i ee the Boag Founda-
Ps Shs cntential Year

is ;
. athaps the first ser-
ist tempt to write a
men " the trade union
tent . ritish Columbia
Mlishmes’ In itself no small
tiRo cot. It traces a cen-
Mocal gg DO from the first
Din yj Practical bakers”
thy) {Ota in 1859 right
figggme of the big
Owe and ’67,
Pha Greater describes
¢ bitter struggles of
rs of Vancouver
Whose blood and
Unsmuir family
of 7 tortune; of the
‘ bor who spread
fs province of B.C. in
i Unio,” the emergence of
y\ Pilit Shortly after.
ederatt Socialist-led Wes-
‘ndusten of Miners, the

iy) 52! Workers of the
War 7 2 the years before

} re Big establishment
hy re an nhion (OBU) in

Ame... 28ainst conser-
any nan craft unions,

of the ited and the
Rue (wury. Workers

zs 2

We :
BF preater relates the
8; » unemployed of
Oya ganization of
Hy, ©, ria industries into
witha, . 8anization of
Ona] Workers into the
A) Oodworkers of
» but omits any
W883 fact that it was
My dion Cunllitant national
My, the Orcutt: which pio-
fir, ea iemization of the
D ), Mdygp; LOSE mass. pro-
x to es: which ultim.
« Of Ing creation of the
Cg) aniustrial Organiza-
wa later the AFL-

pe
Pir, taze

)

Np
wot

Bee

the i
Dm, author links
: nt labo of trade union-
i » Condi; wUBEles to the
Ry Ptiog ‘Ons and politics
: be ane s ae deal of
ENY ual material
x pnbled indicating a
Y th research and
all thi author, :
Ma, falls f 1S to its credit,
NG tight; Short of what
{i Search to expect from
rector in the

field of labor affairs. The book
does not live up to its fine choice
of a title, nor to the inspiring
extracts from labor’s imperish-
able songs which preface each
chapter; “The Commonwealth of
Toil”, “Hold the Fort”, “The Red
Flag”, etc.

Perhaps, dimly aware of some
major. weaknesses and omissions
in No Power Greater to say no-
thing of a few distortions, obvi-
ously “researched” from the
daily press, the author took
some precautions to fortify him-
self against critics who prefer
their “history” straight and in
accordance with the facts rather
than fantasy. Of the latter labor
and the people get more than
enough.

In the first line of his Intro-
duction to No Power Greater the
author says: “There is no such
a thing as a purely objective
history”. That, of course, is true,
but only “relatively” so. It all
depends upon the historian’s
ability to see and assess the
events which make history (any
history) “relatively” free from
those modern cold-war prejudi-
ces and bias which can turn a
relatively worthwhile job into an

Thailand: The War That Is, The
War That Will Be, by Louis
W. Lomax. (Vintage Books,
$1.95.)

This is an eyewitness account
of another Vietnam in the mak-
ing; Lomax describes the present
military build-up in Thailand as
highly comparable with U.S.
build-up in Vietnam before be-
ginning their present open ag-
gression. Subtle anti-communism
slips into Lomax’s accounts, and
in most cases mars a rather
comprehensive study of the
American role in Southeast Asia.

He bares the fact that the
United States is in firm control
of the affairs of Thailand:

“Thailand is America’s central
base of operations in Southeast
Asia and the (U.S.) ambassador
left no doubt that he, Graham
Martin, is in complete command.
Members of the ‘team’ are the

unintended opposite. Certainly
there can be no pure history”,
but the “purity” in any history
can be measured by two simple
rules well known to working-
men; sticking to the facts, and
presenting them as they are, and
not as the historian would like
them to be.

Throughout the pages of No
Power Greater this political bias
on the part of the author sticks
out like a “no strike” clause in
a “sweetheart” union contract.

Thus author Phillips’ anti-com-
munism leads him into no end
of efforts in an attempt to down-
grade or omit entirely the mili-
tant and pioneering role of Cgm-
munist leaders in the struggles
of B.C. labor for the elementary
right of organization and demo-
cratic freedoms. Not only that
but in his effort to blackout the
contributions of the Communists
in labor’s ranks, Phillips has in-
cluded in his non-objective his-
tory, statements about Commun-
ist leaders which are utterly
untrue and long established as
untrue.

Dealing with the inner-union
IWA struggle and subsequent
split which developed in the
IWA in 1948, he says:

“On October 4, the auditors’
report was released and stated
‘that union funds were advanced
to Nigel Morgan, provincial lead-
er of the LPP and that no ac-
counting of this money could be
found’. A total of $100,000 was
reported involved in this and
other unexplained transfers.”

This is a deliberately slander-
ous and false statement, taken
from the columns of the anti-
labor monopoly press. Nowhere
in the auditors’ report is there
any mention of Nigel Morgan’s
name nor of the LPP. Nowhere
any reference to “unexplained
transfers” or “no accounting of
money”.

This is the prime weakness of
No Power Greater, that its au-
thor has permitted himself to be
influenced by sources, which, for
their own private and political
reasons, seek to keep the cold
war fires of anti-communism
well stoked.

Radicals, socialists and com-
munists have made their share
of mistakes in the labor move-
ment, and some of them have

head of the CIA in Bangkok, the
directors of our AID and Infor-
mation service, and the com-
mander of our military opera-
tions.” ;

Mr. Lomax gets carried away
in some of his accounts of com-
munist activity. He presents the
leader of the Liberation move-
ment in grandest Hollywood
romanticist style: A young girl,
her father (also a communist)
killed by the authorities, who
leaves university to disappear
into China and Russia, to receive
guerrilla training. Later she ap-
pears on the scene to begin a
war of revenge in her father’s
name. She gathers a small band
about her and terrorizes the
countryside; sort of a Thai Jesse
James.

