’ Review

Tom
McEwen

N A WAD of press clippings I recently
| received from sunny California are
some very interesting items. A short
‘blurb by one rolitical analyst, specu-
lating on the Eisenhower administra-
tion’s chances of re-election has the
appropriate caption, “Brains Are Need-
ed To Win,” the inference being that
the Republicans suffer from an alarm-
ing lack of that commodity.

In this search for “brains” John

Foter Dulles is working overtime stag-.

ing conferences on the theme of “what-
to-do-next”. Seems that the recent
visit of B, and K. to Britain has given
him no end of a headache, hence these

’ numerous get-togethers on the pressing
problem of what to do next.

At one of these “brain trust” con-
ferences some reactionary senator
asked Dulles “... why restriction were
removed on certain items to be traded
by other nations with Russia ?” Dulles
is reported to have replied that “we
had to do it, otherwise our allies were
going ahead by: themselves.” ;

Meanwhile,- and hellbent to get in

on the trade show somehow, the US.
Commerce Department announced that
it had released “about 700 non-strategic
items, including castor oil and brass-

-jeres for uncontrolled trade with. the
Soviet bloc.” e t
If these two specificially listed items
(highly symbolic of Pentagon *friend-
‘ship”) are a sample of the “non-
strategic” items released, it is a safe bet
that the list includes some queer com-
modities of a Coca Cola culture, which
Dulles wouldn’t mind dumping by the
shipload ‘on the “Soviet bloc”.
» With castor oil and brassieres hither-
to considered highly “strategic” items
by these U.S. cold war brain-trusters,

it would probably be highly amusing:

to learn what is now regarded as “non-
strategic.” No wonder our California
correspondent poses a very pertinent
question: “Can anyone in our state
department tell us why brassieres were
banned from Russia ?”
- The most gratifying aspect about the
Dulles ‘“what-to-do-next” conferences
is the dawning realization that his
“peace through strength” policies have
been declared totally bankrupt by his-
tory, and that peaceful co-existence
with its concept of mutual trade,
friendship, tolerance and goodwill,
holds the world. stage with an ever-
increasing urgency. It may take Dulles
and his cold war brain-trusters a little
time to grasp this fact, but the Ameri-
can people will give them every help
between now and the presidential elec-
‘tions this fall to “get wise !” ;
Hard on the heels of the Dulles what-
to-do-next conferences and the easing of
cold war trade restriction, the NATO
conference, in session in Paris,
comes up with an old idea in new dress
— the proposal to select “Three Wise
Men” who will “chart the battle with
Moscow for the minds and hearts of
mankind.” ee ba
Obviously the search for “brains will
have to continue!

e e e

Pacific Tribune

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Editor — TOM McEWEN
Associate Editor — HAL GRIFFIN
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, Bennett talks

sense on trade »

HONEYES he may boast for
political advantage that his
Social Credit government is respon:
sible for the present relative pros
perity of this pfovince, Premier W.
A. C. Bennett is a businessman of
long Conservative experience.
He knows to what extent this

prosperity is due to his govern »

ment’s policy of selling our re
sources to the U.S. and the con-
sequent weakness of an economy
short on manufacturing industries
and long on wood, mineral and
other products which are dependent
upon export markets. He knows
that a recession in the U. S., British
Columbia’s main market, would
quickly prick the bubble of our
prosperity.

His boasts have their danger. If
Social Credit is responsible for this
prosperity, might not those who
believe this claim hold Social Credit
responsible for its loss ?

That is why Bennett this week
warned of the danger of our de-
pendence on U.S. markets and the

possible “‘very unfavorable reper

cussions on our economy” of U.S.
cutbacks, and of the need for de-
veloping Asian markets — China,
Japan, Soviet Far East.

Whatever his reasons, Bennett
is talking sense when he speaks of
Asia as this province’s logical
market. :

He should now follow up his re-
marks with a determined campaign
to compel Ottawa to adopt trade
policies that correspond to our
needs —- a campaign in which he
would be assured of full popular
support.

