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EDITORIAL PAGE

TOM McEWEN, Editor — HAL GRIFFIN, Associa te Editor — RITA WHYTE, Business Manager.

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Tom McEwen

AMONG her numerous editorial wares,

the “Old Lady of Victory Square, the Vancouver Daily Province, periodi- cally offers “on the inside” commen- taries by various writers.

I must admit that were it not for

the special brand of humor served up by these versatjle writers, life would

be a very glum business to say the’

least

They may not yet have mastered the art of laughing at themselves, but they sure do provide others with some side- splitting moments.

To add to the joys of Christmas week, the Province gave its readers some real “inside” data on who “rules Russia. Under an intriguing headline, “The facts behind current world news, we discovered that Malenkov has just been kidding us, and that Bulganin and Krushchev are of less consequence

_ than a $25-dollar Social Credit divi-

dend.

How her correspondents got it all,

the Old Lady doesn’t say, So one guess 1s as good as another ? :

What is clear is that the venerable Scot who coined the phrase, “Facts are things that win’na ding (won’t dent), was quite unaware of the acrobatic abilities of modern journalism to stand

fiction on its head and call it “fact”.

Just listen to the Old Lady giving out some “facts” — hoping meantime that you and I have completely for- Zotten some of her previous “facts” “on @ similar subject.” §

“The repeated absences of Soviet

Premier Nikolai A. Bulganin and First

Secretary of the Communist Party Nikita S. Krushchev from Russia on ‘good will’ tours convinces sceptics that they are not the real rulers of Russia. If they were, they would not tisk permitting the ‘mice to play while the cat’s away’. *

“The fact that former Premier

Georgi M. Malenkovy remains in ap- Parent good health and a member of the ruling circles has increased specu-

lation that his ‘ouster’ from the premi- ership may have been part of a gigan-

tic deception intended to deceive the West.

“There are increasing rumors that Malenkov himself was the mastermind behind his own ‘demotion’ and _ that Bulganin and Krushchev are merely his smiling puppets.”

These “inside facts” are decorated

with a picture of Krushchey, under- lined “...just a figurehead,” while Opposite is one of Malenkov, under- ined “...mastermind ?” -It is indeed a startling “fact”, as well as a high tribute to the durability of the Russian, that after having been banished to Siberia; shot at sunrise; but under close arrest; officially bar- red from all official functions; spirited away to be hanged, drawn and quart- ered, the Old Lady now finds that “Malenkov remains in apparent good health,“ Bravo Tovarish Georgi.

A confirmed sceptic herself, the Old Lady likes to keep her sceptical follow- ing in a perpetual state ‘of convinced

spticism. This also helps them avoid comparing what she says today with what she said yesterday. When they do make such comparisons, especially when the Old Lady is unravelling her “affaires Soviet” knitting, the result is often highly humorous — and very re-

_vealing.

O political predictions were up- AN set by results of the Vancou-

ver Centre byelection on January 9°

in which Les Peterson retained for

-the Social Credit government the seat made vacant by the death of George Moxham, - With five of his cabinet ministers, Premier W. A.C. Bennett himself entered the -con- test, dispensing promises and cam- paign funds with equal extrava- gance to retain the seat.

If the byelection proved any- thing, it was that the Socreds are not only the party of big business but that big business is paying the shot—handsomely. .

In the daily press and official Socred advertising much was made of the claim that “‘there are no issues in this election other than confidence in the Social Credit government.’

That placed the question much, too simply. There were issues, big -jssues, and the biggest of them was the Socred government's gigantic giveaway of the people’s natural resources to U.S. monopoly inter-

French people

HE French people have struck JE a great blow for peace, social

advance and the ending of all col- onial repression. They have given

enormous hope and encourage - ment to progressive forces through

out the world.

The French people want a new

Popular Front government which will put an end to the corruption and chaos that has poisoned the political life of France for a num-. ber of years and has reduced French democracy for a sorry farce.

