@ labor conference
idon —on June 5.
Mation claimed a
594.283 workers
)- in June, 1943,
med to four dele-
fee not yet been
himself, who has
pr delegate to the
@oor Office confer-
fiphia next month,
aly attend the Lon-
1S well.

jers are glad to ~

foinvitation, and we
free trade union

he allies will at-—

Sat we may have
@, the United Na-

t their war efforts
f winning of the

We hope that the
@ conference will
“representing the
7 of the world’s

w. the points pro-

sion: furtherance

@ attitude of trade
* )stwar peace, la-
iin the peace con-
@twar reconstruc-
@ir, we firmly de-
# rs’ delegates sit
‘ference, because
have made their
o the winning of

Wiz desire to help
@ ies now occupied
sebuild their free
= ments after these
* en liberated. ~
mito the Far~East
@uitries generally,
= iain problem is —
ing standards of

‘Chu Continued.
over the world
%. while — oriental

etd. The improve-
fj standards must
efore workers’
weere are secure.”
im he agreed with
j/™ the conference

exploratory and
™4 no decision
@:ountry that has

E the TUC’s de-
= li representative
ever different in
ideology, despite
od,’ Chu said: “I

viet trade union

) participate and

pas ben invited.”

In reply to a question about the
Status of unions in the Chinese
Communist area in the north, Chu

said that the Chinese ~Association ~

of Labor's executive council of 31
includes one Communist repre-
sentative, and that he regards
these unions as affiliated to the
Association, a report of their pro-

gress being made at each antual

GAL convention.

The leading trade union groups
in North China, according to a
report to Allied Labor News from
China in July 1943, are the General
Labor Union of the Shensi-Kensu-
WNinghsia Border Region, with
headquarters in Yenan, and the
Worth China Federation of Trade
Unions, comprising the guerrilla
unions
the Japanese lines. Lhe Dondon —
Times, in two articles from a cor-
respondent in North China pub-
lished November 10 and 11, 1943,
estimated that workers’ and peas-
ants’ unions, youth and women’s
organizations: in that area have.a
membership of more than 10,500,-
000: :

y workers Have ~

INDIA

_ Another Famine?

WANG that India is facing a
famine disaster “worse even

‘than that of last year,” the na-

tional conference of the India
League, meeting in London last
week, demanded immediate inde-
pendence for Imdia and removal
from the government of tTLeo-
pold S. Amery, secretary of state
for India, as “essential to the
solution of India’s problems.” :

The conference, attended by 150
delegates from 113 labor and other
organizations with a total mem-

\

bership of more than  2,000,000,.
called upon the government to
send adequate food, grain and

medical supplies to India without
delay. _ 7

Challenging the contention of
British officials that the famine
is caused by hoarding on the
part of peasants, and by in-
efficiency of the native Bengal
administration, the conference
charged that the hoarding is in
fact being done by large com-
bines and landlords who have
the protection of British officials.
The conference demanded re-

lease of all labor and political
in India.

prisoners Delegates

plane drops supplies to Allied soldiers on the
#0 Burma where this week Japanese troops
#-oss the border into India.

“ing that

operating mainly behind _

————

Standing in silent tribute to the
wite of Mahatma Gandhi, who
died recently in prison and resolv-
“conditions wherby In-
idia’s foremost leaders are sub-
jected to such degradations must
be brought to an end by the will
of the British people.”

LATIN
~ AMERICA

Defense of Democracy

OQDERNIZATION of  Chile’s
4 armed forces and’ thei reon-
version into an efficient guarantee
of our national and continental de-
fense,” through elimination of all
anti-democratic army officials, was
urged last week by the third con-
gress of Chile’s “National Miners

_¥ederation, the largest and most

powerful union in the country.

With more than 60,000 workers
from 65 local unions represented,
the congress, meeting in the indus-
trial city of La Calera, demanded
“for national security reasons” that
the government take over “all the
means of production and propa-
ganda, including schools, operated
by Nazi and fifth column elements.”

