aha Rh theta + Favorable response B.C. Peace Council conducts public poll . British Columbia Peace Council’s public opinion peace poll is now well underway in many ‘points throughout the province, the council announced this. week. “The reception to our poll has been exceedingly friendly,’ said Ray Gardner, council secretary. couraging. Of those interviewed go far, for instance, more than 90 percent are in favor of a cease- fire in Korea.”’ Gardner also pointed out that “The answers given are also. en- peace workers and friends of the peace movement are not being ask- ed to fill out a poll as it is felt this would tend to give an un- balanced picture of public opinion. Full text of the poll follows: Y—What is your opinion concerning an immediate cease-fire in Korea? In favor .... Do not favor .... No opinion .... 2—There are truce talks now going on in Korea between the mili- -tary leaders. Do you think: a) The talks should be continued by the military leaders? .... b) The military leaders should be replaced by leading states- men from all the countries involved? .... No opinion .... A—Do you think the building up of armaments throughout the world will: a) Bring peace closer? c) Don’t know .... b) Bring war closer?.... . B—Do you think that an international disarmament agreement would: a) Bring peace closer? .... b) Bring war closer? .... c) Don’t know .... A—Canada is spending two and one half billion dollars on rearma- ment this year. What effect has this had on your standard of living? Lowered ..:. Raised .... No effect ..... Don’t know .... —Do you think that if Canada built up trading relations with all countries that this would help provide jobs as well as improve our relations with other countries? WOS iS No. <3. é No opinion .... —If all nations were to outlaw all weapons of mass destruction, such as atomic bombs, napalm bombs, germ warfare and chemi- cal weapons, do you think that the possibility of peace would be: Strengthened .... Weakened .... . No opinion .... City ‘five -year’ plan makes no provision for Marpole span; still no civic auditorium Despite its repeated election promises, Vancouver’s Non-Partisan city council this week revea that it has no real intention of proceeding with the ditional funds needed for a new public library. Faced with a financial crisis, councillors are projecting an “austerity? public works program, tentative allocations for which do not include a bridge at Marpole or much-needed hospital buildings. “The critical financial position arises out of the political bank- ruptey of the old-line politicians who sit in the council,’ declared Blgin Ruddell, Civic Reform As- sociation tax expert this week. “On June 12 the citizens of Brit- ish Columbia cleaned house, sweeping out council’s political colleagues at the provincial level. A similar house-cleaning will have to take place in the muni- cipal elections this coming Decem- ber, “Why the present crisis?’’ ask- ed Ruddell, and answering his own question, he said: ‘It’s be- cause the Non-Partisan aldermen are either toadies of'or afraid to stand up to the banks, the BCElec- tric, and big business generally. Look at the picture, The Granville bridge, originally estimated in 1947 to cost $8,000,000, has now reached the estimated figure of $16,500,000. The city is plan- ning to borrow up to its legal limit, another $30,000,000 to car- ry through its starved five-year public works program. “Interest costs are enormous, yet councillors can think only in terms of increased borrowing, The increased borrowing sends the mill rate up to meet increased debt charges. The only other large oft-proposed civic auditorium or led allocating ad- — source of increased revenue they can think of is general increase in the tax rate, placing ever heav- ier burdens on the already hard- pressed ratepayers, “The solution they refuse to face up to was proposed long ago by the New York municipal fin- ance expert, H. Carl Goldenberg in his Report on Municipal-Prov- incial Relations in British Colum- bia, when he said, ‘I am of the opinion that the City of Vancou- ver is in a position to, and should increase the assessments of im- proved properties, particularly If the , -year financial plan of Vancouver's N council stands, the Marpole Bridge (above), which has been generally condemned, will remain as an obstacle to development, a bottleneck to traffic and’a menace to Fraser River navigation an larger and more valuable propP- erties which tend to be assessed on a lower real base than smaller properties.’ “Hqualization of assessments as between large and small properties, 100 percent tax on im- provements of non - reisdential properties along with a graduated tax on improvements of residen- tial property, could result in greatly increased revenue to the city, enabling the council to cal ry through large-scale public works,’ SS on-Partisan city Textile workers in Quebec carry on fight for union _ after great strike struggle MONTREAL The heroic struggle of the Que- bee textile workers goes on. The . 6,000 Dominion Textile spinners and weavers of Montreal and Vaal- leyfield, who hit the picket lines on. April 2 are veterans of strug- gle. They have had to be — to survive. Life in the mills of the mighty Blair Gordon cotton trust .— eontrolling about 75 percent of Canada’s cotton ctoth and yarn output — has been an almost con- tinuous battle for 50 years. A phase of the battle has been Jost — the fight goes on. Tempered by years of battle against sweatshop conditions, and starvation wages. the strikers put wp a magnificent fight. For eight weeks these cotton strikers unitedly fought off every attempt of the company and the Duplessis government to defeat them, Every -hack-to-work move- ment organized by the company ended even before it started—not ‘one scab entered the six mills. Every effort of the city and pro- ‘vincial police to intimidate work- ‘ers into going back to work, was met with a solid wall of resist- ance. Despite dozens of arrests, picket lines remained solid; not one scab entered the “struck” mills. *« *« * In a final desperate move to. break the strike, company and government forces imported Sam Baron from the U.S. to do the job they could never do, Discredited by the labor movement, labelled “labor racketeer,” kicked out of the CIO Textile union, Sam Bar- on was hired by the U.S. bosses of the AFI textile union to “take over the union in Canada.’’- : After refusing for eight weeks to negotiate with the elected ne- gotiating committee of the strik- ers, the company immediately met with ‘Baron. After five weeks, during which Baron was unable to hold a single meeting of the 6,000 strikers, or to win any sup- port among them, the company finally gave him a two-cent offer above the pre-strike offer which the union had rejected before the strike, as a sop to settle the strike, Following this deal the news- papers and radio carried on a virtua] hour-by-hour publicity bar- rage to mislead. confuse and dis- organize the strikers into accept- ing this sellout. The Canadian Textile Council, immediately proposed that a vote be held by the government to de- termine whether the strikers wanted Baron and his American friends, or the elected Canadian negotiating committee to repre- sent them. Instead of this a vote was called by Baron, supervised by the Duplessis Labor ' Board. Despite all these odds the strik- ers remained solid. When the com- pany on Monday morning opened the gates in Valleyfield, not one worker entered, Only after city and provincial police had arrested several strike leaders, and smash- ed the picket lines, did a few hundred workers go in. * * * After finding that every attempt to reestablish the picket lines meant further arrests, and furth- er victimization, a membership meeting of the Canadian union decided to call off the strike, and to carry on the battle by other means. The union, the Canadian Textile Council (formerly affiliated with the UTW-AFL) issued a state- ment declaring that “this has been one of the most treacherous sell outs in the history of Cana- dian labor. The notorious AFL company-union set-up of Sam Bar- on has been able, with the assist- ance of the company and the Du- plessis provincial police to sell-out our strikers to ‘the bosses. All Canadian textile workers will pay — temporarily — for this treach- ery. But not for long. The work- ers in the mills are already be- ginning to fight back, Our union will carry on this fight to rid the labor movement of labor racket- eers and to go on to win our long sought sgal of equality of wages and working conditions for Cana- dian textile workers.”’ ENTRY FORM — subjects. will be final, Committee. SUBJECTS: “Why | believe there should be 4 cease-fire in Korea.”’ “Why | believe there should be 9 negotiated peace among the Fiv® Great, Powers.”’ “Why | believe re-armament leads to war.” Name _ : Phone:.-- > Address. ____-.-- ee _ CATEGORIES @ Anyone may enter. You may make your choice of the above ® Awards will be made for those essays judged first and second best in each category. Decision of the essay judges’ c ommitte? @ Kssayu should be submitted not Inter than Wednesday, Aas 13. Winners’ names will be announced at the Picnic. @ Entries will become the property of the United Labor pienle SUBMIT ENTRIES TO: - ‘UNITED LABOR PICNIC COMMITTEE _ 501 Ford Bldg., Vancouver, B.C. 500 word essay oF ee Se ee a 1000 word essay or ! foie 1000 word essay or ! ‘ ESSAY COMPETITION | UNITED LABOR PICNIC CONFEDERATION PARK SATURDAY, AUGUST 16 ,