Municipal election contests show
reaction striving to hold control

by MAURICE RUSH

Under the heading, ‘Reds Lose Much Ground in Municipal Elections’, the January 11
issue of the Financial Post, mouthpiece of the monopolies, carries a front page story in
which it gloats over the successes of reaction in the recent elections. There is no doubt
that the men of the trusts threw everything they had into defeating the people’s represen-

tatives for ‘civic office. Seldom
has Canada seen such a gang-up.
In Toronto an unprecedented ac-
tion was taken by the notorious-
ly reactionary Colonel Drew, who
as Premier of Ontaric openly en-
tered the municipal elections by
attacking the labor representa-
tives and calling for their defeat.
Backing him were the Tories and
reactionaries of every stripe, in-
chiding the catholic hierarchy.
B.C. did not escape this mon-
Opoly inspired offensive, In the
Main centers, particularly Van-
couver, the strongest reactionary
candidates weae paraded before
the people with much fanfare,
and huge sums of money were
spent to defeat progressives in
this bid for office.

It is clear that big business
Set its sights on capturing com-
plete control of municipal gov-
ernments. The reason is_ that
they are concerned’ with the
Stormy days that lie ahead and
want to deny the people repre-

_ sentation on civic governments
from which they could fight
back against wage slashing,
union-busting, anti-democratic
Policies, :

Reaction was aided in its drive
by the division in the progressive
camp. Whereas the old-line politi-
cal forces were united, the labor
and people’s forces were not. This

was the single most important
factor which worked in their
favor. Unless disunity is over-

Come, the people will suffer fur-
ther defeats: this point must be
grasped, and quickly. ' :

The Vancouver elections pro-

vided ample proof of the need for

unity. The split between the CCF:
LPP-trade union and civic reform
forces prevented success this year
and left the door open for the
reactionary Non-Partisan candi-
dates. The refusal of the CCF to
cooperate with other progressive

MAURICE RUSH

municipal forces, and its insist-
ence on running its own full slate,
objectively plays into the hands
of the corporations, The working
people are not satisfied with Mr.
Alsbury’s statement that the CCF
will be in the election fight
again next year to “educate” the

‘ies out and labor

people. Although there is much
room for education (particularly
the right of Kind of socialist edu-
cation) the people are primarily
concerned with the election of a
civic government which will bring
much needed reforms. This means
removing from office the mis-
named non-partisans,

The need in Vancouver is to
create a united alternative to
the non-partisans. If the Van-
couver elections proved anything
it is that the CCF by itself is
not that alternative. The CCF
can best serve the interests of
Vancouver by joining forces with
the unions, LPP and civic reform
movements to work for municipal
progress and to unitedly contest
the next elections. There is no
other way to put the reactionar-
in.

By far the most promising fea-
ture -of the elections this year
was the greater participation of
the trade unions, The ‘unions
backed or nominated candidates
in at least twenty municipalities.
This is proof that support for
trade union political action is
growing.

The unions can become the
main force for municipal pro-
gress provided they actively en-
ter the fight for civic improve-
ments and prepare now to run
labor candidates for municipal
councils, They can rally the pro-
gressive forces in the cities and
towns’ and lead the way to vic-
tory over the ‘old line political
forces which now dominate most
city halls. This is the key to
success for 1947, :

HRN LN

Hold the price line

A statement issued by the Women’s Commission of the Labor-Progressive Party char-
ges that “the government is showing a reckless disregard of the welfare of Canadian

by MINERVA MILLER

citizens by the lifting of ceilings on a large number of essential goods.”

Following close on increases in
the price of milk, tea and coffee,
the way now lies open for further
Mcreases which will place an in-
tolerable burden on the average
family. In plain terms it means
less food for Canadian children

CS

As we see it :

lend dignity and prestige to the
organization he professes to rep-
resent. On the contrary, they
drag the CCF in the mire of
Tory propaganda and warmong-
ering. The blind anti-commun-
ist and anti-workingclass hatred
of people like McKenzie ig the
reason for their being, and the
ranks of social democfracy, (in
the case the CCF) is used ag an
instrument for cultivation and
Spreading of their especially low
grade of political opportunism.

