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Qctober 29, 1937

Vancouver, B.C., Friday, October 29, 1937

Labor Demands Its Rights
EMOCRATIC, thinking people will have

Test wishes for the trade
tu be held this week-end in
they will see in it a further
progressive forces at a time

mobilizing at an alarming pace in Canada.

Government and financial mouthpieces have
made it clear that a trade union bill which aims
at cramping the style of company towns, open
shop and boss-controlled unions in the province,

_ will meet with bitter opposition.

Any cheap sneers directed at the conterence
and its purpose play into the hands of big
capital and let the armchair erities ponder the
right of organized labor to fight for placing of
its legislation on the statute books. Tens of
thousands of men, and women have suffered,
many have died, that these rights might be

won.

The importance of the conference is two-fold
in that it fights for the right to a bigger share
of the fruits of economic recovery and chal-
lenges the privileged few who have ignored
every elementary privilege of a democratic

country -

Full, free and honest discussion in this con-
ference of union men will produce a trade
union bill which will rally the forces of labor,
organized and unorganized, to enter into its

rightful inheritance.

wnion conterence
Vietoria because
strengthening of
when reaction 1S

the

would

Boycott Japanese Goods
T is becoming more obvious daily that the
British National Government is playing a
double game in the Sino-Japanese confillet as

it 1s mm Spain.

The impunity with which British nationals
are killed and wounded by Japanese soldiers,
attack on the British ambas-
sador which is now regarded as a “closed in-
cident,” are significant of an identity of inter-
ests between ruthless Japanese imperialism
and the National government of finance capital

the murderous

in Britam.

British public opinion is being expressed 1m
the number of delegations sent by, labor and
other progressive bodies to protest the mas-
sacres in China. News of people demonstrat-
ing before Japanese consulates demanding that
these representatives of mass murder be ex-
pelled from England, give a picture of the
growing unpopularity of the National govern-

ment.

Sympathy for the Chinese people and a boy-
eott of Japanese goods must be developed by
progressives in Canada to add to the weight of

world indignation.

Canadian boys are in danger of being sent
to European slaughter while Prague and Vi-
enna are in danger of being bombed with the
same impunity as Nanking and Guernica.

camps.

> has swept

had declared

originallly

a clique

Threats made by Pattullo
against men who come under the
elastic term of ‘agitators,’ along
with a renewal of the degrading
practice of withholding wages
earned in these camps, to be
doled out later at the rate of $4
a week,
ment leaders will continue to
trample on the rights of these
young Canadians who, at the
best, are faced with an unhappy
existence.

Heartened by the magnificent
struggle put up by the young un-
employed, married men working
on city projects are beginning to
make themselves heard through

indicate that sgovern-

Reaction Sutiers a Setback

CBS: in British Columbia
had their eyes opened to
grim realities as never before af-
ter reading of and. actually see-
ing the recent parades of destitu-
tion and the reactions of the
Pattullo government to them.

“Sympathy and admiration for
‘Gin - canners’
through the province and in turn
a storm of indignation and pro-
test has lashed the cynical gov-
ernment heads who have so un-
willingly given way before public
pressure.

The establishment of the prison
camp at Deroche was a culminat-
ing act which thoroughly alarmed
genuine Liberals and radicals
alike in its similarity to Fascist
methods of dealing with those
who protest in an open fashion.
The revulsion of feeling undoubt-
edly modified policies which Pat-
tullo and Pearson
stand as
planned.

Progressive people see the
hand of a reactionary clique
shown in this policy of repres-
sion and starvation,
whose influence, based on the
enormous wealth it controls, dic-
tates policies that benefit big
business at the expense of work-
ing and middle class people
throughout Canada.

That there has been no genu-
ine about-face on the part of
these gentlemen on the eve of the
opening of the House, is shown
in the irksome conditions im-
posed on the men who will go to
work in the forestry camps, and
again slaringly displayed in a
refusal to issue shelter allowance
to those registered for the

the steadily growing Workers’
In the best traditions
of the unemployed, semi-starved
families refuse to endure in si-

Alliance.

lence. ke

With continuni pressure on the
city council for the granting of
elementary demands and a city-
wide petition to send a workers’
delegation to Victoria, the gov-
ernment will be forced to grant
concessions here also, although
much more can be gained with
the presence of progressive al-
dermen on the city council
pledged to serve the people.

While it is essential that mili-
tancy and initiative be developed
by those directly affected by suf-
fering and injustices, past and
present experience show that
public opinion and pressure are
essential to ensure success for

all such campaigns.