- Supporting the-formation of a
single party of labor, now under
discussion among leaders of the
Socialist, Communist and Work-
-ers Socialist parties and the Con-
federation of Ghilean Workers
CTCh), the federation urged that
the talks be speeded up and that
organized labor “set the pace for
its prompt organization.”

At the same time the federation
recommended to the C&TCh that it
“participate more actively in the
Democratic Alliance of Chile in
order to insure the consolidation
and amplification of the economic,
political and social conquests of
labor and the common people and
for the defense of the democratic
regime.” The government was
urged “to take drastic steps against
speculation” and full support was

pledged to the cause of the United —

Nations.

Common Danger

VWeSss his first public address
in Brazil, Vicente Lombardo

Toledano, president of the Con-
federation of Matin’ American
Workers (CTAL), warned the

thousands of Brazilians who jam-
med the National Music School

auditorium in Rio de Janeiro that

“the war against fascism has now
‘been carried to the shores of Am-

_ erica.” :

“No nation in this hemisphere,”
he told his wildly cheering list-

-eners, “is free from the threaten-

ing danger of reactionary fascism.”
The meeting, largest in Brazil
in recent years, was arranged by
the National Defense League of
Brazil and the Brazil-Mexico Insti-
tute in honor of Toledano ° and
Mexican Ambassador Jose Maria
Davila. Sharing the platform were
the Chilean and Venezuelan Am-
bassadors, Gabriel Gonzalez Vid-
ela and General Rafael Galbadon.
Toledano went to Brazil for dis-
cussions with Brazilian President:
Getulio Vargas. They are believed
to be working out a common pro-
gram of action to combat the
spread of Argentine fascism to
other parts of the continent.

UNITED
STATES

Fourth Term

Does J. TOBIN, president of
the International Brotherhood
of Teamsters—largest AFL affili-
ate with 650,000 members — Iast
week publicly announced his sup-
port for a fourth term for Presi-
dent Roosevelt. This was revealed
in a wire sent by Tobin to Alben
W. Barkley, Senate majority lea-
der, denouncing Barkley’s recent
revolt against the president be-
cause.of the latter’s veto of a Con-

gressional tax bill. :
“After travelling through the:
nation and dealing with masses
of workers, it is my opinion that
it would be suicide to our war
effort to displace the present head
of our government and com-
mander-in-chief of the armed
forces,” Tobin wired. “It is my
further opinion that no other
Democrat can be elected in

November except the present
head of the nation — President
Roosevelt.

M@he stand taken by Tobin, high-
ly significant in view of the pres-
ent domination of the AFL execu-
tive council by Republican party
Supporters, William ©. Hutcheson
and Matthew Woll, has been en-
dorsed by the -Ohio State Team-
sters Union.

The current issue of the Ohio
Teamster, official state-wide organ
of the union, declares editorially:
“If there must be any new presi-
dents, let's start with the Car-
penters’ Union, whose head, Wil-
liam IL. Hutcheson, sounds like
Rickenbaker, The kind of change
labor wants is in its own leader
ship.”

The paper also backed joint
political action with the CIO for
the re-election of President Roose-
velt.

EIRE
A Necessary Move

REMOVAL of the German lega-

tion and the Japanese con-
sulate from Dublin as requested
by the United States and Britain
is a-necessary move to safeguard
Allied arms, particularly in view
of the forthcoming European in-
vasion, in the opinion of W. H.
MeCullough, general secretary of
the Communist Party in Northern
Ireland.

“This- action would be wunivers-
ally acclaimed by all who desire
a_rapid victory, while making ail
allowances for the difficulties of
the DeValera government and
Ireland’s legacy of grievances from
past British misrule.” McCullough
declared in a recent statement.
“While unreservedly accepting the
Eire government’s statement that
it has loyally pursued the declar-
ed policy of preventing the 26
counties from being used for
hostile acts against the Allied
powers, it is nevertheless clear
that a less compromising attitude
on DeValera’s part would have
been in the best interests of the
Irish people now and in the post-
War period.

