’ And in the court in Melbourne,

. ordinary democratic Australians

filled the seats — including the
jury seats.

“How will the capitalist feel in
the investment of his money?”
the Argus wailed. But all the
Prisoners were acquitted. . The
fight the diggers ‘lost on that
bloody Sunday morning was be-
ing won throughout the , Wide
land. Liberty was flooding in.

And so John Josephs, Ameri-
can Negro and Australian demo-
crat, Was acquitted.

“A sudden burst of applause
rose in the court when the ver-
dict was declared by the foreman
of the jury,” wrote the Argus of
February 24, 1855, “but was in-

stantly checked by officers of the
court.”

Two of the democrats who .ap-
plauded were 8rabbed and sen-
tenced to a week's jail for con-
tempt of court—but one after the
ether the prisoners were acquit-
ted, and cheers Yang through Mel-
bourne streets. :

Carboni Raffaello,

“forty years
of age, short

and squat in figure
and small keen rest-
was elected by the

member of the local
court at Ballarat,

less eyes,”

record of the Australian people's

historic battle for freedom and

democracy, SO well expressed by

the Australian Poet, Victor Wil-

ne: in his poem, “She Will Be
ey

As | lay sleeping

on Bakery Hill

| heard her calling;
the leaves were still,

Her words were warm coals
in my dreams and me;

“E am Australia,

come, set me free”.

Black night and the redcoats
slunk in retreat

for the fires of the diggers
bloomed at her feet.

On the naked. hilltops,
in her red, warm soil,
our freedom blossoms
from our fruitful toil.

We are standing night-watch.
for the peace we won; ;
no dollar war-cloud

will blind our sun,

The boots of the jailers
tramp the hills in vain
for the stars of Eureka
now burn again.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — FEBRUARY 19, 1954 — PAGE 4