Se ee me i)

The black Tory record —

—_—.

THE Tory party, which is seek-
ing return to national office
Aw 18 years of exile, has actu-
a S8overned Canada for nearly

of the 86 years since Confed-
ration,

Even the most cursory examin-

ation of the record will show that -

the ce aA : i
ed b Iron heel” policy proclaim.

y R. B. Bennett in the Hun-
aed Thirties has, in fact, charac-
Rd Tory rule in Canada. As
it of the early Tory editors put

“Men must. be content to
Work for low wages. In that way
i Working man will be nearer
it that station in life to which

has pleased God to call him.”
tio © shocking were the condi-
ee of the Canadian working
pon. under Toryism in the
ed ties that public opinion fore-
CommiccrPointment of a Royal
Capi ct on the Relations of
Dl Ital and Labor. Evidence
4p 08d before that body showed
Bet the 64-hour week was al-
. Universal, with wages rang-
= from $2 to $12 weekly.

the Mong the witnesses before

189, Ommission on January 27, '

ory, Was a prominent Toronto
ida Dr. W. B. Nesbitt. Let the
“rd speak for itself:

% ‘By the Chairman:

Q. “Will you please give the
Ission your opinion in re-
to foods?

* “In my opinion, the peo-
: le at the present time are eat-

B00 . 8reat deal more than is
oes for them. Looking over
cost , records I find that the
Wor a 4 good meal for a hard-
tine Ing man will be about

“quarters of a cent.

- “Ts it, not a fact that in
eanchester and London, dinners
cent sovided for children at one

each?

. “Yes that is the case.

Teal What would constitute a
cent> Sting three-quarters of a
ie c. “In this one there would
five .cUt five pounds of barley,
Peg pounds of cornmeal, four
| Seagon; gs and some salt and
together: the cost of the whole,
Make €r with water sufficient to
Rages meal for 64-persons av-
Cent about three-quarters of a
» aNd gives about a quart of

Co.
Sards

soup each. That is a good,
palatable meal and'a man would
be able to do. more work on it
than on meat and potatoes.”

The doctor had been preceded
on the stand by a King Street
dry goods salesman who testified
as follows:

Q. What is the starting wage
of a young clerk?

A. “$2.00 a week. He works
a full thirteen-hour day, and
then has to carry parcels after
that, because it is too tiring on
the horses.”

Such was the lot of the people
under Tory rule in 1888, but
nearly a half century later, in
1935, R. B. Bennett condemned
thousands of young Canadians to
a condition of living scarcely bet-
ter than that described above.

In the intervening years the
Tories, in and out of office,
fought every move for social re-
form and economic betterment
and while in power carried
through a program of harsh re-
pression.

e

Here is but a brief catalogue
of Tory crimes against the peo-
ple of Canada since the turn of
the century:

+ 1914 — Outlawed scores of
labor organizations and deport-
ed hundreds of loyal Canadians.

+ Allowed war profiteering to
flourish and recommended one of
the worst offenders for a baron-
etcy.

+ Permitted the purchase
and shipment of diseased beef,
blind horses, obsolete rifles and
faulty. ammunition to Canadian
troops overseas.

+. 1917 — Imposed’ conscrip-
tion. Se ciie

+ 1919—Smashed the Winni-
peg General Strike and meted
out savage prison sentences to its
leaders. Arrested Rev J. S.

Woodsworth for quoting the _

prophet Isaiah in strike bulletins:
“Woe unto them that .. . take
away the right from the poor of
my people.” “And they shall
build houses and jinhabit them,
and they shall plant vineyards,
and eat the fruit of them. They
shall. not build, and another in-
habit; they shall not plant and
another eat.” "ee

+ Amended thej@riminal Code
at the dictation all Street’s

By A. A. MacLEOD-

House of Morgan and used its
provisions and other repressive
laws to imprison thousands of
Canadians during the Hungry
Thirties. .

+ Vigorously opposed old-age
pensions.

+ Denounced Unemployment
Insurance as “bolshevism.”

+ Forced jobless Canadians
to live on a starvation relief al-
lowance.

+ Condemned tens of thou-
sands of young Canadians (sons
of the men who fought to make
Canada “a land fit for heroes to
live in”) to a life of misery and
degradation in tar-papered shacks
at 20 cents a day.

e ; é

What about the man who leads
the Tory party today — the thir-
teenth leader since Confedera-
tion?