' Only the politically blind can
ignore the fact that even the par
tial, almonst spontaneous, unity

of CP, CCF, Union and Church

forces against the recent out-

rages brought results.

responsible, progressive leaders
to imagine that human progress
depends upon these fire-alarm
methods t6 combat despotism
with its train of suffering, be-
trays hopeless bankruptcy and

insincerity.

Granting that the CP and CCF
are more acutely conscious of
the needs of the people, the main
responsibility falls on the shoul-
ders of these two parties.

The widely published reports,
discussion and decisions of the
recent Eighth Dominion Conven-
tion of the Communist party can-
not be misunderstood,
honest progressive will doubt the
sincerity of declarations that
unity with the CCF is of para-
mount importance and that ev-
ery effort will be made to estab-
lish harmonious relations.

A declaration along the same
lines from the CCF nationally,
while it seems remote, should not
prevent provincial leaders from
taking forward steps to unity.
Such steps would meet with a
hearty response from tens of
thousands of people who see the
need for a struggle against re-
action, for trade union rights and
a constructive program that will
give needy citizens work and de-

cent wages.

——

months.

But for

and no

yote.

deceived.

The CCF Ousts Pettipiece
LDERMAN R. P. Perrrprece will no

longer be able to masquerade on Vancou-
ver city council as a representative of the CCE
while voicing the sentiments of the bondhold-
ers. The only regrets all honest progressive and
labor people have is that he has been permitted
to bring such discredit to the CCF in its Hrst
participation in civie affairs.

Pettipiece, of course, blames the Workers’
Alliance and “a militant minority” for the
fact that he failed to secure renomination when
the CCF regional committee met last Sunday
afternoon to name its candidates in the coming
civie elections. He accuses the Workers’ Alli-
anee of having put him on the spot. But in
making such a statement he only emphasizes
his anti-labor attitude on the council all these

The Workers’ Alliance did not put Petti-
piece on the spot. He put himself there when
he lined up with reactionary aldermen in Op-
posing progressive measures and, as chainman
of the social services committee, aceorded such
shabby treatment to delegations from reliet
workers on-clyic-provineial projects.

Not only has Pettipiece failed to recognize
his responsibility to organized labor and the
progressive yoters who made his election pos-

sible, but he has evaded his duty to the CCF.

Never an active party campaigner, Petti-
piece secured his nomination largely as a 1e-
sult of his “prestige” and past experience in
the labor movement. Now, like others in the
CCE before him, he shows himself to be noth-
ing more than an opportunist.

“T feel a very real sense of relief at beg an
absolutely free agent on the council to vote
just as my conscience dictates,” he says, and
then talks about having been ‘‘jockeyed out of
position by a militant minority,” about the
<Gnfiuence of the Workers’ Alliance” having
dominated the CCF regional committee meet-
ing. Boasting of his record in the labor moye-
ment, Pettipiece can find no better argument
against the CCF than those used by petty poli-
ticlans everywhere when, for varying reasons,
they are ousted from positions of trust. And
Pettipiece having betrayed his trust, the CCF
rank and file represented at the convention
took the right course in eliminating him on
the first ballot.

The CCF should take due warning after this
defection of Pettipiece, coming as it does after
the defections in the provincial legislature and
in the Federal house. There are still opportun-
ists in the CCF who, if given the chance, will
bring further discredit to the movement. And
some among the large body of CCE voters will
be confused by the publicity given in the capi-
talist press to these deserters, just as im this
instance Pettipiece’s statements have been
quoted at length.

What is of immediate importance is that
Pettipiece shall not be given the opportunity to
continue to misrepresent labor on the council.
We has, naturally enough, announced his in-
tention of running as an “independent labor”
candidate and, as such, he will be encouraged
by the reactionaries to split the progressive

Organized labor which, in Alex Fordyce,
has a worthy candidate in the field, will not be
Fordyee has received the endorsa-
tion of more than a score of union locals and is
certain of wide support among: all progressives. .
Between Alex Fordyce, the nominee of the
trade unions, and R. P. Pettipiece, nominee
of “friends and supporters,” there is a world
of difference.
clear to Pettipiece at the polls.

Progressives must make this

Fascist Aggr

GGRESSION is raising
Ze its head even higher,
showing its hateful counte-
nance with still more impu-
dence and finding expres-
sion in €ver new, more open
and shameless methods.

In addition to masked aggression
in southwestern Europe we have
now ageression, naked, on the
Asiatic continent. Two states,
members of the League and of its
council, are being subjected to in-
vasion of foreign land, sea, and air
forces. Both the commercial ves-
sels and the warships of other
parties are victims of every kind of
attack. International commerce is
suffering.