_ Smearing the Soviet Union
_ and the communists is not a new
invention, nor is the embryonic
anti-communist “pact,” so dili-
‘Sently resurrected from the rub-
ble of the Wilhelmstrasse by
Churchill and Co. The “iron cur-
tain” behind which McKenzie
_ Peeks with Churchill and sees 2
Sreat Russian “potential” for
war instead of peace originated
with Goebbels, and is preserved
by his kind. Neither are the
fabrications in the Taschereau-
Kellockt report new nor true, as
the courts of the land have al-'
Teady established. But they
Serve the enemies of labor,
among whom Frank McKenzie
Merits a ready entry, with his
“glimpse of the future’ as 4&
_ worthy credential. ee

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 5

from which we are in danger of
reaping another harvest of weak
bone structure, bad teeth, poor
eyes, inadequate resistance to di-
sease. It means another class C
generation of youth unless the
people break monopoly’s control
of government policy on prices.”

Government spokesmen are in
effect denying the existence of
monopoly in Canada. They do
this when they say that free
competition will keep prices at
_reasonable levels as soon as suf-
ficient supplies of goods are avail-
able. This is deliberate misrepre-
sentation intended to conceal] the
fact that prices are manipulated
by monopolies in lumber, textiles,
processed foods and other im-
portant fields.”

The government is guilty of
an unprincipled betrayal of its
pledge to protect the purchas-
ing power of Canadian citizens

and work for a prosperous post-
war Canada, Instead, the coun-
try is hurtling straight for in-
flation and crisis unless an
aroused public calls a halt to
this criminal policy on which
the government has embarked
in response to the bidding of
big business.” ;

The' Women’s Commission of
the LPP is convinced that the
women of this province will re-
sist in a most determined manner

this new assault on the health .

and security of their families.
Recognizing that the time for
drastic measures against further
increases has come, the Women’s
Commission is meeting January
20th to. plan immediate protest
action and will seek the co-oper-
ation of all other organizations
who are prepared to join in the
fight against the high cost. of
living.”

LENIN MEMORIAL MEETING

Sunday, January 26 at 8 p.m.
: : in the te
PENDER AUDITORIUM
SPEAKER

MAURICE RUSH

Provincial Organizer, Labor-Progressive Party
“LENIN, THE MARXIST ARCHITECT of a NEW WORLD”

MUSICAL PROGRAM

Short Jabs 0 su

RITISH COLUMBIA loggers are on their toes both when im the
woods and when out of the woods. When the delegates to the
district convention at Victoria; New Year’s week, passed a resolu-
lution demanding that Liquor Coentrolier

High-priced water Kennedy

figures varying from three dollars and
a half to almost six dollars per reputed quart, they showed that
they knew just what was going on. ;

That’s a lot of money to pay for water, even water that hasn't
been chlorinated! In fact it is almost as high a price as was paid
for the heavy water we read so much about during the latter days

of the war, one of the constituent

atom that led to the manufacture of the atom bomb.

It is little to be wondered. at, th

ures on having a tidy little bit of velvet in the way of profit out
of the $38,000,000 that found its way into the cash registers of the
Liquor Control Board dispensaries,

amount at least. And that profit is

know as pure water, in great measure. There is no argument about

that, for on the day after the logg
himself was reported_in the press

to be taken to increase the alcoholic

in the liquor stores.

