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his Week in the tlouse

By BRUCE MICKLEBURGH

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HAT has happened to the proposal to establish a steel mill in
qi British Celumbia whick Vancouver City Council, for one, and

hee powerful shipyard unions. for another, have been pressing? The -

ly™pne speech debate is now in its final stages, with most of the
rmamabers having outlined their ideas for securing the postwar pros-
ity of this province, and yet only two speakers have even men-
ci;ed this vital question. - : :
emoue was Dorothy Steves, CCF MILA for North Vancouver, who
jya.dered if Premier Hart had forgotten what he said in favor of the

alge 1 mili last year, and the other, oddly enough, was J. A. Paton,
‘awalition Conservative member for Vancouver-Point Grey.

fqn a speech more noteworthy for its anti-Soviet tone and advocacy
Ore jord Halifax's proposals than for its progressive content, Paton
mmeed one constructive idea when he said that the future of this
vince lies in the industrial realm because.of its great natural
I Ith; inland waterways, unrivalled harbors, and, abeve all, iron
coal at tidewater. “The iron and steel industry,” he said, “is
my the parent of all secondary industries. Hence, the develop-
t of the iron industry must be the point of commencement in
fining the widest use of British Columbia’s natural resources.”
‘There has long been a point of view that all we could do in
= was to export such raw materials as timber and fish. That point
iew has been changed by the war, which has delegated to B.C.
Smajor task of building ships, owing to our advantageous climate
OF i location. Qur several large shipyards have resulted in the de-
Wae'pment of many secondary industries. But how are we going
arry on in peace time against the handicap of the heavy cost
auling steel across the Rockies?”

7 be question is a pertinent one. For the past many years, and
icularly last year, there has been a popular demand from one
of the province to the other, from trade unions and chambers
‘ommerce, city councils and other public bodies, that the pro-
lal government take immediate measures to establish a steel

; on the Coast.

2
his

} i Postwar Rehabilitation Council’s Interim Report, filed over a
‘a year ago, found that “a steel industry is vitally necessary to the
V: economy of. British Columbia” and recommended that “the ne-
piry authority be sought from the legislature as early as possible
jwarmopower the government to establish a steel industry by direct
j@tstment, or te render such financial assistance as may be deemed
rs sable, or by way of special grant either jointly with the federal
chasrnment or otherwise, in add#tion te the bounties provided within
iim existing statute.’
nie ’hat has happened to cause the complete silence of the govern-
iii: On this question? Premier Hart must know his 27-point program
n # complete without the steel mill. What powerful opposition has
dig ced the demands of the people and weakened the structure upon
fh our postwar prosperity must be built? :
ne Rehabilitation Report observes that “since it costs approxi-
len ly $25,000 to clean out a blast furnace if it is ever allowed to
7) . eastern firms resent the erection of new blast furnaces.”
sem there are 30,000 shipyard workers in B.C. whose jobs are worth
. @: to this province than the cost of cleaning out eastern blast
plgaces. Actually, North American postwar production needs will be
itm that a mill on the Coast is not going to hurt eastern industry
ciel, unless that industry is being based on plans for creating a
cole ity, of steel, and the provincial government has no business
tf (@<¢ and abetting any such plans. No more has the CCF, which
aig ot for the one remark by Mrs. Steeves; has maintained complete
mf ce on the question throughout the session. The CCF members
ad obliged eastern monopoly interests by adopting the defeatist
mt@ion that the east could force us out of the steel business at any
n@ by “dumping” at low prices, so what's the use of trying? Con-
ciently, Grant MacNeil, in an otherwise able speech, was left
nik, “What is going to happen to our shipyard workers when they
jom heir pink discharge slips at the end of the war?”
injercitish Columbia must keep its shipyards operating—and the time
mL™@come for the people to fight hard to get that steel mill. The
rnment, and every member who is silently evading the question
‘be put on the spot. There is something wrong when “Duff”
iillo, the member for Prince Rupert, can speak for over an hour
jsut mentioning the steel mill, despite the fact that every lead-
organization in that city has demanded it and thousands of
fe Rupert citizens have signed the Boilermakers’ petition for
tel mill. And the same could be said of many other members
hae House. When neither the Government nor the Opposition
an ising this question which is the key to our postwar industrial
th, lopment, it is time for the people to make their voice heard
mndaimes Bay. :

15s . K. C. McDONALD, minister of Agriculture, outlined for us
sthe government’ agricultural program, and supported Ottawa’s
clogs to establish a floor price for farm produce, something the
st fers have long demanded. A hig question affecting our farmers
" fes around the gift of 1,000,000 acres of soil-surveyed land for

ler settlement under the federal Veteran’s Land Act. By the
jisions of this Act, the veteran is advanced $4,800 with which to
scsi@uase land and buildings, and $1,200 with which to purchase
ampomaent, livestock, and seed. He is required to make an initial

rent of $480, and is then given an agreement calling for pay- _

aril: ; be on
B; of $3,200 at 314 percent per annum, such payments to :
att bnthly basis over a period of ten years. Bulk of the land being
fidered lies along the PGE and the northern line of the CNR,
siish the federal government has bought some land on Vancouver
ie id and in the Peace River. : oe ee
thihen it is remembered that from 1930 to 1937 the aver
H ne of the Ganadian farmer was $400.50, it will be seen how very
Pant is the need for assuring markets for their produce to ae
ing soldier settlers. It is essential the PGE should be comple ® 3
on this too, the government is silent. The question of 2 ss ee
eb must also be raised here, for our industrial population offers

e’ |ereatest possible market for Interior farmers.

