* *

Comment

EDITORIAL PAGE

End of

AURICE LeNoblet Duplessis,
premier of Quebec for 18
years and member of the Quebec
Legislative Assembly for Trois-
Rivieres for 32 consecutive years,
is dead.

Review

an era

With his notorious “Pad
Law” Duplessis invaded the s
tity of the home to pros ‘il
ideas, books, cultural activities,
approved by himself and the
archy he served; meantime thi
ing his nose at the central g'
ment, both Liberal and Tory,
cowardly to intervene in defence
those rights Duplessis so flagr.
ly violated. His hounding of 1
ligious sects not approved by 1
clerical reaction is too well kno
to require elaboration. :

Browder's swan song

NE of the most recent to join
the ranks of Yankee noise-
makers on what “Khrushchev
should see” when he visits the U.S.
this month, is the renegade com-
munist “leader and intellectual,”
Earl Browder.

standard” economics is a crime
report issued a few days ago joint-
ly by the U.S. attorney-general and
the FBI. A murder every 64.2 min-
utes; a rape every 36.1 minutes; a
robbery every 7 minutes; a car
stolen every 1.9 minutes; a bur-
glary every 46.4- seconds, all on a.
round-the-clock schedule!

We don’t think Mr. K. would
enjoy such a panorama of Amer-
ican superiority and we are sure
“Marxist” Browder wouldn’t insist
it be on the list of things “Khrush-
chevy should see.” What would
probably “impress” Mr. K. least of
all in America and compel] that
robust individual to forego his din-
ner — would be Earl Browder!

Lincoln

_@ ey,

said if:

Q e
“This country, with its institu-
tions, belongs to the people who
inhabit it. Whenever they shall
grow weary of the existing govern-
ment, they can exercise their con-
_ stitutional right of amending, or
their revolutionary right to dis-

member or overthrow it.” (Abra-
ham Lincoln, March 4, 1861)

Browder the “Marxist” thinks
the two things which might “im-
press” Khrushchev most are the
high wage-scales and snazzy homes
of American workers. According to
this long-time devotee and apolo-
gist for Yankee imperialism, all
Marxists (including Khrushchev)
have had a bad time of it trying to

“explain away” this phenomenon
of the American way-of-life. And,
quoth Browder, “it still continues
to puzzle them.”

Above and beyond the maudlin
“tributes” of editorial scribblers,
clerics and old-line politicians on.
his demise, the hope persists that
the death of Duplessis marks the
passing of an era of political cor-
ruption and reaction in French

Canada. His hatred of organized I

Catholic and non-Catholic a

was matched only by his devo
service to the big monopolists
French Canada and the U.S. UI
the advent of Socred Bill 43,

plessis’ Quebec led all Canada
reactionary anti-labor legislatiol

The unquestioning servitor of
reactionary Catholic hierarchy in
Quebec, M. Duplessis made clever
use of French-Canadian national-
ism to further the ends of retro-
If this “intellectual” windbag, gression and reaction.
who managed to lead the Commu-
nist party of the U.S.A. down the
garden path of revisionism for a
few years before the party got rid
of him, would just refer to some
statistics published by his own
government on wage and salary
earner credit buying, he would
readily realize that genuine Marx-
ists are neither “puzzled” nor
awed.

During the Duplessis regime
political corruption in Que
marked an all-Canada high. Ri
elections, administrative graf!
police state rule; so much so t
even noted Catholic priests W
moved to make public protest. —

Under the pretext of “preserv-
ing provincial rights,’ Duplessis
deprived the people of his prov-
ince of educational facilities, social
advanees and public benefits. In
this he served as a roadblock to a

wider Canadian progress. 3
os French and English Canadia

will not mourn the passing of }
Duplessis. They will only reg
that death, rather than the peo
of French Canada, ended his ui
Savory career.

By the same pretext of “provin-
cial rights’ M. Duplessis rode
rough-shod over the civil, religious

io seh 3 :
Ree are higher in the US and democratic rights of the peo

than in most countries, including
our own U.S.-dominated industrial
Canada—but not so high when 54
million jobless and short - time
workers are subtracted from the
total labor force.

