LOOK, FRITZ! “EYPERT FURNACE STOKERS
WANTED". WITH OUR CREMATORIUM

EXPERIENCE AS RECOMMENDATION--- wE

SHOULD GE ABLE TO LEAVE
THS DP CAMP

by HAL GRIFFIN

OMETIMES, in such places as the Hotel Vancouver
“™ when the business men of the city gather to discuss
_™' policy, you find it hard to believe that there was a
war to destroy fascism; hard to believe that to create a
brave new world men soaked every inch of Stalingrad in
blood and piled their bodies high for no more than a foot-

hold on some far Pacific beach, and that this and not the

speculative investment of war-
s - made profits in blocks of down-
town real estate was the end
_ for which the war was fought.

~The men ‘who gathered the
other day in the hotel’s well-

heartily when some speaker
newly returned from a business
. junket to Hitler’s Germany told
* them of what the Nazis had ac-

|

‘Labor saw, over the stacks of

victory bonds, over the ships
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1948

‘Ten years ago they applauded _

taking form on the ways, over

* the planes taking to the air,

the beginning of a new way of
life distinguished by its broad-
er freedom and greater economic
justice. They too, talked of free-
dom and economio justice, but
in the vanquishing of a power-
ful rival they saw new oppor-
tunities for themselves.

-Now the banks are reclaiming

the victory bonds. The shipyards ©

are closed down, the aircraft
plants dismantled. Now a new

promise is fashioned from the.

shattered pieces of the old. Now
they have taken the enemy’s
weapons for their own, the ally
in the fight for freedom and
the partner in victory has be-
come the new tyranny, the new
enemy, and the way to peace is
through the atom bomb and a
new world war.

Not only the bonds but vic-
tory itself is being reclaimed.

\ e

“LNLESS you believe Prime

Minister Mackenzie King is
an alarmist and warmonger —
which no one believes—you must

“Today we have at our disposal the finest types in the world in
Europe’s Displaced Persons camps. They will be glad to come to
country and share in its development,” C. Bruce Hill,

¢ rusade against
progress

‘

know that communism is a men-
ace,” said Hill. And the mem-
bers of the Board of Trade,
filled with a zeal for the pres-
ervation of life, the liberty of
free enterprise and the pursuit
of profit, applauded.

Ten years ago, after Munich,
the daily press was filled witn
their praise of Chamberlain and
peace in our time—and for the
same reasons.

Of course, no one believes that
King is a warmonger. Our air
bases in the Arctic are purely
for civilian use .to further the
interests of trade and communi-
cation with Russia. That is why
trade with Russia has been re-
duced to virtually nothing. Our
armed forces are staging mili-
tary operations in the North
merely to promote the economic
development of the region. Can-
adians must be encouraged to
settle on a prospective battle-
ground. We are experimenting
with offensive weapons because
attack is the best means of
defense and if, on_ strategic
maps, distances are shown from
New York to Moscow it is be-
cause no one at Washington,
where our sovereignty has been
entrusted for safekeeping, knows
the distance in the reverse di-
rection.

Of course, Mackenzie King is
not a warmonger. War, as
Clauswitz pointed out, is only

the pursuit of policy by other

means, and everyone knows how
many highly placed Canadians,
in government and out, are tour-
ing the country like Hilt him-

self declaiming on their undy-
ing love for Russia.
&

N this atmosphere of the Hotel
Vancouver, the dinginess of
the old sagging houses c%atter-
ing Burrard Street little more
than a block away cannot touch
these well-fed, well-clothed cap-
tains and lieutenants of indus-
try. The poverty and hopeless-
ness of their tenants cannot seep
through to dim the glitter of
future profits. The world is as
bright as their own chrome and
glass homes, as full of oppor-
tunity as the climb of prices
to dizzying heights can offer.

Depression is a state of mind.
Isn’t that what Norman Whit-
ney, executive of the National
Federation of Sales Executives,
told Board of Trade members
the other day?

“Of course,” he said, “if you
want a depression, it’s easy to
get one. Start tarking depression.
Tell your family first, then your
business associates, and then
your customers. Take down your
signs, cut your advertising and
fire your salesmen. You'll have
a depression all right.”

And, whatever you do,
no attention to the lengthening

lines of unemployed outside Na--

tional Selective Service. Ignore
the complaint of housewives that
they cannot afford to buy your
goods. Such things have noth-
ing to do with a depression. It’s
a state of mind, Of course, peo-
ple who have no jobs get de-
pressed.