When Nazism emerged in Ger-
many and threatened to enslave
the world, Colonel George Drew
became one of its most ardent
supporters. In 1938, five years
after Hitler began his reign of
terror, the Colonel had this to
say in MacLean’s Magazine:

“The demands of the Nazi
party, which today speaks for
Germany, are clear. They are
not based on hatred of any na-
tion. They are the result of ra-
cial pride expressing itself in
terms of the future.”

During the fateful late thirties
when progressive statesmen were
making every effort to establish
a system of collective security to
halt Nazi aggression. Drew would
have none of it and strongly ad-
voeated an alliance with Hitler
and Mussolini against the USSR.

_ In an article in the Toronto Globe

and Mail in 1937, Drew writes:

“People in England who have
been in touch with events in
Europe, have been gravely con-
cerned -with the unwillingness
of the British government to
deal on a friendly basis with
Italy or Germany, while they
were prepared to listen to Rus-
sia. I am convinced that if Brit-
ain, France, Germany and Italy
sit down on a_ friendly basis
without first imposing conditions
more can be accomplished than
by a hundred years of boycot-
ting.”

Such were the views of Col.
Drew after four years of Hitler
tyranny, after Mussolini had
drenched Ethiopia in blood, and
in the very year that Franklin D.
Roosevelt made his
“Quarantine the Aggressor”
speech. ;

It is clear now that Drew op-
posed collective security against
Nazi aggression because it meant
peace, and favored a pact of
friendship with Hitler and Mus-
solini because’ it meant certain
war — against the USSR.

When Hitler finally did strike
in 1939 — West instead of East —
Dr. R. J. Manion, then national
Tory leader, rose in the House
of Commons and declared:

“It is some satisfaction to
know that the ill wind that
brought us the war also brings
us a couple of favors; first there
will be a better price for wheat
and secondly it will cure the
problems of unemployment
which we were unable to solve
in peace time.”

That the ‘cure” might have
meant the lives of 200,000 Cana-
dian boys (which could well have
been the case had the USSR not
been our ally) was a small con-
cern to this Tory leader.

e

From the outset Drew made it
clear that he loathed the idea of
fighting Nazi Germany, and even
after the war began he expressed
the hope that Hitler might be
dropped and the Germans “be-
come our allies in ridding the
world of Russian communism.”

As the Second World War pro-
gressed, Drew began to view it in
a somewhat different light. In
an address to the people of On-
tario in July, 1953, the Colonel
put forward what might be call-
ed the theory of permanent war:

‘Let us look the facts of this
war squarely in the face and
see what it means for Ontario
and Canada as a whole. When
you read in the newspapers that
great cities have been bombed
and large numbers of workers’
homes destroyed you are not
merely hearing the record of a
military event. You are being
told that many human require-
ments, °made from raw mater-
jals,, have been destroyed. Al-

famous ~

ready three million homes in
Britain have been shattered by
bombs. Most of the raw mater-
ials required to replace those
things are not available in the
British Isles. Destruction of
that kind is taking place around
the world today.

‘What does this mean to us in
Ontario? The simple truth is
that this destruction is creating
such opportunities for our young
men as they have never known
before.”

In that ghoulish statement Col.
rew was merely paraphrasing his
friend and fellow fascist, Major
General J. F. C. Fuller, who, in
the very same year had this to
say in Army Ordnance (USA):

“In its preparation war ab-
sorbs much labor and in its ex-
ecution finds employment for
the unemployed by regiment-
ing them into armies which
liquidate each other. By de-
vastating entire countries and
reducing their cities to rubble
it automatically creates a de-
mand for employment on its
termination.”

This is no doubt what Drew had
in mind when he visited West
Germany last year and saw the
Nazi war lords being restored to
power. He expressed the view
that “the Germans will prove
valuable associates in the tasks
that lie ahead. They are working
like beavers. Great forces have
been let loose. There is a sense
of revival.” Had Drew been frank

‘he would have added the words

he used in 1939 and reaffirmed as
late as 1945:

“There is no reason why they
(the Germans) should not be-
come our allies in ridding the
world of Russian communism.”
That war against the socialist
world remains Drew’s central aim
was made clear only a few weeks
ago when he appeared on a To-
ronto platform, accompanied by
the dregs of European fascism,
and called openly for dismember-
ment of the USSR.

€

Up to this point we have dealt
mainly with Drew’s record out of
office. Consider his record as
premier of Ontario from 1943-48.

Continued on next Page.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JULY 24, 1953 — PAGE 9