So also is credit buying higher.
Fancy homes, Cadillacs, TVs, cos-
metics, clothing, tranquilizers, all
totalling up to billions-on-the-cuff.
Only a “Marxist” of the Browder
vintage finds it difficult to diag-
nose the end result of a mortgaged
future. :

No doubt Mr. K. will enjoy see-
ing the homes of American werk-
ers, and, being a cultured guest,
won’t insist on seeing the accom-
panying “plaster.”

Related to American “high-

Pacific Tribune

Phone MUtual 5-5288
Editor — TOM McEWEN
Managing Editor — BERT WHYTE
Published weekly at
Room § — 426 Main Street
Vancouver 4, B.C.
Printed in a Union Shop
Subscription Rates: .
One Year: $4.00
Six Months: $2.25
Canadian and Commonwealth
countries (except Australia): $4.00
one year. Australia, United States and
all other countries: $5.00 one year.

ple of French Canada.

Tom
McEwen

‘AS a law student in his early
A university days during the

Tzarist regime in old Russia, Vlad-

imir Illyich Lenin not only studied,
the codification of human behavior
as it was then set down in the law
books, but directed some of his
studies to the general functions

and ‘ehtics”’ of the law profession

itself. Hence his classical defini-

tion of a lawyer as ‘“‘a conscience

for hire,” which probably explains
(in part) how the immortal Lenin
decided to become a briliant revo-
lutionary instead of a “successful”
lawyer.

In Vancouver over the past
week the 41st annual convention of
the Canadian Bar Association held
its sessions in the Hotel Vancou-
ver, with some 1,800 of the legal
fraternity in attendance. Many
notables, and many not-so-notable
in the legal arena were present,
among them England’s Lord -Chief

Justice, Lord’ Parker of Wadding- |

ton, an old-fashioned devotee of

a

the birch rod on Junior’s buttocks
as a prime “deterrent” to modern
social problems. (We are sure
Junior would vote the noble lord
top stinker of the year, but that
is another story).

Perhaps we’re telling organized
labor what it already knows, but it
never hurts to repeat a well-estab-
lished truth, viz, that whatever
else it may be the legal profession
is strictly a ‘‘closed shop” union.

Thus, while the closed shop as
it applies to trade unions will un-
doubtedly be among the multiple
topics of discussion by the BA
boys, and in all likelihood | severe-
ly frowned upon, we'll bet a bound
volume of Kuzych versus the
Boilermakers et al, that the legal
closed shop will remain a tightly
closed entity.

Bingo, divorces, power control,
securities selling, labor relations,
torts, injunctions, malfeasances,

’ family law, municipal financing

and ad infinitum; these -and other
problems in this way-of-life of ours
from which the firm of Skinem,.
Fleecem, Hookem.and Skinem gar-.
ner a rich harvest, without .any
‘hold-the-line’’ obstacles, will eet
a good going over.

Early in its sessions the BA boys
got around to telling labor how
it should behave, and giving their ~
legal blessing to the Socred’s. in-
famous Bill. 43, recommending it

‘

as “a Canada-wide law pate
for hogtieing labor.

The legal boys also “feel’’ that

_it shouldbe strictly “illegal” for

Canadian unions to be controlled
or directed by international exec
utives not resident in Canada.
This “considered opinion” is not
a plea for Canadian independence,
subverted. by Liberal and Tory
governments, nor for a _ greater
measure of Canadian trade union
autonomy,’ but simply a piece of
stale “legal” union busting, as old —
as the labor movement itself. i
In keeping with Bill 43 the legal
boys would like to see all strikes
confined to the plant or industry
affected, with a strict ban on all
solidarity or sympathetic actions.
In this, say the legal sharks, ‘labor
should have no more privileges—
no more than management has.”
Instead of shouting “objection”
we'll settle for that. A.tight nation-
wide organization. with millions of
dollars at its command; an.army 0!

- legal talent to frame. ball-and-chain |

curbs for the bosses; a’ judicial

- system. to issue injunctions against

speed-up, wage cuts, layoffs, union
busting; and a closed shop just
like the monopolists and the legal —
fraternity to defend and advan
labor’s cause. :

Yes: sir, with the same. “privias

-leges’’.as the bosses and the legal

sharks, labor can win hands down!

Sept. 11, 1959—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page