Fe ecnians: are won by meeting people,
talking with people, explaining the issues,
clearing away the fog of confusion deliberately
created by Liberal and Tory political hucksters

and the propaganda agencies of big business.

LPP members and supports have a big job
of work to do in preparation for the June 15
(provincial) and June 27 (federal) elections.
Tens of thousands ‘of pieces of literature—the only
antidote for the Hitlerite red-baiting and war
propaganda of the “free enterprisers,”” must be
gotten into the hands of the people. That can
only be done by ringing doorbells, talking things
over with people, giving them something worth-
while to read.

A very modest election campaign fund of
$25,000. is needed by the LPP in British Col-
umbia—only a penny-bank compared to the huge
coffers of the Liberals and Tories into which
the big monopolists will pour their slush funds—

Meet the people

to be collected back with interest from the people
after the election. There are thousands of people
who will give to the LPP fund if they are ap-
proached.’ Again, their help can only be enlisted
by door-to-door canvassing.

Nearly 30,000 attractive LPP: provincial
programs are ready for distribution. Similarly,
thousands of LPP federal programs, and a strik-
ing manifesto on “The Real Issues at Stake,”
which brings home to the people of Canada the
threat of war flowing from the St. Laurent gov-
ernment’s policies and points the road to peace
through people’s unity at the polls, need only to
be placed in the people’s hands to win the votes
that can elect LPP candidates,

To win the people in a determined bid for
peace, jobs, homes, security and freedom, we
must meet them—on their own doorstep. Let's
gel going!

PM ducks the cue

RIME Minister St. Laurent is busy campaign-

ing the Maritimes. Those “in the know”
claim the PM is making a desperate effort to “thaw
out,”” to discard his haughty bourbon manner and
become a “man of the people’’—at least until June
27;

It is also reported that the PM is making a
minimum of pre-election promises, resting the case
for his government on its past record. In the realm
of government-labor relations the PM is strangely

timid about this “record.” He has good reason for
his timidity. Wherever a delegation or picket of the
Canadian Seamen’s Union (TLC) desire an aidi-
ence with the PM, that gentleman “ducks” with
unseemly haste around the back-door.

He has good reason to. The whole record of
his government towards the CSU is one of unquali-
fied and unreserved support to the organized ship-
owners in their plot to smash a bona-fide Canadian
union. To clear the way for this union-smashing
{ob for the shipowners, the St. Laurent government

*
‘
‘

has bypassed its. own labor and shipping laws.
Through the medium of its departments of labor and
transport, it has given a green light for police terror
against the CSU, for widespread use of court in-
junctions proscribing legal picketing, for vicious
prison sentences of CSU men—and for foreign goy-
emments ‘within the Anglo-American war bloc to
treat striking Canadian seamen as mutinous outlaws.

What the St. Laurent government hopes to do

to the CSU is but a sample of what it plans to
do to all progressive labor—break or bend the trade
unions of Canada and bring them in line with the

war policies of Wall Street. And it is all done on —

the contemptible Hitlerite pretext that the CSU is
“dominated by communists’’!

The Canadian Seamen’s Union and the tens
of thousands of Canadian trade unionists and pro-
gressives backing the CSU, will catch up with the
PM and his government on June 27. That's one
day he won’t be able to “‘duck.’’ 5S

Cheating the pensioners
JUST before dissolution of parliament, the St.

Laurent government rushed through a pre-elec-
tion “quickie” purchase. They bought, or think

they bought, a block of old age pensioners’ votes
with a monthly increase of $10.
\

~

In the Liberal-heeling press across the country
editorial writers took another dizzy draught of ad-
jectives and used them all-telling old age pensioners
what a “liberal”? Liberal government they had.

In the first flush of enthusiasm over this apparent
partial recognition of senior citizens’ needs, many
people were quite unaware that a good proportion
of pensioners didn’t get a $10 increase, some of
them not the half of it, many of them not a nickel.

‘ The old-line politicians are masters at the art of
legislative cheeseparing. They cannot even perform a
noble gesture decently.

If a pensioner in B.C. has no outside income
aside from his $30 a month, plus the B.C. living
cost bonus of $10, he or she will qualify for the
extra $10—and find it handy, if still inadequate.

/

But if a pensioner has a small income in ad-
dition to his old age pension which brings him to
the limit of what income our legislators decree he
should have (which is approximately $3,000 below
their own salaries), he will get nothing of the extra

$10. And if he is near the limit decreed, the neces-’

sary deductions will be made from the $10 to
assure that high living doesn’t go to his head!

Some bright people would have one believe.

that parliament “forgot” to make the necessary ad-
justment so that all pensioners might enjoy the extra
$10 without a means test. ?

Prime Minister St. Laurent didn’t “forget.””
LPP national leader Tim Buck saw to that when
he wrote the PM and all party leaders in the

House, urging that the plight of the old age pen-

sioners be considered before parliament adjourned,
and advancing the realistic demand of $65 at 65

years of age.

» » .
Election expediency, rather than “forgetfulness”.

prompted the government to proffer a vote-catching
ten dollar bill with a means test limitation. :

TOM McEWEN

As We See It

i

N our youthful days we didn’t need an alarm clock to come awal
in our home town. And anyway, that invention hadn't reached
the stage of perfection it has today. Along about seven a.m.
husky fishwife used to trundle her:barrow up our street, arousing
the neighborhood with the penetrating chant of “Fresh caller herrin,
tuppence.th’ dozen.” : }
With’ the rapid improvement in “selling” technique, those days
seem far away. We do recall however, that the herring were always
fairly fresi. Today we have Coalition cadgers
trundling their election wares—not in a wheel
barrow, but in full-page advertisements and radio
programs which cost the taxpayers of this province
a good deal more than “tuppence a dozen,” and
which in the main, are anything but fresh.

Labelled “The Best Government B.C. Ever
Had,” the Johnson-Anscomb election barrow has
two special compartments: What the Coalition
has done for B.C., and what it will do for B.G—
if reelected! ;

Let us take a gander at a few of the assorted
herring in this Coalition election barrow,
nicély displayed to hook an unwary electorate.

“Worry and anxiety of hospital] bills have been banished in British —
Columbia.” Now there’s an odiferous fish for you! Under the Coali-
tion’s “Hospital Insurance Act” just try to get into a hospital unless
your doctor emphasizes that your case is “an emergency.” Of course
you can always get into a private ward—if you can pay for it, plus
all other medical, surgical and hospital costs.

private and public hospitals, accruing from people requiring

and hospital services, out unable, through no fault of their own, 1
pay for them.. The compulsory deductions from the people's paY
envelopes insure the hospital against loss ... . and clap an add
tax on the “worry and anxiety” of the prospective patient.

Roads. Ah, here is a fish which smells to high heaven. “A
thirty-million dollar program is under way.” That part smells attrac
tive, as it is intended to. It also helps to hide the partisan political
graft which has been an inseperable part of the road policies of the
Coalition and all its precursors, with the result that in terms of
money spent and hazard-free mileage, British Columbia has the wor
roads in the Dominion. Even American tourist bureaus will tell you
that—without any Marshall Plan qualifications. ’ :

And here’s a couple of Coalition cuttle fish with the distinctive
odor of monopoly rule and maladministration. “Public power” - -
developed with public finances for the greater glory—and_ profit—0
“private enterprise.” Nothing about taking over the BCElectric pow?
octopus and developing it in the imterests of public service. 8
“public power” envisioned by the Coalition is to be developed in order
to promote “more MacMillans’—pulp and paper, aluminum, ith,
magnates and soon. The people will only get jobs when B.C. is made

“attractive” to private investment.

“Under the Fraser Valley Dyking Board the emergency prograi™
is now 85 percent complete . . . $6,000,000, has already been provided
by the provincial and federal] governments.” But we mustn't stoP
praying to the Coalition gods—for rain, when the shortsighted policie®
of the Coalition-cum-BCElectric shut off our power as happened Jas”
winter, or for cold weather now, when everyone expects summer,
help the dykes (buttressed by Coalition promises) to hold.

If ever a pair of stale fish, profusely garnished with Coalitio#
dressing, were tendered the electorate for consumption, these labell!
“power” and “floods” certainly top the menu. Never has any govern”
ment at any time surpassed the Coalition’s record in this departmen
Selling out the power resources of the people of B.C. to a handful
power-drunk monopolists; blundering and tinkering with the migh
rampaging water resources of our province instead of permanentl¥
harnessing these to give new progress and life to the people
every community. $ ; ;

The fish-peddlers of the Coalition scream about the “danget®
of Socialism” and laud their administrative blunderings as thé
epitome of “free enterprise.” It is an elementary canon of social
ism to harness the forces of nature to the use of man—not for
his exploitation or destruction. -Under socialism, B.C. water poweT
would be regarded as a great and rich gift of nature to man.
Under the Johnson-Anscomb Coalition it is regarded, either a3 4
bait for votes . . . or an “act of God” when it menaces thelT —
puny existence and maladministration. ‘

June 15 should see the cleaning out of the Coalition cadgers.
e : z
“Prime Minister ducks CSU picket-line” says a press headline 18

“ducking” was the ignominious defeat of the Tory party in
1935 elections, ‘ ea
Worthy bourbon that he is, St) Laurent apparently “learns nothiné

+ +. and forgets a lot. The fact that he must play hide-and-S®"
with the CSU issue proves what?

ts fs
osu

Ces ym, eS
| alk |

SINR CING

Ml hh a

Published Weekly at 650 Howe Street . :
By. THE TRIBUNE PUBLISHING COMPANY LTD.
Telephones: Editorial, MA, 5857; Business, MA. 5288
Tom McEwen ........... pata ve Merr aah a ay
Subscription Rates: 1 Year, $2.50; 6 Months, $1.35
Printed by Union Printers Ltd., 650 Howe Street, Vancouver:
PACIFIC TRIBUNE — MAY 20, 1919 — PA!

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