ESS than six months ago every newspaper

organ of big business was ready to bury the United Nations. Many had already writ- ten its obituary in their leading editorials. In fact, when UN secretary-general Tryg- vie Lie sojourned to Moscow to interview Soviet leaders there, the kept press were ready to bury Lie along with the UN.

Now the situation has changed. The sewer press symphony of UN gloom has been changed to one of loud hozannas. American imperialism. assured. of a major- ity bloc (high subsidized. of course) in the UN is now draped with the authority and collective power of this bloc to “put down aggression anywhere”, or, in more sitiple language, to crush by force and weight of arms the people’s liberation movement anywhere—east, west, north or south— wherever their aspirations for the basic freedoms supposedly guaranteed by the UN 4 Charter, get in the way of the atomaniacs of Wall Street.

That is the essence of Truman's recent speeches on America’s policies for “peace, which in turn are imposed upon the UN by a subsidized “majority.”

There is just the possibility however

U.N. Week- Peace ata price!

that the real UN, as outlined by the pro-

that Yankee imperialism, despite its pur- chased majority in the UN, will not be able to permanently sequester the UN from the millions of people in Europe and Asia who look upon the UN as something more than a Wall Street puppet show. There are still strong voices in the UN itself for genuine peace, based upon the democratic right of peoples to run their house according to their own desires.

The promise of warmongers that there will be “other Koreas”, coupled with the “peace” now being established in Korea by American bombs, is not an evidence of the “orowing strength of the UN”, despite the hurrahs of the kept press on the “changed character” of the UN, but rather an evidence

found articles of its Charter, has been tem- porarily traded off for dollars.

Progressive labor the world over salutes the UN on this historic anniversary week, the UN of genuine peace and the fraternity of nations—not the UN that trades its birth- right for the Marshallized currency of nak- ed aggression and the “peace” of charred bodies and devastated villages.

‘PIVIC. “scandal” has boiled up in the upper ‘® Island ‘city of Port Alberni. It would ap- ‘pear that city clerk Frank L. Kitto decided to ibuild himself a new home (a worthy decision “in any language), but in achieving his ambi- ‘tion, it is charged that he used city funds to ‘purchase his building materials. A public inquiry into the civic adminis- ‘tration of the city is now in progress, under ‘the direction of B. C. Bracewell, inspector of ‘municipalities. From the scraps of evidence al- ready in, it would also appear that there has been more than one Kitto’in the civic bag,

Alberni Kitto out of bag

The case of Port Alberni is not unique. On the contrary, political coruption. graft, slick deals, nepotism, are all -part and parcel of socalled “non-partisan” civic politics. The only difference between Port Alberni and numerous. other municipalities throughout Canada that have been held for years in the erip of tory and liberal “non-partisanism”, is that the Port Alberni civic “administrators” have been caught redhanded.

In such situations the common people who pay the shot in high taxes and low serv- ices, get a chance to take a peek behind the civic pork-barrel.

‘How to beat high living costs

WO AFL unions, pressing their case for im- mediate wage hikes to meet spiralling liv- ing costs, reopened their 1950-51 wage agree- ment, negotiated last May, and won a general wage increase of five percent for 2,000 work- ‘ers in Powell River and Ocean Falls news- print industry. he unions are International ‘Brotherhood of Pulp, Sulphite and Paper Mill Workers, Local 76, and the International - Brotherhood of Papermakers, Local 142,

The new wage scale lifts the base rate to $1.18 per hour, and represents an average boost of from 6 to 10 cents for all workers in the industry. The new contract also provid- ‘es for a reduction of the working week from -44 to 42 hours. <

2 In the wage contract negotiated last May >for 1950-51 between these unions and the ‘mill operators, the workers won a.six-cent an

‘hour wage increase. This new “rider agree- ment”, not only establishes a precedent for

‘the pulp and paper workers in securing a mod- sest wage increase to meet higher living costs, ‘put it sets a fine pattern for B.C. laber to fol-

—tlow. It puts things in proper perspective, and

‘the emphasis on butter rather than guns.

