Page Two

THE PEOPLES

ADVOCATE

The People’s Advocate

Published Weekly by the

PROLETARIAN PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION
Room 10, 163 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, B.C. - Phone, Trin. 2019

One Year

SESS Sass ase ees Ss $1.80
ee ee -50

Plait Weary 2555s see oie eee $1.00
Single GOpy---. ee. ee -05

Make All Cheques Payable to: The People’s Advocate

Vancouver, B.C., Monday, June 20, 1938

Wipe Out The Shame
Or Resign

HE blood of innocent men has been shed and
the fair name of Vancouver disgraced.

Youngs Canada,

denied the right to work,

harassed and bullied by Victeria and Ottawa, has
been gassed, bludgeoned, arrested and treated

with ignominy.

Premier Pattullo, who has spoken so glibly and
interminaebly of work and wages, has resorted to
force when called upon to fulfill his promises.

His is the responsibility for Bloody Sunday.
Conspiring in a secret and cowardly manner,
knowing full well the support given te the boys by
Vancouver’s citizens, he must have been unmind-
ful of the lessons the people have taught to gov-
ernments who sought to solve unemployment

problems by violence.

The blood of the injured boys is on Paittullo’s
head. The full responsibility for this repetition of
the Dominion Day riot of 1935 belongs to the pro-
vincial cabinet——and above all to Pattullo and

Pearson.

The answer must be given to Pattullo and Pear-
son, not by the boys alone; but by every British

Columbia citizen!

The boys stand firm. Their exemplary conduct
through these trying days is symbolic of all that
is best and truest in our Canadian heritage. They
will win through to gainful cccupation, to the right
to live that is inalienably theirs.

They need your help! Let us give this answer
to the shocking events of Sunday morning:

Release the imprisoned men! :

Provide work and wages, or resign, Premier

Pattullo!

Wipe out the shame of Bloody Sunday!

Hollyburn Ridge Must
Be Saved For
Fhe People

HERE is grave danger that

-the trees on MHollyburn
Ridge, overlooking Vancou-
ver and Burrard Inlet from
the North, will be cut down
by a private company, and an
alien one at that, for profit.

Already most of the coun-
try contiguous to Vancouver
has been devastated, sacri-
ficed to the greed of timber
barons and the venality and
cupidity of successive provin-
eial governments. Green
Timbers is gone. Stanley Park
was logged off forty years ago
and today is an unsightly
mess of second growth as
compared with its primeval
beauty.

Hollyburn Ridge has aptly
been called the Poor Man’s
Park. Its value as a skiing
ground and as a snow-retain-
ing watershed is well known.
But if the private capitalist
company has its way this last
remaining beauty spot in the
vicinity of Vancouver is to be
made another hideous eye-
sore.

Instead of employing avail-
able labor to beautify the
scenery, our/inept govern-
ments permit, even conspire,
to destroy what is left. If the
mountains could be removed

by private capitalists they
would do it if there were
profit in it. In the words of
Debs, they would “put a

meter on every sunbeam,” if
they could.

The old plea of creating
employment is being trotted
out in an attempt to justify
the proposed vandalism. But
why not build roads to these
beauty spots, or other neces-
sary, constructive work, with
the labor that would be used
in destroying them?

The ravishing of the forests
of BC is as disgraceful as in
¢he waste that accompanies it.
In the Soviet Union where
eapitalism has been done
away with and the natural re-
sources of the country are the
property of the whole people,
they are busily engaged, not
only in conserving and im-
proving places like Hollyburn
Ridge, but in building new
parks and creating beautitul
playgrounds all over
country.

The threat to denude Holly-
burn Ridge, added to the de-
yvastation already wrought on

the

the lower mainland and south-
ern and central Vancouver
Tsland, is in itself an indict-
ment of capitalism which has
become a social cancer, de-
structive of natural resources
and of the health and lives of
those who produce wealth.

Wot for many years has
there been such a roar of op-
position from the public as
has been heard against the
proposed exploitation through
destruction of the forests of
Hollyburn Ridge. The volume
of protest should be increased
until the provincial govern-
ment is compelled to take the
necessary steps to preserve
this great area of natural
beauty from the _ profit-
hungry vandals who would
destroy it.

Maintain Democratic
Government In

Vancouver

ARLY in the life of the

present city council a
ery was raised that the city
was on the verge of bank-
ruptey and that to prevent
such a catastrophe adminis-
tration of civic affairs should
be placed under a city man-
ager.

At that time the proposal
was not favorably received.
Many viewed it as a complete
abrogation of the principle of
democratic control of munic-
ipal business and feared that
if it were adopted Vancouver

would be under dictatorial
rule.
Those behind this move

have been quite active again
lately. Meetings have been
held to popularize the idea,
and, as on the previous occa-
sion, the argument of “disas-
ter’ is being used. It is con-
tended that the city is facing
the greatest financial crisis in
its history.

It is the most reactionary
influences in Vancouver that
are behind the proposal for a
city manager. If it is adopt-
ed, the aldermen and mayor
will be mere figureheads to
be used on occasions of public
ceremonies.

To make the change the
city’s charter will have to be
amended by the provincial
government, and this is some-
thing that the people must
fight tooth and nail. Any
steps which restrict the rights
of the people to manage
democratically their own af-
fairs should be halted at
once.

Preamble of Brief To Rowell Commission

Communists On National

Continued

Unity

ERY definite tasks in the interests of economic improvement for the Canadian people
must be undertaken by Canadian government today. Many differences of opinion may
be expressed as to detail in regard to these tasks. But there is a surprising unanimity of
Canadian public opinion as to the fundamental character of these tasks, a fact which has been

doubiy contirmed by the submission to this commission.

as:

i. Unemployment and social in-
surance.

2. Government regulation of in-
dustrial conditions to abolish long
hours ane=-.starvation wages and
fuarantee the rights of labor.

3. Measures for the rehabilita-
tion of agriculture and the curb-
ing of the power of monopoly to
exploit the farmer and the con-
sumer.

4. Release of the municipalities
from the costs of social services
and the reorganization of taxa-
tion as a whole on a more equit-
able basis.

These tasks cannot be fulfilled
by provincial or local govern-
ments. These reforms directly af-
fect the national economy and
the national well-being of the
people.

Provincial isolation is raised as
the main pretext for refusal to
fulfill these tasks by provincial
governments; restriction of fed-
eral government powers under
the British North America Act
is the pretest for the failure of
federal governments to assume
these tasks.

ft is for this reason that all
forces strivinse for economic pro-
gress demand the completion of
Canadian national unification to
enable the central government to
meet these burning needs of the
Canadian people.

The divisions left by Confedera-
tion have become the strongholds
of reactionary finance in their
fight against this program of re-
form and democracy demanded
by the Canadian people.

The setting of the province
against the nation, the part

against the whole has the pri-
mary object today of paralyzing
all efforts to achieve social les-
islation and a reorganization of
taxation to compel the rich to pay
their share to meet the costs of
the crisis.

The action of the governments
of Ontario and Quebee in with-
holding assent to an amendment
to the Britsh North America Act
giving the federal parliament
power to enact unemployment in-
surance, the most burning need
of the Canadian people at this
hour, represents the beginning
of a desperate struggle of reac-
tion, to prevent the opening of
the door to economic and social
progress,

Reactionary monopoly and f-
nancial interests desire the pres-
ervation of national disunity be-
cause it is to their advantage in
dominating the economic life of
the country at the expense of
the living standards of the peo-
ple.

They desire te maintain Que-

bee as a zone of especially low
wages. They desire to continue
to profit from western agricul-
ture without being subject to
taxation to meet the costs of the
erisis of western agriculture.

They desire to see national dis-
unity block the way to social
legislation and the uniform regu-
lation of industry and commerce
in the interests of the workers
and the public generally. The
ruinous burden of taxation in the
municipalities upon the dwelling
places of the people relieves the
large corporations and the rich of
paying their proper share of
taxes, and they desire to see this
continue.

it is not accidental that the two
central provincial governments,
which are striving to prevent the

These tasks may be breadly stated

completion of national unifica-
tion, are at the same time seek-
ing to abrogate the rights of
labor to freedom of organization
in order to crush the movement
of the people for the restoration
ef decent Canadian living stand-
ards.