“No Irishman with the best
interest of his péople at heart
“wants his country directly or
indirectly used as a factor in the
desperate designs of Hitler’s
gamblers who -now stake their
chief hopes on disunity within
the democratic coalition.”

MeCullough stated that the Brit-

Ash and American people would

have to guard against being misled
by the provocative statements
who seemed to see the solution
te Irish-Allied problems in the
ereation of international  bitter-
ness against the people of the
26 counties of Ireland:

“Attempts to exploit the crisis
for the furtherance of provincial
and partisan interests constitute
the greatest possible disservice to
the British and Irish peoples.” he
said.

“The central attention of Irish
people here and abroad should be
directed towards the forthcoming
onslaught on Hitlerite Germany
and not diverted into the barren
channels of discord and strife from
which Hitler alone can gain satis-
faction in this ristoric hour.

“The Irish people can play a
noble role in minimizing the
danger not alone for Americans
and Britishers, but for thousands
of Irishmen and women now
serving in the Allied forces by
ensuring that negotiations pro-
ceed to mutual. satisfaction for
ridding Ireland of German and
Japanese agents.”

Short
Jabs

Lamm Epos QE? Helt.____!
A Treattor Dies

A French traitor was sentenced

to death last week by a court
set up under” the jurisdiction of
the French National Committee.
The Sentence of the court has
since been executed and= the
traitor, Pucheu, shot by a firing
squad.

: This is a good beginning. What
is noteworthy in the trial, however,
is not alone the well-merited death
of a Vichyite criminal who sent
hundreds of his fellow-countrymen
to their deaths through his col-
laboration with the Nazi butchers,
but tee defiance he hurled at the
court.

As the judge pronounced the
sentence Pucheu shouted, “Vive la
France.” Other Frenchmen, in
France, today are erying, “Vive la
France,” as patriots’ dying before
Nazi firing Squads} as free men
fighting their Oppressors in the
hills” of Houte Savoie, but they
mean something very different.

The France they pay homage to
is the France of the tradition of
1789, the France of the June Days
and of the February revolution,
the France of the Commune of
1871. It is poetic justice that the
traitor Pucheu, was shot by a
French firing squad on the 13rd
anniversary of the declaration of
the Paris Commune.

That, however, is not the France
Pucheu. had in mind when he
cried in court, “Vive la: France.”
His France was the France of
reaction, the corrupt, decadent
France that four revolutions in a
century and a half were meant to
make healthy again, the France
of the scoundrels who poisoned

the political wells of French demo-
eratie life.

“Vive Ia France,’ in the mouth
of such a monster, is comparable
only to the protestations of “loy-
alty to the Communist movement”
vented by some of the renegades
and _ disrupters, Trotsky and

others, who have been thrown out

of the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union at different times.

The logie of events, however,
places them in their true perspec-
tive. “Viva la France,” to Pucheu,
meant the opportunity to sell his
country and his countrymen. The
payoff came from the rifles of
those whom he hoped to sell to
his country’s enemies. History
caught up with him without much
loss of time.

To. the Communist renegade,
“loyalty to the movement” means,
the opportunity, in the socialist
land, to sell out to fascism, and
in the capitalist democracies, to
sell out the workers by disrupt-
ing their most powerful weapons,
their trade unions—sometimes for
very little pay.

Man makes history within cer-
tain limits. But these limits are
being pushed aside and man is
taking a greater part in the mak
ing of that history: consciously di-
recting it instead of being driven
blindly and buffeted by forces he
does not understand.

So, more and more men like
Pucheu will face the firing squads
and the steep downward path of
the renegades will be made steep-
er and slippier for all those who
falsely proclaim their “loyalty to
the moyement.”

&

RYTON IES SR