“some of Vancouver’s biggest shipyard indust- ‘ries, the members of the Marine Workers and ‘Boilermakers are on the picket line, backing ‘up the demands of their negotiating com- ‘mittee for a straight 20-cent increase across ‘the board. The daily press made a hectic at- ‘tempt to portray the shipyard strike as “com-

“it Owing to the adamant stand taken by

‘munist sabotage of our war effort”, but that |

‘moth eaten cannard didn’t put one extra cent ‘in the pay envelopes of the shipyard workers. ‘You just cannot meet the grocer’s bills with

- red baiting. : In many logging camps and sawmills:

“ithere is already a widespread discussion de-

veloping around the idea of re-opening the. contract and going after a wage boost now.

‘The loggers and sawmill workers reason that

if the AFI, unions can do it, (even with their 1950-51 wage contract signed a month later than the IWA) and win another 10 cents, why not the IWAP.

The pulp and paper workers of Powell. River and Ocean Falls have set a fine example in the only definite way to meet steadily rising living cost: that is, utilizing their bargaining power to put more money in the worker’s pay envelope.

~

Scientists lacking horse-sense

ZOST Western scientists refuse even to consider the theories of Trofim Lysenko, the Soviet scientist, on the inheritance of acquired characteris- tics. The reason is not hard to find. To admit

Lysenko’s theories is to admit that human nature

can be changed, than man under a socialist system becomes different from man debased by the greed and lust of his capitalist environment.

All the anti-Soviet propagandists have been holding Soviet acceptance of Lysenko’s ‘‘absurd”’ theories as proof that Soviet science is no longer free.

And now, along comes the Canadian Press with a report of “‘five fully grown horses the size of ; Great Dane dogs” acquired by a Vancouver Island

farm from a unique American ‘herd, descendants of

three horses which “‘strayed and became trapped in, a cul-de-sac in the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. They survived and multiplied, but thyough years of inbreeding and shortage of food they gradually became stunted in size... .” :

Has even the Canadian Press become an agency

-of Soviet “‘propaganda’’? Or is it rather that it

is Western scientists who are no longer free?

' unionists?

TOM McEWEN

As We See It.

WE October edition of the Trades Congress Journal earried an editorial entitled “Who The Convention Barred and Why”, 4a blurb that has since been reproduced by the TLC News and sent out as “news servics.”> : Following a number of cheap slams at Tim Buck, J. B. Salsberg, Mel Colby and other “peas in Joe Stalin’s Canadian pod” (it is re- markable how adeptly Bengough has picked up the ‘official language of Washington), the editorial proceeds to explain the identity and presence of one Joseph Godson who attended the 65th convention of the Trades and Labor Congress, thereby setting a precedent. The explanation is brief, to say the least. “It is quite true that Mr. Joseph Godson, a man highly respected by many representatives of the International Labor Movement in Washington, D.C., was at our press table in Montreal.” : : This is supposed to “explain” the presence of §& a labor attache from the U.S. state department at a national convention of Canadian trade

Should anyone have the temerity to question the unethical presence of a stooge for Yankee imperialism at the Trades Congress convention, the editorial provides a democratic contrast: “Mr. Mel Colby . . . sat immediately beside Mr. Godson at the press table, taking voluminous notes for the Tribune .. .”

What are the Communists squawking about? Could anything be more eloquent than this in proving that the quality of top TLC democracy is “not strained”? Here we have a representative of the U.S. state department, sitting at the press table (when he wasn’t instructing ~ delegates on the technique of cold-war union busting). On the other hand, we have a reporter for the Canadian labor press (and when we, say labor press, we mean that small but influential platoon which steadfastly rejects the “kiss of Judas’, regardless of how many Yankee dollars accompany it) paying strict attention to the job on hand, that of bringing the most comprehensive and factual story of ae Saber! to thousands‘ of working men and women across

‘anada.

