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"Now,don't get ideas - theyre iow
uncvilised people over there who
don't understand our Western ways!”

Niiaivodeats need unked
ranks for battle ahead

N the Pacific Northwest approximately 80,000

_ lumber and sawmill workers are preparing to do
battle. In Washington and Oregon the deadline for
strike action is set for May 15. If by that time
the lumber operators refuse to give favorable consi-

deration to the health and welfare and other de-

mands of 40,000 IWA-CIO members, strike action

will follow.

~ In British Columbia approximately 37,000
~ lumber workers have set June 15 as the deadline

for a satisfactory answer from the lumber bosses to
their demands for a straight 17-cent wage increase
across the board and the union shop. Having got:

_ properly trimmed in the 1949 “‘hole-in-the-doughnut”’
wage agreement, B.C. lumberworkers are in no mood

to scale down their wage demands to meet the |

_ yevised “‘hard-times” plea of the operators. Rising
~ living costs and profits are well established by Domi-
nion Bureau of Statistics and corporate indices.
Wages must be upped to keep pace with spiralling
living costs, extended periods of unémployment,
growing speedups on the job, higher camp board
rates, and generally all-round worsening of working
conditions. Hence the June 15 deadline for strike
action, should the lumber operators force a show-
down.
«As in Washington and Oregon, where the in-
dustry is split between the IWA-CIO and the AFL,
~ with the bosses trying to utilize the situation to their
own advantage, so also in B.C. the lumber barons are
hoping to take full advantage of the IWA-WIUC
split im order to impose new wage cuts, and whittle
away the hard-won gains of the lumberworkers, re-
gardless of union affiliation.
Past masters in the business of “divide and
rule”, the bosses have sought the aid of the IWA-

Fadling machine and the notorious B. C. Labor °

Relations Board. The rulings of this Board, as
in the case of the Pacific Veneer mills at New
Westminster, where it attempted to deprive the union
of certification, dovetail nicely with the provoca-
tions of the operators. Such actions are calculated

to throw confusion and disunity into the ranks of

the lumberworkers on the eve of negotiations, thereby
weakening the efforts of the union to gain its 1950
wage objective. .

As “‘guest’’ speaker at a recent gathering of
the B.C. boss loggers, Fadling told his hearers that
‘wwe have no differences on basic issues” in
his 40-minute harangue on.“communism”. The boss
loggers cheered loudly — but Fadling spoke only
for himself. A 17-cent wage hoist, and not “‘com-
munism”’ is what the lumber workers are after.

“Victory in the coming battles in lumber can,
only be won on the basis of rank and file unity — °

by a resurgence of the magnificent unity which won
substantial wage increases and improved working con-
ditions for the lumber workers in past years. The
internecine warfare which marked. the early stages
of the IWA-WIUC split is disappearing, as the

attacks of the operators on union standards increase.

To win the wage demands required in the 1950

contract, it must disappear entirely.

The prime activity now is to promote rank-.

and-file unity on the job — to work for unity at
all levels, regardless of afhliation, in order to win
that 17 cents by June 15 —— to be ready on that
date to parallel the unity and solidarity of May 15,
1946, which will always stand as a demonstration of
what labor solidarity can accomplish.

United ranks is the need and order of the battle
ahead for the woodworkers.

ct against flood threat now

‘JD ESIDENTS in the flood areas of British Colum-

dykes along the Fraser River and other

se: still remember the disastrous 1948
, - contents of the April edition of British
ia Snow Survey Bulletin covering the Colum-
bia Basin and lower coastal areas, contains a lot
of disturbing “ifs”. These “‘ifs’”” demand that at-
tention be focused on dykes and other flood barriers
now, rather than on future favorable weather con-
ditions, which not even Coalition hot air can affect.
North Thompson, Upper Fraser and lower coastal
vegions “indicate the greatest measured snow-water-
content on record,” ahd in all areas “no sign of
general thawing, little runoff, and continued cool

Diddle banshee whe mledk“ja he

North The 1 and Upper Fraser areas. There
Saget y artes ee, in the absence of a normal

runoff, is “predicted to be 8,700,000 acre feet’’,
nearly one million acre feet above the 1948 level.
The report sums up the situation in these words:
“Tt will be seen from the foregoing that, in general,
the snow fields, in the areas under consideration, are
covered with deep snow. This snow is at low den-
\sity which indicates that the snow has not yet begun
its various stages of melting. If the present unsea-
sonable weather with cool nights, cloudy days, and
above normal precipitation continues into April and
early May, a definife flood potential will exist.”
“If we get nice sunny weather (with the odd
shower) for April, May and June, then “the flood
potential will not exist’. But that “if” is as un-
certain as the Coalition’s promised ‘‘prosperity’”’ in
_ last year’s spate of election promises. —
British Columbia had better look to the dykes
rather than to hopeful weather forecasts and Coali-
tion assurances. The spending of a couple of mil-

lion dollars or more right now, providing a few thou-

sand jobless workers with useful employment, con-
solidating and extending our dykes and other flood

“TOM McEWEN

As We See It

BRAHAM ‘Lincoln's grass-roots concept of “government of ©

the people, by the people. and for the people” has been ren-
dered obsolete by the Wall Street Marshall planners. These mod-
ern salesmen of dollar “democracy” now brief their customers at
home and abroad, and with the most brazen effrontry, on just
what “government” means — to them.

