Robeson bar
stirs up storm

Denouncing the barring from Canada of U.S. singer
Paul Robeson, Vancouver branch of the League for Demo-
cratic Rights this week called on individuals and organiza-
tions to protest to the immigration department in Ottawa

and demand that Robeson be

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Women ‘mourn’
5.A. constitution

CAPETOWN

Three hundred black-sashed
Women demonstrated outside
South Africa’s parliament . in
Capetown last week in protest
against undemocratic legislation
by the Strijdom government.

Members of the Women’s De-
fense of the Constitution League,
the women wear their sashes
in morning for the constitution,
torn up by the government bill
to take the vote from South
African Coloreds (people of
Mixed descent).

This ‘was passed in the pre-
Vious joint session after Strij-
dom had packed the Senate to
Set his necessary two-thirds
Majority. But its legality has

Still to be tested by the High
Court.

allowed to make his concert
tour.

“The people of Vancouver,
like the people of 16 other Can-
adian cities, have been arbitrar-
ily denied the pleasure of en-
joying a live concert by this
great artist,” said an LDR
statement. “But public opinion
can reverse the decision and
bring Robeson to Canada. Pro-
tests should be sent to :Hon. J.
W.  Pickersgill, Minister of
Citizenship and Immigration,
Ottawa.”

Protesting voices have been
raised from coast to coast against
Pickersgill’s attempt to erect an
iron curtain around Canada.

Montreal _ Civil Liberties
Union officially endorsed the
stand “taken. editorially by the
Toronto Star that the barring
of Robeson was an “unfair and
foolish act.”

Paul Normandin, CLU secre-
tary, said his organization agreed
with the Star’s statement that
“this is an act reminiscent of
American official behavior in
the days when McCarthyism was
in flower. It is unworthy of
Canada’s political and cultural
liberty.”

The Regina Leader-Post, com-
menting on the barring of
Robeson and the refusal of
visas to a delegation of five
Soviet women, asked:

“Does (this) mean that the
Canadian government has
adopted -an -isolated -policy
directly at odds with the new
and generally welcomed trend
symbolized -in _the -east-west
flow of industrial, agricultural
and cultural specialists 2?” ---

Noting that “a Communist,
professed or not, is as free to
go about his lawful business as
Mr. George Drew,” the paper
declares that Immigration Min-
ister Pickersgill’s department
has shown “too little recognition
of the tolerant spirit our con-

<fused world finds it hard to
adopt and implement.’

The Leader-Post was one of
many protesting voices. raised
over . Pickersgill’s action in
erecting an iron curtain around
Canada. His latest action fol-
lows a long series of complaints
about the administration of his

department.

Soviet Jewish culture
undermined by Beria

WARSAW

The Jewish newspaper Folk-
e of April 4 carries a re-
Port on the havoc created in
Soviet Jewish culture which it
attributes to former Soviet se-
curity chief Lavrenti Beria. The
article also tells of a new growth
of Jewish culture in the USSR
_ With 60 Yiddish writers now
Working on new books to be
Published shortly.
B The papér says that “the
€ria gang” was able to per-
_Petrate injustices against noted
ash writers as a result of
© atmosphere created by “the
ap of the personality.” (This
em 8 reference to the one-man
€adership which developed in
© latter part of Stalin’s life
8nd activity.)
me of the victims go back
© the late thirties, including
Public figures such as S. Dim-
Wocin, Esther Frumkin, 8.
*€instein, Moshe Litvakov, and

riters as L. Khorik, Moshe
arta H. Dunietz and sr
lowing the war the Beria
na pemes the leaders of the
Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee
and executed them. Among the
most prominent writers victim-
ized in such frameups were:
Itzik Feffer, David Bergelson,
Peretz Markish, Leib Kvitko,
David Hoffstein, I. Nusinov, E.
Spivak and others.