At $14.40 a week Unemploy-
ment Insurance pay, some of the
unemployed cast on the street
by Douglas Abbott’s austerity
plan will go hungry; their chil-
dren will suffer. Some of them,
through malnutrition and worry,
will go hopelessly into debt to
‘prolong their unproductive lives
because, under free enterprise,
it costs even more to die. Per-
haps then they’ll be glad to
take jobs—any jobs—at lower
wages in order to maintain free
enterprise and the rate of profit.
Maybe some of them will get
so desperate they’ll even be pre-
pared to scab.

But there won’t be any de-
pression, according to C. Bruce
Hill, at least. This is ‘still a
land of opportunity, particularly
if you have no scruples about
the welfare of your fellow man.

“Business has in the past, and
will in the future; develop the
country,” he informed. the as-
sembled Board of Trade mem-
bers. “Under free enterprise you
can start with a pick and shovel
and wind up as a bank presi-
dent—if you want to.”

Some might be inclined to
question his choice of a bank
presidency to illustrate the high-
est peak to which man can
aspire, but still more will
dispute his entire thesis. There
are, at this moment, some hun-
dreds of members of the Outside
Civic Employees Union, many of
whom have been laboring with
a pick and shovel for a number
of years without realizing the
truth of Hill’s remarks. Their
ambitions are far more modest—
a decent wage and a decent
standard of living. But even in
their climb to this equally diffi-
cult and surely far more at-
tainable height they find them-
selves impeded by men of Hill's
stamp and convictions at the city
hall.

There are also, among the hun-
dreds of young unemployed now
flocking into the city in search
of work, many who have laud-
able ambitions. Some of them
perhaps, after a struggle in
which they will learn much of
the necessity and strength of or-
ganization, will obtain the pick
and shovel jobs given to the
Men of a preceding generation.

\ But in the process they will also
have acquired ideas which would

pay

make them most unfitted for
a bank presidency.

They will have tearned, for
instance, that in Russia under
its thrice-damned system, the
right to work, which is the foun-
dation of human dignity and
freedom, is the inalienable right
of every citizen.

Yes, business has developed
this country, although the work
was done, the wealth created by
the man with the pick and shov-
el who did not usurp the coun-
try’s resources and rise to be
a bank president or a corpora-
tion director. Perhaps this ex-
plains why our great iron re-
sources, which might have been
used to give Canada the steel
industry it needs, have lain ust-
developed all these years, now
to be exported to the United
States.

What has free enterprise to
hold out to the man who wants
to cast aside his pick and shovert
and. acquire the skills of, a steel
worker ?.

A S$ the lines of the unemployed
* Jengthen, as living standards
collapse under the merciless
pressure of the profiteers and
the coming depression casts its
shadow before, men like Hill
come forward, “mobilizing besi-
ness thought in a crusade against
the inroads “of communism and

preaching the gospel of Cana-
dian free enterprise.”
“This generation, which is

learning nothing but oppression
and hatred, will be of no help
in fighting communism. Instead
they will be a part of it. We
must prevent this at all costs.”

These are the words of Dr.
Lotta Hitschmanova, executive
director of the Unitarian Serv-
ice Committee, urging support
here for the Canadian Appeal
for Children.

Hunger — not communism —is
the issue. What has free enter-
prise to offer? Will it, at home,
increase the price of milk again?

‘

Howard Mitchell, president of
Vancouver Board of Trade, de-
nounces communism and com-
pares the advantages of living in
our democracy with totalitarian
Russia. “The free enterprise sys-
tem,” he tells members of the
‘Building and Construction In-
dustries Exchange, “is best for
the common man.”

Housing — not communism — is
the issue. What has free enter-
prise to offer the thousands liv-
ing in cramped and sordid quar-
ters? Will the mortgage com-
panies soon be reclaiming the
homes of even those fortunate
enough to have them now.

* The problem for free enter-

prise has been stated precisely
by Dr. L. C. Marsh of the Uni-
versity of British Columbia,

“Canada,” he says, “must have
$25 rental housing for low in-
come groups. A $15 monthly sub-
sidy would be necessary to bring
this within reach.”

Can free enterprise solve this
and all its related problems. If
it wanted to, it would have done
so long ago as, long ago, it
would have eliminated depres-
sion—if it could.

The “crusade against commun-
ism” is its confession of failure.
In eastern. Europe, in Asia, the
brave néw world of the people
is taking shape, and the men of
free enterprise are filled with
fear. In their desperation, they
must adapt the weapons of the
late fascist enemy to their cam-
paign to confuse and divide the
people, even to the extent of
adopting the enemy's coloration.

But, if the people remember
the lessons. of history, their
hopes are as dead as the ashes
of Berlin.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 6