Review

This is Port Radium on Great Bear Lake, a uranium mining centre.

EDITORIAL PAGE x

Canada’s birthday

Nex week on July 1 Canada

celebrates her 92nd birthday. Ninety-two years since Confedera- tion. and the birth of a united and virile bi-national state. To record the progress and development of these 92 years of epic growth would require a volume. They are many and varied, and Canadians have every right to be justly proud of these achievements. ,

There are some things however, which, on our natal day it is well to remember, but are not matters invoking pride.

The surrender by successive Lib- eral and Tory governments of our national sovereignty, independence, economy and peace, to the dictates and interests of predatory U.S. imperialism! .

The subordination of our econ- omy, our markets, and even the international friendships we as a ‘nation may seek to cultivate, to the atomic war-minded conspirators in Washington!

The surrender of our territory for missile-launching sites, our skies and our so-called “defense” to the atomic-trigger men of the Pentagon, who regard Canada and Canadians

’ as “expendable” in their nuclear wat conspiricies against the lands

of Socialism!

And. corresponding with this

shameful betrayal of Canada’s in- terests and peace, a steadily mount- ing attack against labor and the people by powerful monopolies and cartels, backed by Liberal, Tory

— p e . s acific Tribune Phone MUtual 5-5288 Editor — TOM. McEWEN Managing Editor — BERT WHYTE ., - Published weekly at _.. Room 6 — 426 Main Street Vancouver 4, B.C. Subscription Rates: One Year: $4.00 Six Months: $2.25 Canadian and Commonwealth

untries (except Australia): $4.00.

“one year. Australia, United States and all other countries: $5.00 one year.

and Socred governments alike. Attacks which have as their prime aim. the destruction of all the basic economic and legislative gains labor has made since Confederation; the weakening of our vast labor and productive forces, in order to fac- ilitate an easier and greater degree of exploitation—already evident by a permanent and growing army of jobless -workers.

These are only a few of the things it is well to remember on Canada’s birthday, and the urgent reed for labor-farmer-people’s unity to end this betrayal of our nation’s birthright, independence, prosperity and peace.

TTORNEY - GENERAL Robert

Bonner may not be very fast on the “draw” when it comes to dealing with Socred ministerial and police chief grafters, but he’s sure johnny- on-the spot when the need to echo the bosses’ war-cry for a “‘hold-the- line” on wages arises.

This week in an address to the Vancouver Board of Trade, Bonner sees “prosperity” ending in B.C. forthwith, unless the IWA meekly accepts what the profit - glutted lumber operators are willing to grant. According to Bonner our in- dustry just cannot “compete” in world markets if it fails to “hold- the-line on costs” (read wages). That “market” gag is an old one, but Bonner, who seems to think the workingman’s dollar is made of rubber, should take another look at the profit balance sheets of the timber monopolies for whom he shows such touching concern.

This week, too, Socred Minister of Labor Lyle Wicks sounded off in, similar vein. Wicks painted a doleful picture of all the “losses”

the province’s economy would suf-.

fer, should 26,000 IWA men be compelled to hit the bricks to win their justifiable wage demands.

The prime aim of both Bonner.

and Wick’s “hold-the-line” dirge is directed against the IWA strike

Bonner and the | WA

Comment

vote which averaged well ovet 90 percent of its entire mem! in favor, and. will undoubtedly t | cord a like sentiment in ernment-supervised strike vot for June 26.

Accompanied by their oft. ep ed jargon of “pricing ourselves‘ of the world market,” the lumber operators through the medi a majority conciliation “award” poses a 12-cent increase COV a two-year contract. The IW! demanded a 20 percent wage which is modest in view 0 rocketting living costs and th that the union got nothing 1 1958 contract, plus the addit tone fact that the operators’ profits have zoomed over the past two a point which both Bonner. Wicks obscure in their pinch-hi : for the lumber trust.

The economic “forecasts” of Socred bigwigs simply go to” firm what every lumber and othe worker already knows; viz, any and all issues involving capt and labor, the Socreds, like Liberals and Tories, are alwa) ready to play “Charley Mc for big business!

Who says “Fish - and - Smallwood of Newfoundland h any monopoly on anti-union

aganda and strike-breaking?

Tom McEwen)

HE daily press carried a news T item last week to the effect that an -automobile driver in Moscow Who (presumably) had “one too many for the road” and was involved in a fatal accident, has been sentenced to death,

While traffic safety regulations governing car drivers are much more strict in the USSR than heré, they are not quite as drastic as this little bit of cold war touch- ing up in the commercial press would have us. believe.

Perhaps this particular press item was “slanted” to convey the idea that here in the “free” West drunken or irresponsible car drivers can maim or kill at will,

without fear of anything worse :

than a monetary fine or tempor- ary suspension of driving license!

Some two weéks ago.a Toronto tragedy brought this truth home to us with renewed impact: Mrs. Annabelle Fulford, daughter of A. A. and Virginia MacLeod, was

killed by a driver who had just emerged from one of those whoo- pee parties some three hundred yards away, and slammed into the first car that came within his vision; a car containing a young 32-year-old mother of three child- ren.

While thousands in B.C. and across Canada, who know “A, A.” personally, express their deepest sorrow with him and his family in their tragic bereavement, the menace of drunken and irrespon- sible car drivers remains, re- corded weekly in a rising total of hapless victims.

Last week I attended the funeral of an old Yukon friend and com- rade, Alex “Dutchy” Levin. “Dutchy” was run over and kill- ed between a big work truck and power shovel. I was informed by some of “Dutchy’s” workmates « that his body was so badly broken up that it had-to be put in the coffin in pieces.

Be that as it may, “Dutchy,” a native of Holland, having no - relatives in this country, is un-. doubtedly considered a good “break” for the company, and lets them out of. compensation or other costs arising from gross negligence. So with poor “Dut-_ chy” the prime problem was. not that he was killed, -but who

- parking meters) than in combin

if that doesn’t work, cancel their ™ _ -driver’s license—for keeps...» “<* _ - Here,:. - weighed :

would hiterahice the funeral costs?

-In Vancouver and throughout — B.C. there is scarcely a week passes without a new victim of the careless or drunken driver being added to the grim tally, in many cases aged pensioners who are not so nimble as they — were twenty years ago, or little children, innocent of the fact that maniacs are permitted to use mobile lethal weapons in our “free way of: life.” Innocent of the fact too that law enforce- — ment agencies seem ito put much greater emphasis upon revenues that can be extracted from a motoring public (top priority to

out an irresponsible minority of drivers who. are a menace to every citizen, old and. young, when at the wheel of a-car:

In the USSR they don’t execute ~ careless or-drunken drivers. The f simply put-them on a “good: be- 5 haviour” probationary period, an¢

where everything is in terms -of:. profit, © “revenue”. takes top priority in’ the results of “one (too on for the. road’”—with . the haple:

citizen, providing the “fatal cetas ° ; tistics. Se Se

June 26, 1959 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE|