— Ingly gs
‘Pent on

3 ftations”

hear 4 288 project?

Seezing wt government's

tag,” Semin;

RUBE S REE

' Tom

Naan 8
PUMA ML aU MiiMianieieiaienenaie ne)

hast week the daily press carried a
Ort item which has a more than
Passing interest for organized labor. It

of Chilliwack municipality begin-
Pace big 26-mile road paving job; the
m mlcipality itself assuming the cost of
Bitutie of new trucks, with Columbia
ide thie awarded the asphalt mixing
(ee and the Royal Canadian Engineers
Wning and manning the asphalt layer)
the job as “an army training

cat many years organized labor in
Nada has fought strenuously against

anny Meursion of convict labor or con-

Penal 20°, Products from Canada’s big
a institutions finding their way into
Competitive “free enterprise” econ-
more Over the years too, more and
ino, C@Nadians have become increas-
of pubinePtical about the squandering
1¢ monies (which could well be
much-needed peacetime pro-
humerous army training “op-
Usefy] which are neither productive,
Pas: oF necessary. But when the army
Cage Hae as projected in the Chilliwack
Delon, © take on jobs which rightfully
of § to civilian labor, that is a horse
the Ark €rent color. In the long run
from eer to organized labor standards
Much uch “army training projects” is
8reater than from convict labor!

Jeets) on

ina Caption on this item read: Army

So Town Gets Roads. To
he story it should have add-
Labor Loses Jobs.

Tike have the Bennetts, Websters,
“trieng and Finlaysons, these ardent
boung., Of labor (and there are no
timer) 0 their ardor during election
Toad hyiyaey Shout this Chilliwack army
th We'd like to
Ni ceed Comments, not only on the

a policy of
dollar id of 50 cents out of every tax
kenge n the armed forces (read “de-
for tay, Ut on the Chilliwack formula
Uurping © the other 50 cents — by
e 8 the workers’ jobs.

Omp] ay
eq, ay t

Seni
“unt e Brooklyn Bridge to some up-

Plan ortime “
b r Snerd for one “E
standing Unum” dollar used to be a
Tecan, °JOKe in Bronx circles, but the

Of ’nnual financi t
rat ee Firs ancial balance shee

t Narrows Bridge C

inne ge Company

no joes of the Lions Gate Bridge
® for the people of this area.

+ SY ar
Times h Soing to buy that bridge many

Ponopghy before the Guinness Stout

ty paid aa even admit it has been

_Even then, the people
tt; Own. it.
its Garet® fiscal year 1951-52, the
afp a4, Bridge recorded a profit of
foal bad for an annual take
; aeenanee, operation, and
Bui; eve charges are fully’
x $6 mina 1938 at an alleged cost
mes Ron the company’s report
raion owi Is still approximately $444
Ieable who M8. That means that the
atte than g Pay the shot have paid off
anny ne-third of the original cost
R Te or 1 Profit margins of $200,000
®nee “iad for the past 15 years!
: Yoarh ont, Perspective of paying
T har ane tribute to the Guinness
Unless peor the next 40 years or so

ears

decide in the meantime to free our
arterial highways of these monopoly
toll-gathering highwaymen. With the
possibility of saving the people of this
area a quarter of a million dollars an-
nually on Lions Gate Bridge tolls, the
idea of “taking over” is worth mulling
over. Meantime President W. G. Mur-
rin of the Bridge’ Company. and_ his
Guinness toll-collectors express “deep
Satisfaction” with the year’s take. Why
shouldn't they?

Just when we were enjoying our
spring rhapsody musing about a flower-
bedecked land bathed in the languorous
scent of peach and apple blossom,
along comes our morning News-Herald
with an editorial pailful of political hog-
wash labelled “Red Herring Season Is
Here,” forecasting that during “the next
few weeks . . . British Columbia will
reek with the red herring odor.”

Having grown up on an almost ex-
clusive diet of red herring, real and
ersatz, we hadn’t even noticed that the
season had ever closed. Be that as it
may, the News-Herald is disturbed no
end on the high incidence of red her-
rings that may be tossed in the direction
of Premier W. A. C. Bennett and his
Socreds during the coming weeks. No
word of sympathy or commiseration for
the rest of us who may be smogged up
with this “reek of red herring odor” on
the hustlings or in the editorial columns
of our “free press.” But no taint of this
oderiferous fish must be allowed to
attach to Social Credit or “distract”
Wacky Bennett in his Socred mission to
give British Columbia “stable” govern-
ment.

The News-Herald is quite within its
inalienable right to support Premier
Bennett and his Social. Credit party,
but when it weaves a halo of political
sanctity around its Socred premier as
a protection against its seasonal “red
herring odor” and implores Wacky not
to let red herrings “distract him,” that
is the kind of political “‘reek” which
makes the rest of us a shade groggy.

We seem to recall that Premier Ben-
nett and his Socred party have “promis-
ed” all and more than suggested by the
News-Herald editorial, but if our esti-
mate is even approximately correct, we

would say that the common people of .

this province have had a surfeit of
‘promises garnishing a fairly steady diet
of. oderiferous red herring, notwith-
standing the snide observation that “be-
cause of strikes the herring catch was
passed up last year.” \

The kind of “stability” the people
most want in government today will not
be achieved by a top-heavy majority,
“be it Social Credit, CCF or Liberal.
British Columbia has had decades of
that sort of “stability” under successive
Tory, Liberal (and combination of both)
governments. Spelled out in practice,
that sort of “stability,” with or with-
out red-herring trimmings, has always
placed narrow partisan interests above
the interests of the people. During the
last session of the House, Premier Ben-
nett showed himself a master at that
sort of “stability.”