In Quebec, the last vestiges of
democracy are being crushed un-
Ger the “padlock Jaw,’ which
confers absolute power upon the
government to suppress the
rights of freedom of speech and
assemblage and freedom of the
press.

This law, which deprives the
people of that province of even
the right to a trial, bears the
unmistakable stamp of fascism.

While democracy is being
crushed, full freedom and en-
couragement is being given to

fascism.

The forces responsible for these
developments in Ontario and
@uebee are the centre around
which a new reactionary political
combination of forees is being
gathered in the Dominion of
Canada.

Tt is the centre of all opposition
to complete national unification
of Canada and is fostering sep-
aratist movements and propa-
ganda, which ultimately hold the
danger of the provincial dismem-
berment of the nation.

5—The Interests of the People
ef Quebec and the Issue of
“Wiimority Rights”
HE opponents of complete na-
tional unification hypocriti-

cally come forward as the de-*

fenders of the minority rights of
the Hrench-Canadian people.
Every effort is made to make it
appear that those standing for
national unification desire to sac-
rifice the rights of the FPrench-
Canadian people, while those op-
posing national unification set
themselves up as defenders of the
special interests of the French-
Ganadian people. Nothing could
be further from the truth.

INeo section of the Canadian
people has suffered more from
the incomplete’ national unifica-
tion of Canada than the Prench-
Canadian people.

The Prench-Canadian people
have never enjoyed genuine min-
ority rights, In the name of “‘min-
ority rights,” the Hrench-Cana-
Gian people have been cheated
of the higher wage levels gained
by the working class throughout
Canada. The appalling social con-
ditions of the people of Quebec,
enjoyed under Quebec autonomy,
is revealed in the fact .that the
infant mortality rates in Quebec
and Montreal rank with those of
Madras and Bombay among the
highest in the world.

French-Canadian culture has
been stifled and crushed under
the pressure of the largest and
richest corporations in Canada to
such an extent that even today
there are 12,000 children of school
age in Quebee who are receiving
no education whatsoever, and

partial illiteracy exceeds 20 per
cent.
What the French-Canadian

workers and farmers have “en-
joyed” was not “minority rights,”
but their discriminatory exclu-
sion from the economic, social
and cultural gains of the Cana-
dian people.

The so-called “guarantees of
minority rights’ of the British
Worth America Act must be re-

examined in the light of this his-
torical fact. It will be found that
there are no genuine guarantees
of minority rights in the British
Worth America Act. Genuine min-
ority rights involve the granting
to the minority by the central
government of equal political
rights; but the French-Canadian
people have systematically been
deprived of equal democratic
Tights by restriction of the fran-
ehise and oppressive electoral
laws. Genuine minority rights re-
quire that the central goyern-
ment\shall ensure to the people
of the minority the same social
services_as are enjoyed by the
other citizens of the state; the
French-Canadian people have
been denied this.

Genuine minority rights ensure
freedom of culture and lansuage
to the people of the minority by
granting equal rights in educa-
tion to the minority; this too has
been denied to the French-Cana-
dian people.

Genuine minority rights were
never granted to the Prench-
Ganadian people and have never
been given to them. Moreover,
the purpose and intent of the
concessions to provincialism in
the British North America Act in
so far aS Quebec is concerned
mever were to ensure minority
rights to the French-Canadian
people; their direct purpose and
the purpose that has been ful-
filled since Confederation was tu
deprive the French-Canadian peo-
ple of genuine minority rights.

“The objective of the rising in-
dustrial interests and the semi-
feudal influences of Quebec in ar-
rivine at the basis of Confedera-
tion in so far as Quebec was
eoneerned was to prevent the
French-Canadian people from en-
joying equal social, economic and
eultural rights.

Far from placing
upon the central government
with respect to the minority
rights of the Prench-Canadian
people, Confederation relieved
the central government of all ob-
ligations and established guaran-
tees against the equality of the
French-Canadian minority by
dividing Quebec from Ontario
and setting it apart as a separate
“economic zone.”’