The chief waterways have been
made unsafe through piracy on the
sea and in the air. International
trade suffers, valuable cargoes are
unlawfully confiscated or sunk to
the bottom of the sea, crews are
captured or massacred, and the
most elementary principles of in-
ternational law are trodden under
foot. Recently it actually became
necessary to institute an interna-
tional maritime police and to esiab-
lish rules for the humanization of
war in a time of peace.

On the continent of Asia, with-
out declaring war, witheut a
shadow of cause or of justification,
one state attacks another—attacks
China—pours armies of hundreds
of thousands into its territory,
blockades its coast, paralyzes trade
in one of the greatest commercial
centres of the world. And we are
still to all appearances, only at
the beginning of these operations,
the later stages and end of which
are still incalculable.

In Hurope the war in Spain con-
finues for the second year in suc-
cession, and the country continues.
to be subjected to the invasion of
organized foreign armies and its
magnificent capital, Madrid, and
other cities daily undergo the most
violent bombardment, which takes
toll of tens of thousands of lives
and of vast material and cultural
riches. Anotrer city, Almeria, was
hombarded by foreign warships.
And all such actions are committed

S

by foreign states who have nothing

to do with the Spanish civil war-
The League of Nations, whose

duty it is to guarantee the inviol-

ability of its neighbor-States, to
guard peace and international
order, and to assure respect for
and inviolability of international

treaties and respect for interma-
tional] law, simply puts these things
on one side without taking any
sort of action on them.

Worse than that, it would appear
that the League must be saved
like some gentle maiden from
feeling the breath of these disas-
trous events and isolated from
them. Basically this delicate solic:
itude for the League is founded on
the false belief that the League
cannot punish any aggressions, il-
legality, brutality or international
highway robbery, because those
responsible for those crimes do not
belong to the League. Is it believed
that aggression can be successfully
combated only if we co-operate
with the aggressors themselves.

We already haye experience ot
such successful co-operation. The
Spanish question was withdrawn
from the League of Nations and
transferred to the specially created

London Committee for so-called
non-intervention in order to secure
the co-operation of the principal
authors of the Spanish tragedy,
who cannot bear the spirit of
Geneva.

The results of these experiments
lie before us and are known to
everybody. Agreements were signed
in order to be immediately broken,
resolutions were passed and just
disregarded. Schemes and plans
were worked out to be sabotaged
and made useless. And all this went
on to the accompaniment of the
slamming of doors by certain mem-
bers of the committee, united in
solidarity by their temperamental
tantrums, which led them to leave
the committee today and return to-
morrow.

S$
F course the London commit-
tee did not achieve a single
one of the aims for which it was
established.

While the export of arms fo

Spain was formally forbidden, the

delivery of every Kind of land, sea
and air weapon to the rebels never
ceased, and in such quantities as
could only be supplied by govern-
ments. In spite of the obligations
to prohibit the departure of for-
eigners for Spain to take part in
military operations there, tens of
thousands of men in military for-
mation, whole divisions at a time,
fully armed, with generals and
officers at their head, were sent to
help the Spanish rebels under the
eyes of everyone directly from the
ports of the countries which had
assumed the formal obligations I
have mentioned.

These are not assumptions. They
are facts, which are not even con-
cealed by the aggressors. Facts
which are openly discussed in their
press and which we learn about
from official orders of the day,
from the publication of lists of
losses and the exchange of official
telegrams.

Further, round Spain are eruis-
ing foreign warships which help
the rebels by their intelligence ser-
vice, by the bombardment of Span-
ish ports (as in the case of Al-
meria), or by sinking neutral com-
mercial vessels—that is to say, by.
taking part in the blockade of Re-
publican Spain—and you will un-
derstand why one can no longer
speak without irony of non-inter-
yention in Spanish affairs.

These are the results of the ac-
tivities of an organization freed
from the spirit of Geneva and
therefore corresponding io the de-
mands of universality.

TI recommend these results to the
attention of the defenders of uni-
yersality. Let them examine tke
of these results and they
will realize that it is an illusion
to expect successtul co-operation
between states which have differ-
ent aims in view and which hola
opposite views of international life
and of the mutual rights and duties
of nations.

Causes

operation between honest support-
ers of non-intervention in the in-
ternal affairs of other states, be-
tween defenders of the right of
every nation to establish its imter-
nal regime independently on the

one side, and on the other Side,
between the equally honest and
open supporters of intervention in
the affairs of other countries in
order to impose upon them this or
that regime by the force of bay-
onets and bombs. Between aggres-
sion and non-aggression, however,
between peace and war there can
be no synthesis.