At the head of the progressive forces in France stands the Com- munist party with 5,500,000 votes

Socreds win--but issues . remain

ests and their Canadian partners. Only the LPP and CCF candidates raised these issues while the Socreds counted on their boasts and prom- ises and the brief campaign of the snap holiday season election ‘to prevent them from being debated.

Premier Bennett is jubilant and draws from-a comparison of vote percentages the conclusion that his government has received a vote of confidence. He should not forget, however, that approximately 24,- 000 voters — nearly two thirds — did not vote at all. As a former Conservative and a member of the old Liberal-Tory Coalition astute enough to read the public temper, when he broke with that discredited government, this “‘silent vote’ should give him cause for contem- plation, The Coalition also became over-confident that it could pursue its giveaway policies with impunity.

In the meantime, Premier Ben- nett has made promises which the

“people should insist he make good

when the legislature opens next week, : 143

and 150 seats. The electorate has confirmed it as the biggest — and the greatest — party in France.

The Communist party in advan cing and winning the confidence of the French people because its policies correspond to the people’s needs.

Had the French Socialists and Radicals been prepared to form a Popular Front on the basis of a progressive program, there would have been an overwhelming victory

for the Left at the election. Now

the French people have spoken — decisively.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JANUARY 13, 1956 — PAGE 5

speak for peace

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* than ordinary interest.

Hal Griffin

oF all the scourges of man none evokes

more fear than cancer. What tuberculosis was to our grandparents’ generation cancer has become to our own and like TB half a century ago it is surrounded by widespread mis- conceptions which hamper the strug- gle to conquer it.

A médical forum on ‘cancer is sure to draw a capacity audience. Editors of mass circulation publications know that a feature article on cancer has top newsstand appeal. Yet, despite all that is said and written about cancer, the misconceptions persist.

There are naturopaths in this city, as in other cities, who claim to be able to cure cancer by diet and who dissuade their victims from resorting to surgery.. Frequently the victim is not suffering from cancer at all and the “cure” can be most convincing — to the victim’ and to others. The fact that they have a following is only part of the tragedy. The greater tragedy is that we have no free cancer prevention service for systematic examination of the population.

Tne ak x

All of this makes a new Soviet publication I have just read of more Written by Prof. V. I. Kazansky and_ entitled Cancer and Its Prophylactics (Modern Theory of Malignant Tumors), it is obtainable at the People’s Cooperative

Bookstore here for a modest 15 cents.

What is cancer ? Prof. Kazansky an- swers: “.,.Cancer is not merely a tumor, but a disease of the whole body and...the tumor itself is only a manifestation of that disease, which may occur on the spot directly in- fluenced by a carcinogenic agent, either chemical (a carcinogenic poly- cyclic hydrocarbon) or biological (a virus).”

Is cancer becoming more frequent ? Prof. Kazansky points out that total figures are not so important as the ratio of cancer according to different groups and the location of cancer in certain organs. ‘“....An increase in cancer evidence can hardly be said to exist, but a greater frequency of of stomach and lung cancer is notice- able,” he writes.

Within less than 100 pages, he covers the. causes and treatment of cancer, summarizes the conclusions of Soviet researchers and touches upon several of the questions being debated in our own country — the relation between tobacco and alcohol and cancer, and the effect of diet on cancer.

Noting -that many people have the erroneous idea that cancer is incur-

able, Kazansky points out that the ~

two principal methods of treating can- cer, X-rays and radium rays and sur- gical operation, are effecting an increas- ing’ proportion of cures.

But he places his main emphasis on prevention. “Cancer,” he says, ‘“de- velopes on the basis of various chronic diseases and metabolic disbalance... prophylactic: measures and an early diagnosis of the disease enable medi-

cine to save people from the danger of cancer.”

His conclusion, the conclusion of many of our own specialists, is a strong argument for establishment of cancer prevention centres in every province of Canada.

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