When I read of that resolution

in a statement made by Sir Frank Nicholson, of Vaux and Assoeiat-
ed Breweries, in England. “The beer of Britain is now weaker than

in any other country in the world,”

same order as those of the B.C. Liquor, Control Board which caused
one communist party, writer to comment:

“The spirit is weak but the profit is strong.” Isn’t it
ful what a few drops of water will do! :

iy 1939 there was no, food shortage in England and no need for
rationing. Three of London’s leading hotels, the Savoy, the Carlton _
Hotels and the Grosvenor House, between them made a profit of ©
56,000 pounds. Last year with food short-

More about profit

age and

‘ outfits made an aggregate profit of 595,-
000 pounds, an increase of over half-a-million pounds. :

The secret of that enormous growth of profit is probably to be
trafficking. Other eaterers who’ were
‘pinched’ show that these money-grubber ‘better’ people accepted the

found in ‘black market’

economic measures to keep down

One firm, Criterion Restaurants Ltd., in Piccadilly, was fined 900
pounds and 90 guineas expenses recently for buying poultry above
ceiling prices, “at excessive prices,” the magistrate said: «

And in the Daily Herald 2 West End waiter told. how he saw
four fivé-shilling meals make nearly 30 pounds on the bill;. while
a News-Chronicle reporter wrote.up a story of a tour he made of
the same type of beaneries in which he saw a party of. ten, people
at the next table pay 150 pounds for their meal. A :

“ Needless to say, they were not
workers who are now on strike as

reminiscent of how the ‘noble’ Roman sybarites indulged their ap-
petites, laws or no laws, in the days immediately preceding the *

downfall of the Roman Empire. It
clock of history are working round

URTEEN THOUSAND truck drivers are at present on strike
in London—London in the smoke, I mean; not London in the
Ontario bush. One news correspondent writes that conditions in that

Another historical repeat

measures taken then to break the strike by the Baldwin Tory gov-
ernment were the same that are being taken today by the present™
so-called Labor Socialist government—use of naval, military and air

forces, with their own trucks and
numerous, the trucks that the strike

The once self-proclaimed Marxist, John Strachey, is food minis-

ter and he is loud in his protests

it will be the duty of the government to take emergency measures,

for the distribution of .foodstuffs.
that in performing this duty, the

vening in this industrial. dispute or imp}

men’s claims.”

We don’t happen to have any of the newspapers of those.
“nine days that shook Britain” when the whole country was tied up.
from Land’s.End to John O’Groates, but we definitely remember.
that the pronouncements of the tory Baldwin government about its”
‘duty’ to the people, were almost word for word the same as those’

of Strachey just quoted.

Wherein lies the difference between the use of troops and.
naval ratings to smash the general strike by a tory government:
in ‘carrying out its ‘duty,’ and that of a Labor Socialist government’
using the armed forces for the execution of its ‘duty, which is to
defeat the transport workers, in spite of the hypocritical phrase-
mongering of the renegade Strachey,

The tories broke the general strike twenty years ago. The
Laborites will break the transport workers’ strike today, unless

‘the London workers as a whole, compel Strachey and his gang to —

withdraw the strikebreakers.

In spite of Strachey’s explanations, the use of the armed forces —
_is assisting the employers who have been stalling for nine months
against the just demands of the transport workers.

T the city council meeting in the last week of the year, when _
the gang in the strategic position gave the BCCollectric a pres-
ent of a monopoly franchise to operate busses in the city for the
~ next twenty years, Alderman Thompson explained that a
Slush new arrangement had to be made to keep the streets free

of snow and ice. Instead of

of the work themselves, as they do for their car tracks, the city
will now pay part of the cost. Nothing was said, however about slush.

.

should quit selling water at

factors in the splitting of the

, that the B.C. government fig-

certainly one-third of that
made out of aqua pura, better

ers’ convention closed, Kennedy
as saying that steps will have
content of the spirits peddled

I was reminded of a passage

he said. The profits were. of the

rationing in force, the same

prices just ag Lady Astor did.

from the ranks of the’ transport
I write this. These incidents are

is a symbol! The hands of, the
to the zero hour again. ad

great metropolis are similar to
what they were during the
general strike of 1926. The

since these are not sufficiently.
rs would otherwise be operating.

that “under the circumstances

We must emphasize, however,
Ministry of Food is not imter:
g any opinion of the

the BCCoHectric paying the cost:

FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 1947