On the other hand, we have the
experience of two conferences —
one at Montreux and the other at
Wyon, which quickly and success-
fully fulfilled their tasks despite
the lack of universality, that is to
say, despite the absence of those
states whose presence is usually
regarded as a sign of universality.

The conclusion is obvious. The
need is not for universality, but
rather that those who take part in
any international conference or
orginazation are bound together
by a common universal idea, like
the idea of peace, the idea of re-
spect for the integrity and inde-
pendence of all nations, the idea
of outlawing force as an instru-
ment of national policy, which idea
was the basis of the League Pact
ad the Briand-Kellogg Pact.

e@

™ know three states which

have drawn apart from the
pacific ideas of the League and in
recent years have made attacks on
other states. Despite the differ-
ences in the regimes, the ideol-
ogies, the material and eultural
level of the objects of their aggres-
sion, all three states justify their
aggression with one and the same
motive—the struggle against Com-
munism. The rulers of these states
naively imagine, or rather pretend
so to imagine, that they need only
utter the word anti-Communism
in order that all their international
erimes and breaches of faith will
be forgiven.
boast that they
have succeeded in eradicating
Communism absolutely in their
own countries and achieving com-
plete immunity against it, they
proclaim, in a burst of unbounded
Jove for other nations, near and
distant, their mission to free these
nations from Communism,

Although they

Y

By means of an ideological strug-
gle? Oh dear no! With the aid
of all the armed forces of land and
air at their disposal. To carry out
their self-appointed mission of con-
ferring great blessings on all na-
tions, they are ready to spare no
energies or resources of their own
people. They are ready to reduce
to a minimum its most elementary
material requirements and leave it
on hunger rations, only to have
sufficient arms to root out Com-
munism in other countries, That,
of course, is the open ideology of
armed intervention in the internal
affairs of other nations, the open
disregard of their integrity and in-
dependence.

The creaters of this ideology,
however, are themselves begin-
ning to doubt whether it is con-
yincing’ and acceptable enough to
be elevated into a leading interna-
tional principle. Then they de-
scend from their ideological heights
and give us a more prosaic explan-
ation of their anti-Communist
crusade.

Then we learn what is to be
found in no encyclopaedia, that
anti-Communism has also a geolog-
ical meaning, and means an urgent
desire for tin, zinc, quick-silver,
copper and other minerals. T£ this
explanation still seems insuffi-
cient, then anti-Communism is
further explained as a desire for
lucrative trade.

But whatever explanation we
sive of anti-Communism, this has
nothing to do with the war
against Republican Spain, because
there has been and is no Commun-
ism there, and because the Span-
ish people is fighting in, order to
preserve its democratic-republican
regime against the forces of re-
action and military dictatorship.
For this reason we must assume
that we Shall in future obtain yet
another additional interpretation of
antiCommunism, probably in the
field of politics, strategy or the
like.

Tt must be added that the field
of employment of the cry of anti-
Communism is being continually
expanded. When people speak now-
adays of the Bolshevist regime
which is to be exterminated, they

ession Can Be Stopped, Dimitroff Tells League

frequently add the ‘words:
Similar regimes.”

“and
We often hear
that all democratic and parliamen-
tary countries are on the eve of

Bolshevization. Erom here it is
not far to the assertion that it is
necessary to do them the favor of
saving them from the threatening
destruction by means of armed in-
tervention and aggression as in the
ease of Spain.

There is the example of China
before us, which can scarcely be
numbered in the strict sense
among the parliamentary countries,
and yet this country is attacked in
the name of the struggle against
Bolshevism. In Europe itself we
see countries which are generally
believed to be destined as the vic-
tims of the next aggression, care-
fully declared to be Bolsheyist, or
under Bolshevist influence, so as
to justify in advance the planned
aggression.

Any state which has become the
object of the lust for power of the
aggressor States is declared under
suspicion of being Bolshevist, for
there is no need whatever to prove
such things. It is only necessary
to repeat the same thing day aiter
day in the co-ordinated press and
in official speeches, on the assump-
tion that a lie repeated often
enough at last appears true.

I am conyinced that the League,
even with its present composition,
can afford both Spain and Chins
more extensive aid than those
countries are modestly demanding
of it. And by so doing would by
no means increase the dangers of
fresh international complications,
but would on the contrary decrease
their probability.

The League of Nations recos—
nizes peaceful co-existence of any
of the present regimes and then
will be attained our common ideal
of a universal League preserved as
an instrument of peace. But we
shall attain that ideal not by the
eirculation of questionnaires, but
only by collectively repelling the
aggressor, by collectively defend-
ing peace which we all meed and
the fruits of which we all shall
enjoy.