The Bengoughs could scarcely argue—with any degree of success—that Colby was representing the “Kremlin”, in a similar capacity to that’of Godson for the !U.S. state department, but ity is symptomatic of their mental agility, when caught in the grip of a U.S.-inspired anti-Communist hysteria, that they tried to do just that in their editorial blurb. “If he (Colby) was not directly represent- ing the Kremlin, he was, unquestionably, collecting and writing the king of stuff that they and the party-line Tribune want to get.” With that crude falsehood as a setting, the presence of an agent of Yankee imperialism ata trade union convention, is blandly “explained” away.

All this red-baiting drivel is projected for one purpose—to have organized workers throughout Canada fonget that the policies of union splitting, demoralization and disunity, as laid down by the 65th convention of the TLC, were formulated by aggressive dollar imperial-_ ism, and the blueprints for union-wrecking laid out by its state de- partment labor attache Godson. (The wrecking crew is already at.

“work in Vancouver under the expert direction of Carl Berg, vice-

president in charge of demolition.) 4

When Mel Colby wrote of the Montreal convention that “Peroy Bengough was still president, but it was the U.S. state department that was in charge of the 65h convention of the Trades and Labor Congress,” he touched’the raw quick of truth .. . and it hurt like hell. Hence the TLC editorial, which “explains” nothing—except the dil- emma of those who attempt, behind a barrage of demogagic phrases and “explanations” to serve two masters. :

e' ; : We saw a letter some time ago which underscores this dilemma of the top trade union burocracy in the camp of the warmongers. Under the guidance of a Communist business agent, a Vancouver local in a given industry had grown from an unorganized, ‘sweated industry to ‘a healthy, united, fighting organization, winning substan- tial wage gains and improved working conditions for its membership.

“In due course”, as the late Mackenzie King used to say, some members of the Judas fraternity reported to the Marshallized inter- national president in Washington, D.C. that business agent so-and-so was a “Red.” Horrors! “In /God we trust ... get rid of him ‘at

once.” ,

In due course the axe fell, and in, something less than “due course”, pernicious anemia afflicted the union. The bosses got to work. Hard-won gains were lost without a fight and soon conditions in the industry were worse than before the union was started. The workers could see no ‘point in paying dues into a union that not only deprived them of a good business agent, but appeared to have no interest in their union, other than, per-capita collection.

After the usual correspondence with international headquarters on the deteriorating situation, the grand old international president got a bright idea and proceded to put it down on paper, “Dear Sir and Brother: Yours of the etc., etc., réceived. We would suggest that you try and get a business agent with all the qualities of ability and efficiency displayed by the old one . . . but without his politics.” |

; It's like telling the wife to make bread without yeast, butter without cream, overalls for Junior without cloth. It is like telling every traden unionist to surrender the constitution of his union for a made- in-the-USA “loyalty” test; to tear up his union obligation to his fellow men, and accept in its stead a “way of life” dictated by long-range | bombers instead of fraternal reason) and brotherhood.

When the editorial writers for the TLC Journal stoop to cover

- their betrayal of labor unity and principles by prattling about the

‘established freedoms and democratic way of life” in which the TLC

found its origin, continuity and strength, they will fool very few, and

least of all their own members who are not yet ready to “accept more

cesspEne: which leaves them nothing to say but “Heil Bengough! Heil Son . .” :

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Published Weekly at Room 6 - 426 Main Street, Vancouver, B.C. By THE TRIBUNE PUBLISHING COMPANY LTD. — ‘ ; Telephone MA. 5288 ns Tom McEwen .......---- NO gai tikes |: eeitaas Editor Subscription Rates: 1 Year, $2.50; 6 Months, $1.35. . Printed by Union Printers Ltd., 650 Howe Street, Vancouver, B.C. Authorized as second class mail, Post Office Dept., Ottawa

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — OCTOBER 27, 1950 — PAGE 8 — ;

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