Made of shallow-draft barges, thiss pontoon causeway helped effect a quick landing for
men and equipment as the Allies rushed reinforcements ashore at Anzio this weel to
save the beachhead against Nazi counter-attackss.

Hundreds Pay Final Tribute
To Veteran Labor Leader

BY AL PARKIN

We buried Arthur H. “Slim” Evans on Thursday, and as the casket bearing his body
was lowered into a grave at Ocean View Park, we knew we were seeing the last of a great
Canadian, a man who had shaped the course in his country, who had made labor history
and whose name will be a part of that history for men to read and to know that here was
Canada’s best working class organizer and one of the outstanding mass leaders of his time.

We knew that was so as we

‘watched the men and women

who came thronging to the fun-
eral services. There were hun-
dreds there, working people in
the main, some of them in work
clothes and straight from the
job, others who had obviously
taken the day off to pay their
last respects. There were a few
tiny children there, too, clinging
quietly to the hands of mothers
who, back in the days of the
“hungry thirties,’ had perhaps
gone to school with an extra
Sandwich in their lunch boxes
because “Slim”’- Evans had led
their fathers in a successful fight
for higher relief payments.

There were Chinese there, and
Negroes, East Indian Sikhs and
native Indians. Four elderly Chi-
nese workers filed into the cha-
pel, one of them bearing a small
wreath. “Slim” must have helped
them at one time. And a Cana-
dian Indian sat quietly in a front
row seat. Maybe he had worked
with “Slim” up in the Interior
country when, as Workers Unity
League provincial organizer,
Evans was laying the
foundation of industrial unionism
in the mining industry.

“Slim” Evans’ life spanned two
distinct epochs in labor history.
tie was one of that fighting band
of men who, in the early part of
this century, went out to organize
workers into industrial unions be-
eause they knew that such unions
were the only answer to the
growth of monopoly capitalism.
And he lived to see the time
when industrial unions were mil-
jions-strong, and the basic indus-
fries of his adopted province al-
most fully organized.

Born 56 years ago in Toronto,
he came west at an early age and
almost immediately became in-
volved in these bitter labor
struggles then raging in the coal
and hardrock mines of Westrn
Canada and United States.

It was in i911 that Evans first
{ook a labor platform as one of
the leaders in a free speech fight
being conducted by the TWW, was
arrested and sentenced to three

early

years imprisonment, but was re-
leased early in 1912 when he

“helped lead a jail strike of poli-

tical prisoners. By 1913 he was
back im the coal mining areas
of Colorado and was present at

the Ludlow Massacre, winding
up there in hospital with serious
leg wounds from machine gun
bullets, wounds which were to
trouble him to the day of his
death.

To thousands of young western
Canadians who were coming into
the labor movement in the early
nineteen-thirties, “Slim” Evans
was something of a legend. A
contemporary and at times a co-
worker of stich labor “greats” as
“Big Bill” Haywood, Frank Little,
and the immortal Joe Hill, he
was a product of that stage in
labor history that produced the
bitterest battles between labor
and the employer the world had
seen, battles which were to shape
all his later activities.

We knew him best, of course,
for his work ameng the unem-
ployed in British Columbia he-
ginning early in 1931, and cul-
minating in 1935 in the historic
“On-to-Ottawa” trek of single un-
employed youth, which was
smashed by an overwhelming
force of RCMP at Regina. The
impact that trek had among 4he
people of Canada-laid the basis
fer the defeat of the Bennett
hunger government later that
year.

“Before that he had been a sub-
Gistrict secretary of the United
iMine Workers of America in the
Alberta coalfields in the early
nineteen-twenties where he was
framed by the John Lb. Lewis ma-
chine and the bosses during a
mine strike and sent to the pen-
itentiary for three years, a mem-
ber of the United Brotherhood of
Carpenters and Joiners in Van-
couver, from which he was ex-
pelled for fighting the corrupt
Huteneson machine, and in 1932
B.C. organizer of the National
Unemployed Workers Associa-
tion, which won for the jobless

on the Coast ihe highest relief
s¢ales in Canada.

His last oustanding job, before
he entered the shipyards in 1940
and became a shop steward of
the Amalgamated Shipwrights,
was his attempt to crack the Con-
solidated Mining. and Smelting
Company stronghold at Trail in
1937. He didn’t succed—the times
were against him—but he did es-
tablish TLocal 480 of the Mine,
Mill and Smelter Workers Union
in Trail that was later—in 1943—
to provide the core of the pow-
erful local inion now established
there.

But the famous “On-to-Ottawa”
trek remains his greatest single
contribution to Canadian pro‘
gress. Conceived by him, organ~
ized and led by him, it is correct
to say that it could not have suc-
ceeded without him.

This fact wes emphasized by
Charles Stewart.in the funeral
address on Thursday. Said Stew-
art:

“Arthur Evans was great be-
eause he was able, through his
great organizing talents, to bring
new hope and life te thousands
ef Canada’s dispossessed youth
who were rotting in hopelessness
in Bennett's slave camps. And if
youre looking for monuments to
the men, go up along the CPR
mainline and watch for those still-
standing tar-papered shacks into
which Bennett herded the unem-
ployed youth of Canada back in
those days. Theyre empty now.
their windows boarded up, desert
ed for years. And Arthur Hyans
is the man who closed them
down—forever, so far as labor
is concerned.”

| BALKAN CAFE

779 E. Hastings
Tasty Meals for War Workers