By
OL’ BILL

5 = Robert Briffault is

A Big-Time a bie-time writer.
Critic. When he writes a
book it has to be

reviewed by a big-time critic; or

rather, a critic with a big-time
reputation, which is something
different again.

So Briffault’s latest beok,

“Huropa in Limbo,’ another slice
of the history of decadent capital-
jst culture, is reviewed in the
Daily Province by Professor F- H.
Soward, the local shining expositor
of the professional interpretation
of history. :

To Professor Soward, Briffault
holds his own times in contempt
and in his book “creates an atmos-
phere of decadence, disgust and
disillusion.” ‘This is a specimen of
“big-time stuff,’ but to ordinary,
intelligent people, which may or
may not include university profes-
sors, Briffault is not responsible
for that “atmosphere.” It is here
all around us, the result of the sys-
tem that some university professors
train our youth to believe has
existed from all time and will last
while the world spins on its axis.

The decadence is so real that it
stinks to heaven and the “tin-
canners” (a new word for our uni-
versity dictionary-makers) do not
need to read Briffault to know
‘disillusionment and disguest.”

When Professor Soward leaves
the “historical” field and indulges
jn literary criticism he gives us
the impression of a man who tries
to sit on two stools (meither of
which are there) at the same time
and falls between them.

Briffault, to him, shows no im-
provement in the art of character-
ization. His hero is “more wood-
en than ever and talks like a com-
bination Baedeker, encyclopaedia
and Oscar Wilde book of epi-
erams.”’

If you would understand “the art
of characterization” a la Soward,
get one of the boys or girls in the
eleventh or twelfth grades to lend
you a2 copy of “Civilization in
urope and the World.” This book
is used to teach “‘history’” in our
schools and is the joint product of
three wizards of “history’’—scha-
pire, Morris and Soward. it is
right up to date —I mean in the
printinge—being published in 1936.

*
Soward is our his-
Real torico-literary  eritic
Historical of Briffault and if
Criticism. You refer to the es-

tablishment of the
Third Republic in France on the
downfall of the Napoleonic im-
poster, Louis Bonaparte, the “spe-
cial constable” in London against
the Ghartists in 1848, you will find
a characterization of the first
President of the Republic, Thiers,
that monstrous gnome who, before
he became a statesman, had al-
ready proved his lying powers as a
historian.

Regarding the new president,
this is what Professor Soward and
his associates say: ‘The choice
turned out to be a very fortunate
one. He was a determined, clear-
headed old man of seventy-three,
who had began his political career
almost half a century before.” Un-
doubtedly there were no old-age
pensions in Thiers’ time.

T recommend the boys and girls
who haye to study from that “his-
tory’—and Professor Soward — to
read the characterization of the
bloody-minded scoundrel Thiers by
Karl Marx in the first few pages
of “The Civil War in France,”
part of which is worth quoting
here. Says Marx:

“Thiers was consistent only in
his greed for wealth and his hatred
for the men that produce it....
A master in small state roguery, a
virtuoso in perjury and treason, 2
craftsman in all the petty strata-
sems, cunning devices and base
perfidies of parliamentary party -
warfare: never scrupling, when out
of office ,to fan a revolution, and
to stifle it in blood when at the
helm of state: with class preju-
dices standing him in the place of
ideas, and vanity in the place of a
heart; his private life as infamous
as his public life is odious—even
now, when playing the part of a
French Sulla, he cannot heip set-
ting off the abomination of his
deeds by the ridicule of his osten-
tation.”

A clear-headed old man! SBrif-
fault’s book will be worth reading.

*

The worth of a
A Poor political movement
Philosophy. to humanity can

generally be
judged by the sincerity of its adyo-
eates during the period when it is
progressive and struggling for 2
hearing. Such movements arise,
eapitivate a following and pass
away, each leaving some mark on
Gvilization.

In the past we can remember
Single Tax, Free Silver Populism
and Reformism; and today Social
Credit and Technocracy- The in-
yventor founder, protagonist ofr
what-have-you of Technocracy is
among us at present, informing Us,
if he is correctly reported, that
there are only two classes on this
continent, “the chiselers and the
suckers.”

This may be profundity toe How-
ard Scott but if it is sincere, it is
sufficiently to condemn the Tech-
nocrat “philosophy” without any
further hearings, for he misses the
principal class in capitalist Society,
whieh is neither “sucker” nor
‘*chiseler’—the working-class-

Is Scott a “Sucker” or a “chis-
eler”’? ‘