NR A EE SE I TT a ERE EEE RTT

Comment

Pickersgill tramples rights

FREEDOM of speech and associa-

tion implies the right of people
to listen and judge for themselves
and to voice their own opinions
accordingly.

That right, under the dictates of
Immigration Minister J. W. Pick-
ersgill, is rapidly becoming a mus
eum piece. |

First it was his arbitrary decis-
ion that a delegation of five Soviet
women. should not be permitted
to visit this country because he
did not like the auspices. Then it

was his ruling to bar a great Ameri

can artist, Paul Robison. Now it
is his denial of permission for
Corliss Lamont, American author
and lecturer, to enter this country
to address a Unitarian Church
gathering, which is not relieved
by his subsequent change of heart.

Canadians should speak out
sharply to protect their right before
the St. Laurent government “‘inte-
grates’ them with the current U.S.
concept of freedom as being only
for those who conform to govern-
ment approved views, which is not

freedom at all.

| Hal
Griffin

—or memories.

to its foot.

broken.

rain.” :

—& STOPPED by the barn door
W and stood gazing im silence down
the darkening green pastures. The
brilliant burnished gold of the sun-
set was already fading to a serene
yellow and high in the gathering
twilight a star appeared. It was
the kind of a night to stir dreams

Across the river the white cone
of Mount Baker was limned against
the sky in the delicate lines of an old
Japanese print, so close, it seemed,
that a few minutes would take us

A thin wind stirred the new
leaves on the alders and rippled the
mirror of the river. The spell was

Duncan turned to me and said
phlegmatically, “Well, looks like it'll
be a fine day again tomorrow. But —
them fields sure could do with some

T have known Duncan for going

on 25 years,’ ever since I met him on

\ his way back from the Yukon with

two or three thousand dollars in his
pockets, the wages he had carefully
saved from his summers on the
gold creeks and just as carefully
guarded against the temptations of
poker games in the long winters.

He was going to buy a farm, he
told me, and he did.

All these years, through a de- ©

pression, a war and a decade of in-
flated prosperity, he has farmed
these same acres by the river beyond
Mission. When he got them they
were run down and still only par-
tially cleared, the stumps of old
trees standing where the former
owners had wearied of the struggle
against poor roads and worse mar-
kets and abandoned their dream of
land and security to the bush. ;

Over the years Duncan has cleared
the land and drained it to create fat
pastures. He has planted fruit trees,
spread his strawberries over a sunny
slope and set out long rows of rasp-
berry canes.

He has built his own house on the
exact spot where he first lived in a
two-roomed shingled shack and his
wife’s kitchen is as well-equipped as
those at most workers’ wives in the
city.

The Fraser River flood of 1948
hit him hard, but not as hard as the
early frost last November. ©

. tinuing long hours at hard work for

' killed by the frost.

_Fraser Valley farmers. compelled

Now even his prospect of con-

a modest living has grown dim.
There are no returns.

Earlier he had shown me his
strawberries from which he picked
a few hundred dollars last year. He
had left them in the hope that a few
plants might have survived. But
they were as brown as the earth that
held their lifeless roots.

He had shown me his raspberry
canes, some of them struggling into
leaf but far more stark and brittle.

He had shown me his walnut trees
from which not a bud had burst, ce

And he had pointed to his cows
in the damaged pastures. “I buy a
hundred dollars’ worth of feed for
them, but I don’t get back fifty
dollars’ worth of milk,” he said..

His plight is that of hundreds of

to pay feed costs far beyond their
own returns, faced with losses it will
take them several years to replace
and forced to watch American
growers filling the local market at
Scarcity prices.

They are bitter, and understand-
ably so, over the reluctance of
governments to give them assistance
and, unless organized labor takes up
their fight, it will be harder to win
their support in the times ahead, for
they feel they have become the for-
gotten men.

r

May 18, 1956 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 5