The punishment _of those
guilty of these terrible viola-
tions of Soviet justice, the ar-
iicle states, began with the free-
ing in 1953 of the doctors Beria
had tried to frame, and the
clearing of the noted actor Mik-
nee aries to the new pub-
lication of Soviet Ji ewish works,
the article also reports that the
State Jewish theatre is again
being opened and that other
phases of Jewish art and cul-
ture are being developed.

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VOL. 15, No. 16

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<a 26 PRICE 10 CENTS

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, APRIL 20, 1956

EYES ON TCRONTO

Authorized by the Post Office Department as second class mail.

Historic parley —
heals labor split

By MARK FRANK

TORONTO

When the chairman raps his gavel next Monday in -Toronto Coliseum ‘“The
First Constituent Convention of the Canadian Labor Congress’’ will be called to order.
The founding convention will mark an end to a 17-yearlong split in the ranks of
labor. Division into two labor centres — Trades and Labor Congress and Canadian
Congress of Labor — was patterned after the break-up that took place in the U.S., when

Stuart rapped
for meddling

the CIO was expelled from the
AFL.

The split took place in the
U.S. three years before it did
in this country.

Every Canadian worker has
for years bitterly resented the
fact that “ordei's from Washing-
ton” headquarters of the AFL
brought. on the rupture of the
Canadian house of labor.

Those who attended, the 1938
TLC convention will recall the
outrageous letter sent by then
AFL president William Green
to TLC head Paddy Draper.
Seeking to dictate action to a
sovereign Canadian convention
of labor. The letter sent August
2, 1938, some weeks before the
convention opened, read:

“CIO unions which have been
permitted to remain in affilia-
tion with the Canadian Trades
and Labor Congress are regard-
ed as dual unions by the AFL.
Please make this point and these
facts plain to the officers and
delegates who may be in atten-
dance at the convention of the
Canadian Trades and Labor
Congress which meets at Niag-
ara Falls, Ontario, beginning
September 12, 1938.”

Instead of bowing, delegates
defiantly adopted a_ resolution
averring that “whereas a united
international trade union move-
ment within Canada is essential
for the welfare of the workers
of this Dominion .. . this con-
vention concurs in the desires
expressed for avoidance of di-
visions of our movement in Can-
ada,”

But the pressure from south
of the line was unrelenting.
Threats, arrogant orders, pour-
ed in on the TLC officers. The
heat was put on through the
internationals. A powerful un-
ited front of progressives fought
to uphold Paddy Draper and

Continued on back page
See LABOR

JOHN DIEFENBACKER, MP

Halibut men

vote strike

Pacific Coast halibut fisher-
men, have voted by 73.4 percent
for strike action to win a

minimum price for halibut this
year, and are preparing to tie
up all ports on April 27 unless
dealers agree to a floor price
before the deadline.

In the event that last-minute
agreements are signed, there
will be a 15-day waiting period
enforced before any boats leave
port, so that all fishermen will
have an equal opportunity to
rig their gear and reach the
fishing grounds around the
same time.

Impertinent advice to Cana-
dians that this country should
not become alarmed about the
increasing domination of U.S.
capital, given jauntily by re-
tiring U.S. ambassador R.
Douglas Stuart, brought down”
a storm of condemnation from
Canadian politicians this week.

“An unwarranted intrusion
into Canadian domestic affairs,”
was the angry comment of
John Diefenbaker, Conservative
external affairs spokesman.

He added that Stuart's diplo-
matic bloomer in discussing the
trans-Canada_ pipeline issue,
now before the federal house, —
Was a “gratuitous intrusion” on
the rights of parliament.

Davie Fulton (PC, Kamloops)
said in the House that the
federal government has so de-
bauched politics “that it uses
the U.S. ambassador as a tool to
advance its own political in-
terests ... there is a domestic
controversy going on here, a
matter of a fundamental dif-
ference of political opinion be-
tween the government and the
opposition (over the pipeline)
and we have the U.S. ambassa-
dor expressing exactly the sort
of criticism which the govern-
ment is expressing, in an attempt
to becloud the issue and to mis-
represent the stand that the
official opposition is taking.”

CCF leader M. J. Coldwell

termed Stuart’s speech “highly
improper.” . .