The opponents of national uni-
fication in Canada are in reality
the representatives of reaction-
ary Quebec finance which desires
to keep the double yoke of ex-
ploitation on the backs of the
Hrench-Canadian people and pre-
vent them from winning genuine
equality on the basis of Suaran-
teed minority rights.

Gomplete national unification
is required to establish the min-
ority rights of the Prench-Cana-
dian people for the first time by
guaranteeing to the people of
@uebee equal social, economic
and cultural rights and placing
upon the central government the
obligation to ensure the fulfill-
ment of those rights.

The opponents of complete na-
tional unification are the enemies
of the minority rights of the
Prench-Canadian people; the
forces striving to open the avye-
mnues of progress through more
complete national unification are
really seeking to establish the
minority rights of the FPrench-
Ganadian people.

obligations

(To be continued)

a A Woman’s Diary »y victoria Post

ROM the time the republic granted them the right to vote and recognized them as po-
litical citizens, Spanish women have pla yed a great part in the struggle for the freedom

and independence of their country.

Strength ened and encouraged by the public authorities

they have fully recognized their responsibilities in the political strugsle and fought for com-

plete emancipation.

The war has become an im-
portant school ef experience for
masses of women, not only for
those who were leading the wom-
en’s movement, but also for

women who had
The Women

been indifferent
Of Spam te political and
social questions
previously.
Workshops were started in

which the women worked, homes
to remove the children from the
terror of the cities which were be-
ing bombed by the fascists. They
helped on the front, they worked
in hospitals .as nurses and as
social workers. In the days of the
Madrid siege, they worked
heroically so that the city might
be properly provisioned.

Finally accomplishing a task
which proved their political re-
liability and their efficiency in
industry, they took over the lead-
ership of political parties and
trade unions.

@

ANY women have come to the
fore as leaders during this
period of trial. Aida Lafuente, the
heroine of Asturias, lost her life
jn defence of her battle post in
October, 1934 Dolores Ibarruri,
better known as La Pasionaria, is
perhaps the most beloved woman
leader today. Always she found
the necessary slogan and the most
effective course of action for the

women to take. Twenty-four hours
after the outbreak of the rebellion
the whole world was ringing with
her call, “INo Pasaran!”

Others have distinguished them-
selves in humanitarian work. They
know and declare that the life of
a2 wounded man is sacred, that to
Save the wounded from being sac-
rificed to the enemy is just as im-
portant as winning a battle.

There are many women whose
names we will never know who
have given their life-blood time
and time again to save the wound-
ed, as, for instance, Eloisa Cano,
who gave her blood 32 times, and
amother young girl, a housemaid,
who is proud to be known as the
“Universal Donor.”

Countless instances have come
to light of women who have given
up homes, clothing, and beds for
the refugee women and children.
Even in cases where homes are
too small to meet the needs of the
family, women and their children
have been taken in, fed, clothed,
and provided for, while the house-
holders slept on the floor!

From the peasant women we
learn that while the men were
away fighting the olive harvest,
and the harvest in general, was
saved.... “Only a few kilometres
from the front we saved the
olives, because we realized that

with every Single olive we
gathered we had won a victory
Over the enemy.”

e

HE words of Jose Diaz, gen-
era] secretary of the GCommu-
nist Party of Spain, will remain
in the minds of Spanish women
for years to come: “It is necessary
to mobilize all women for the de-
fence of the fatherland and na-
tional independence. It is im-
portant to build up a women’s
movement in the new Spain in
which all women are enrolled who
are bringing about the defeat of
fascism and who are willing to
sacrifice themselves, if necessary,
in order that their children may
live in a cultured, prosperous and
happy Spain. It is important to
strengthen our work with regard
to the women, for when we con-
Sider the tremendous militancy
and enormous sacrifice displayed
by Our heroic women we must
recOpnize the fact that the num-
ber of women who belong to our
party is not so great as it should
be and as it can be.”

With this encouragement, and
with the splendid example of
Pasionaria always before them,
the women of Spain will continue
to lead in the struggle to bring
about the defeat of fascism.