Following the recent Greek “elections” in which thousands of
the Greek working people were denied the right to ‘vote, the US.
state departrient issued a curt order — that so and so “must be

added to the government if Marshall aid is
to be continued”. Just like that. : :

Old Abe’s government by and for the people
is lost below decks, buried in a super cargo of
Coca-Cola, Sherman tanks, high explosives and
other “surplus war’ materials, symbols of ‘gov-
ernment of the Greek people by: dollar imperial-
ism.

The Acropolis, cradle of culture, democracy ©
and civilization bah! What is that ruin
compared to the mighty dollar and Wall Strect’s
patented “way of life’? — or the Parthenon, tem- ©
ple of Grecian mythology,.symbol of beauty and
virginity huh? Don’t give us that crap.
Get a government suitable to us, ready to do-

our bidding on all counts, ov no more dollars. How else can the
world be “saved” from Communism? | :

And on the other side of the werld, to the puppet government
of South Korea, the U.S. state department dispatched a similar
ukase. Get busy, Sigman Rhee, get busy; balance your budget;
stabilize your economy, stamp out the “communist” menace...

. no more Marshall “aid”.

Quite a tough assignment for this South Korean puppet govern-
ment run by Wall Street, even with Mikado McArthur just across
the way. The people of South Korea are looking to the people of —
North Korea and the people of China, who are doing splendidly
without Marshall “aid”. There, industry and agriculture are experi- —
encing a revolution. The people are running their own affairs. Their —
living, cultural and social standards are going up. They are stand-
ing up amid the ruin and the wreckage left by the defeated Chiang
Kai-shek with his Kungs, Chens and Soongs, the legacy of twenty-
five years’ imperialist-fostered strife, and they want no more of
such “aid”,

The South Korean stooge government of Wall Street is bedevilled
with this awakening among the millions of its people, and no amount
of terror and brutality can halt the people’s struggle for genuine
freedom and democracy. They have learned -to think, like Abe Lin- —
coln, about “government of the people, by the people, and for the
people”, rather than government of the people by Wall Street. 50,
instead of heeding Chou Hn-lai’s advice to “take a look at the map")
the dollar diplomats resort to open threats that strip from their “aid”
every unctious pretension.

The U.S. State Department also takes a lively ‘interest in the
Philippines. For a country that has just recently received its ‘“inde-
pendence” the tenor of state department instructions to its puppet
government there is a marvel of undiplomatic dollar diplomacy. This
state of affairs is largely occasioned by the Hukabalahaps, the Huks
for short, who represent a majority of the Filipino people, and wh?
hold ideas contrary to Wall Street on what constitutes freedom and
independence. With arms in hand they are demonstrating theil
determination to hold to these ideas — and most important, despite —
Marshall “aid’ against them, control the greatest land area in the
key islands of the Philippines. Hence the numerous advices from
the U.S. State Department to its government in Manilla on how t0 |
“govern” — for Wall Street. \

Back on the other side of the world, Wall Street’s instructions —
to Attlee of Britain, de Gasperi of Italy, or Bidault of France, are
not couched in the same abrupt terms, perhaps, as to the Greeks,
Filipinos. South Koreans, or Chiang Kai-shek in his last dollar- —
collecting hangout in Formosa, but the mounting hatred of Yanked
imperialism now very evident in Britain, France, Italy, or other 8) :
around the globe whose peoples have been put in hock Wall —
Street as the end-product of government-inyposed : Plant
policies, is only too evident. ;

Cargoes of tanks, planes, guns, small arms, ammunition, explo-
sives, plus atomic threats, have stripped the Marshall Plan and its
supplementary Atlantic Pact bare of hypocritical mummery about
“freedom”. “independence”, “saving our way of life’, ad nauseum.

And while we are taking a look at the Yankee atomaniacs’ treat- —
ment of Greece, South Korea or elsewhere, don’t let us forget the
home ground. The St. Laurent government, as a signatory to the
Atlantic Pact, has not only committed countless thousands of Cana —
dians to fight, and perhaps die for Wall Street, but has ceded strate- —

_ gic chunks of Canadian territory to Yanke imperialism, given the

U.S. a complete monopoly of our uranium resources at bargaiD
prices, and placed the bulk of our heavy industry at the beck and 3
call of the dollar warmongers. To top that off, Canada's markets
are subordinated to the dollar-trade policies of Washington, which
translated into everyday conditions for the Canadian people, means —
lowered living standards, mass unemployment, economic crisis, and
the two-pronged menace of fascism and war. aa
We may sympathise or rejoice, as the case may be, with peoples —
in other parts of the world who are striking a blow, often with heavy —
losses, for democratic progress and peace, but of all the charities:
this is one kind that should begin at home. The fight for peace, foF —
a united peoples’ front against provocations and intereference of
the warmongers, for us must begin right here in Canada. As ee
Duffy so neatly put it in his inimitable Irish way, “Never mind the —
*Russians or the Chinese or others; let’s put our own house in order:
- Our “house” is Canada! And to put it in order ave must plock
the warmongers at €very turn and become fighters for peace. :
Begin today by signing the Ban-the-Bomb Petition! ce

ie

uit

Published Weekly at 650 Howe Street
By THE TRIBUNE PUBLISHING COMPANY LTD.
Telephone MA, 5288

safeguards is the only sure way of removing the —

“ifs” from a potential flood menace in the making.

ee

of am