The kind of ‘stability needed to save
the “reputation” of this province will
only be achieved by electing people to
Victoria who will transform the legis-
lature into a tribune for world peace,
for removal of cold-war trade barriers;
for extended markets; and for develop-
ment of new industries and jobs for our
people under our own initiative and con-
trol. Only by putting the people’s in-
terests before partisan politics and stale
red herring is it possible to have stabil-

~~ of course “we, the people” ity that will serve the people.

Pacific TRIBUNE

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Phone: MArine 5288

Tom McEwen, Editor —

Hal Griffin, Associate Editor

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Three weeks to June 9

ia all the political parties contesting this provincial election, the Labor’
Progressive party is the only one whose deeds correspond to its
words—and both reflect a policy that does in fact put the people’s interests

first.
Only three weeks remain to election day, June 9, just three days
short of one year since the people of B.C. booted out the Liberals and

Tories in one of the most unexpected upsets these political tricksters had
ever experienced.

_ The professional gladiators of partisan politics are again making
the welkin ring with vote-catching’ promises, political mud-slinging and
double-talk, designed to keep the people in a perpetual state of confusion
and uncertainty. As between the top brass of Social Credit,-CCF, “‘te-
juvenated’’ Liberals and ‘‘optimistic’’ Tories, there is little to distinguish
and less to commend. In their shadow-boxing all carefully avoid those
vital issues upon which the wellbeing, security, prosperity and peace of
B.C.—and Canada—primarily depend.

Not ofe of these political trumpeters, be they Socred, CCF, Liberal

or. Tory, dare speak out fearlessly and independently for policies leading
_ towards permanent peace.

Not one of them: dare speak out boldly against the sellout of Can

ada’s independence and sovereignty to U.S. imperialism by the St. Laurent
government.

Not one of them dare demand, openly and boldly on the hustings;
that Canada’s trade, markets, industry and jobs, be freed from the galling
chains of Yankee dollar domination. :

Instead, all of them chatter loudly and often on side issues—who
obstructed what during the last session of the legislature, when “unfinished
business’ became more unfinished in a legislative siege of petty sparring
for partisan position and power—a session that will go ‘down in history
as a parody of political awareness of the people’s needs!

All progressives should devote these last three weeks of the cam-
paign to generating among their fellow voters the feeling that things can
be changed. We can expand British Columbia’s markets and trade. We
can develop new B.C. industries and create 100,000 new jobs, as a mini-
mum base for economic afd social advancement. ‘We can do these things,

provided the people send to Victoria men and’ women sincerely pledged
to do them.

This is the road to peace and wellbeing, and the only guide post
in holding fast to this road, emphasized by the candidates of the Labor-
Progressive party, is to put the people’s interests first.

Labor and the Doukhobors

BRITISH COLUMBIA has a lorig-

standing and most vexing problem,
the integration of a thrifty and indus-
trious immigrant people into our
national life. This is the so-called
Doukhobor problem, which periodical-

“prosperity” that doesn’t always follow
Yankee grabbing of our natural re-
sources is attributed to the presence
of Doukhobors. The economic stag-
nation prevalent in wide areas of the
West Kootenays is also blamed upon

ly flares up in the actions of a small
fanatical segment known as the “Sons
of Freedom.” The methods used by
this small group to force its grievances'
into public view run all the way from
nudist parades to acts of violence and
arson.

Successive B.C. governments, wheth-
er Liberal or Tory (or both) have
sought to “solve” the Doukhobor
“problem” by harsh prison sentences,
“segregation,” threats of deportation
and the like. From recent “solutions”
put forward by spokesmen for the So-
cred government, the same ideas pre-
vail. Curfews for the Doukhobors,
martial law in the Doukhobor area
and organization of vigilantes are some
of the proposals for dealing with the
situation. ‘

A. correspondent writes us from
Slocan City in the Kootenays outlining
the reaction to this type of govern-
ment “thinking” at community level.
“The most significant thing about the
present situation,” says this writer, “is
the formation of Citizens Committees
among the non-Doukhobor residents
and the threat of vigilante action...”

The threat of organized violence is

brought much closer if it is remember-
ed that every fire or other unforeseen

happening is placed at the door of the
Doukhobors. The highly - touted

the Doukhobors, rather than upon the
suicidal policies of the St. Laurent gov-
ernment, which{ shut off Canada’s mar-
kets to suit the interests of dollar
imperialism. In other words, . thie
Doukhobors, as with every minority
group, become the whipping horse of
reaction—to cover up it$ moral and
political bankruptcy.

This paper agrees there is a “prob-
lem”—but. one which will not be solv-
ed by curfews, vigilante terror, of
military rule. But it is naive to think
that those who exploit this Doukhobor
problem for their own selfish ends,
whether for profit, notoriety or votes,
are interested in seeking a solution.

There is only one force in British
Columbia that can solve the Doukho-
bor problem — the labor movement.
The Doukhobor people have grievances
which only the labor movement can
understand and help to adjust, griev-
ances that no amount of violence,
threats and terror can ever “solve.”

We submit that a labor commission
from B.C. unions and working class
organizations could do more in one
month to eliminate the Doukhobor
“problem” than all the successive gov-
ernments of B.C. (including Social
Credit) have done since the Douk-
hobors came to B.C.!

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — MAY 15, 1953 — PAGE 5

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