Some of his statements appear
to be a little lacking in facts:
“During the war (WW II), the
British colony of Malaya (now

been big ones. But what they
can never be accused of is col-
laborating with employers and
governments against the inter-
ests of labor. This is more than
can be said of those so-called
labor leaders who have made
anti-communism a profession in
order to enhance their own so-
cial, economic and political well-
being. As a wise old West Coast
American labor leader often
remarked: “Not every anti-com-
munist is a phoney, but every
phoney is an anti-communist”.

There are many highlights in
British Columbia labor history,
obviously unknown to author
Phillips which have a lasting
place in B.C. labor history, even
if omitted in No Power Greater.

Arthur ‘Slim’ Evans, not only
led the “On-to-Ottawa” Hunger
Marchers but led District 18 of
the United Mine Workers in
some of their greatest struggles
for a living wage, and went to
prison for using union funds to
feed starving miners’ wives and

families when the UMWA
‘Grand Lodge’ refused to give
financial assistance to their

striking members in Alberta and
Eastern B.C. The same Arthur
Evans pioneered: the building of
Mine-Mill in the empire of the
Consolidated Mining and Smelt-
ing Company in a period when
to carry a union card was a
one-way ticket to blacklist, hun-
ger and death.

And the WUL. It gets brief
mention in No Power Greater,
although the title of this book
was the axiom that guided its
entire existence. It organized the
unorganized on an_ industrial
basis; it. fought bitter strikes
and won wage increases in a
period when the craft union bu-
reaucrats were instructing their
membership that wage increases
could not be won “in times of
economic crisis”. It organized
the unemployed and gave Cana-
da’s forgotten youth generation,
condemned to Tory Bennett’s
“relief camps” a new concept of
dignity and life.

It was the Workers Unity
League that organized the first
all-Canada delegation to Ottawa
to demand of the Bennett gov-
ernment a system of non-contri+
butory unemployment insurance.
Many of its Communist leaders

went to prison for long years,
convicted under Section 98 of
the Criminal Code for organizing
workingmen to make such de-
mands upon governments. But
in the pages of No Power Great-
er ‘these integral parts of ‘“‘ob-
jective” history receive meagre

*—or no recognition. Like its

counterpart in the U.S., the
Trade Union Unity League

(TUEL), the WUL not only did.

much to lay the foundation of
the CIO, but projected the con-
cept of labor unity throughout
its entire existence.

But author Phillips does seem
to regard going to jail as a sort

of ‘badge of honor’ for some.

For instance in the Vancouver
Island miners’ strike of 1912-13,
there were many miners and
their leaders thrown into jail,
miners with names like English,
Greenwell, etc., etc. Yet from
the pages of No Power Greater
one is left with the impression
that the late labor veteran, Sam
Guthrie, was the only union man
worth mentioning by name.

What is even more enlighten-
ing at this late date is that in
the hectic days of organizing the
IWA and Mine-Mill which were
“fighting the worst employers”,
CCF leaders like Harold Winch,
Grant McNeil, and Colin Camer-
on, all “helped .. . and in some
cases went to jail to organize
the camps and mines”. That will
certainly be “news” to a lot of
old-timers in B.C. labor strug-
gles.

Students of labor organization
and struggles in B.C. will find
No Power Greater a valuable
and useful reference, with a
wealth of ready-to-hand data on
labor organization in B.C. and
its political ups and downs cov-
ering a long period of time. In
this Dr. Paul Phillips has done
a big and commendable job, and
produced a commendable liter-
ary achievement. With less par-
tisan bias and more objective-
ness, despite his thesis on the
non-objectivity of history, No
Power Greater could have been
rated a good history, if not “ob-
jective”, at least factual.

That has still to be written:

the glorious saga of B.C. labor

since Confederation, still to be
told. Well, Paul Phillips is still
a young man. B.T.M.

The war that is
The war that will be

_Malaysia) was overrun by the

Japanese. The guerrilla warfare
against the Japanese was carried
on mainly by Malay-Chinese
under the leadership of a taut
Mao strategist called Chin Peng.
Chin and his top associates were
trained in Peking and they re-
ceived the bulk of their supplies
from the China Mainland. Chin
allied himself with guerrilla for-
ces inside Thailand, just across
the border who were carrying
on a struggle against the Japa-
nese.” Strange to see a “Peking
trained” guerrilla in the early
forties, long before communist
control of Peking or China, in
1949. ©

Lomax exposes the sincerity
of American financial aid pro-
grams for Thailand. The wonder-
ful Freedom Road is just one
example. Millions were spent to
cut this road through the heart
of Thailand, supposedly for de-

velopment of the country. After
it was built, however, one can
easily see ‘that it is simply a
supply road linking American
military bases and airfields from
which about one-third of the
terror bombing of Vietnam is
launched.

The most important point that
Lomax makes is that Thailand
is the centre of American activ-
ity in Southeast Asia, and the
U.S. is sworn to send men to
die to protect the Bangkok gov-
ernment which allows them to
operate openly and freely there
at the expense of the people of
Southeast Asia.

The book reveals many hidden
facts of the American role in
Southeast Asia and if one can
get through the skilful anti-com-
munism and the private politicis-
ing of Lomax, there is much fact
and food for thought.

Dan Hammond

Ok “8.554

ocd rn RI SRO Ea EEL