SHORT
JABS

oS

By
OL’ BILL
“It is essential,
Letter From however, that the
Spain. children should
know about

what's happening to other kids
less fortunate than themselves,
as is the case here in Spain. Tv
look at the faces of the kids here
would bring tears to the most
hard-boiled. I’ve seen them fee-
ing from their homes, many of
them even without their parents,
anywhere, away from the fascists,
and when they pass us they
raise their little clenched fists.
‘Salud! they'll say, ‘no pasaran’’
You see them chewing at a piece
of dried bread to appease their
awful hunger, for some of them
may never have had a meal for
days. An adult can tighten hrs
belt, but a little kid wonders what
it is all about.”

Thus writes one of the Mac-
Pap boys serving with the Brit-
ish battalion, Jimmy Diamond.
These brave, suffering, little
Spanish kiddies whose clenched
fists are a symbol for us, are
worth fifty times more than the
50,000 quarts of milk and 20,00U
meals that the League for Peace
and Democracy and the Girls’
Brigade will send them on June
20. ag

We do not do our duty to them
if we eat while they are hungry,
for when the Spanish people give
the death-blow to fascism in
Spain, as they surely will, we
will share the fruit of their vic-
tory. Don’t forget the closing
date for contributions, June 20.

Schmeling, who
Rewards In meets Joe Louis
WNeazilang. next Wednesday
for the heavy-

weight title of the slugfest game,
is on a spot in two ways. He is
On a spot in meeting the Brown
Bomber. He is on another spot
with his Nazi boss if he does not
win. (He won't). He may meet
the fate of Gottfried von Cramm,
Germany's No. i tennis player.
von Cramm is Known to tennis
players throughout the world and
no ranking player among them
believes the truth of the charge
of sexual immorality for which
he has been condemned to a year
in a Nazi dungeon by a Nazi
Jeffries, Judge Sponer, who ‘has
a record of not acquitting a
Single prisoner in four years.

Don Budge, world’s No. i tennis
star, declares he will never play
in Germany again, contending
that von Cramm is innocent oz
the heinous crime charged
against him. Other Davis Cup
players are expected to follow
the example of Budge. Ellsworth
Vines suggests that von Cramm’s
real crime was that he was
beaten by Budge at Forest Hills
in the Davis Cup games, “as 2
result he is now in a German
hoosezgow~’

A still more likely reason is
the judicial admission that he
had uttered “injudicious political
statements.’ Even though Schmel-—
ing may not have uttered “in-
yudicious political statements,” if
Joe Louis mows him down he is
liable to see the inside of a Ger-
man hoosegow. The Aryan sports-
man, Hitler, who refused to
shake the hand of the black star
of the last Olympics, Jess
Owens, will certainly “co-ordin-
ate” the Aryan hero who allows
himself to be beaten in the
prize-ring by Joe Louis.
= The first move of

The Poor the British gov-
Ye Have...”

ernment iim na-
tionalizine the
coal industry, is to buy out the
royalty owners. This is a breed
of leech whose only social func-
tion is to collect a ralke-off known
as a royalty, on every ton of coal
mined in Scotland, England ana
Wales.

Although it was brought out by
Bob Smillie in a coal enquiry
about 15 years ago, that many
of the Scottish and English coal
royalty-owners do not possess any
title to the lands they draw in-
comes from, the British govern-
ment now proposes to donate
3330,000,000 to them in exchange
for their “rights.”

The royalty-owners asked $750,-
000,000 and are squawking that
the price is too low. The loudest
Squawk of all comes from the
Archbishop cf Canterbury, head
of the Ecclesiastical Commis-
sioners who control and admin-
ister the finances of the Church
of England, and who are credited
with being the largest royalty—
owners in England, collecting
$1,750,000 annually out of the
fire-boxes of the English and
Welsh people.

The Archbishop, who has to
get by on the measly wage of
$45,000 a year, speaks for the
rich hierarchy of the church.
His “whole concern” in protest-
ing at the government price is

that such a low offer will work-

a hardship on the poorly paid
wiears and curates. Wot for 2
moment could he suggest that
any losses these might suffer
should be made good out of the
$65,000,000 collected annualiy

from the English and Welsh peo-
ple by the Ecclesiastical Commiuis=
sioners.

4]
ie
e
NE

ee ae

ects ga

Lage i dapshhass ine hve dinglen ple

ee re ee