; devastated countries,

mployment and pro-
Pirrencies of small na-
a plot of the “inter-
jimanciers’ to plunge
jnto a new war, is not
neless demagogy but
f Hitlerite. frothings
ernational Jewish fi-
which was one of the
mes Hitler used to jus-
an fascist aggression
persecution.

( 7s position on federal
fform legislation is

vith that’ ef Premier
Pntario. The collapse
Sainion-provincial con-
the Rowell-Sirois re-
sow hailed as a great
at as, according to
dad blocked the Prime
plan for the “centra-
/ power.”

lenouncinge all mea-
snternational coopera-
fational social reform
Fe medium of the Do-
wvernment, Mr. Low

of course advanced as the solu-
tion to: Canada’s economic prab-
lems, the issuance of 4 “nation-
al dividend?’ i.e. Print and dis-
tribute more Paper money, and
thus provide more purchasing
power. The economic lesson of
War production has taught Mr.
Low and his monetary reform-
ers nothing. The fact that the
highest degree of prosperity
Canadians ‘eyer enjoyed has
been achieved without issuing
more mioney but by providing
full employment and thus male
ing possible the creation of real
wealth is blissfully ignored.

_ Mr. Low attempts to asso-
ciate his party monetary theo-
ries with the practical reforms
enacted by the Social Credit
government of -Alberta. There
iS no connection. The Social
Credit government of Alberta
was re-elected to office not be-
cause of its monetary theories,
none of which it was ever able
to put into operation success-
fully, but because of the fact it

did introduce a number of prac-

tical reforms.

There are many progressive
minded members and support-
ers of the Social Credit Party,
but Mr. Low does not speak for
or express the yiewpoint of
such people. Rather he repre-
sents the most reactionary
right-wing adherents of Social
Credit, as distinct from the pro-
gressive wing, headed by Pre-
mier Manning of Alberta.

Unlike Premier Manning, he
has never repudiated the Jew
baitine activities of the notori-
ous Social Credit MP’s Jacques
and Hiynka. He has not done
so because he is ideologically
in the same camp with the anti-
war, pro-fascist MP’s, Hlynka,
Jaeques and Kuhl.

In view of these facts it is ex-
tremely doubtful if Mr. Low
and his reactionary policies will

‘secure any number of adherents

in B.C.

e would remedy an
. tf would submit, in
( this, that the adop-

S policy would bring
Felectorate the most

and brave youth of

They were the best -

| fighters during the
2 fighters and other
he home front would
m for the most con-
46 participation in the
en period of our

#2cent National Coun-
@ of the Labor Youth
it was agreed to
' for necessary legis-
n to extend the vote,
provincially, and
‘to 18-year olds, and
k the opinions of all
3S and leaders.
since learnt that
ainent youth leaders
ding the vote to 18-
They also visualize
2 forums, symposia,
*™ programs in their
S, and jointly with
ng initiated on the
of. extending the

#=2ople want to have a
#xledge of the politi-

cal platforms and are taking
keen imterest in political and

national affairs. The Toronto:
Election Forum Committee is
an example. This group of rep-
resentatives from 20 to 30
youth groups and organiza-
tions are sponsoring a-forum
in Torento at which national
leaders of the political partics
will address the youth.
Extending the vote to the
18 to 21-year old groups will
add 650.000 new voters to the
electoral lists. There were 4t

least 12400 servicemen and
women under 20, from Ontario
as of April 1, 1948. These

young people have a right to
determine the type of repre-
sentatives to be elected who
will administer rehabilitation
and reconyersion plans in our
country. These are the plans,
they bank on, for security,
when discharged.

We would be very erateful
to you sir, for the publication
of-this letter, and for the con-
tinuation of the discussion
throught your column on the

question. :
RUTH CARON

Executive Secretary,
Labour Youth Federation.

2.

CARRIER
PIGEONS

LETTERS
FROM OUR
READERS

Fence Sitters

Dear Sir:

The tendency among many
Canadians to “erect fences”
from which “they” are disting-
uished from “us” still persists
to a deplorable extent; witness
the exclusiveness which is fos-
tered among French and Eng~
lish-speaking, Canadian; rural
and urban folk; agriculture and
industry, by chauvinistic ele-
ments, and which is eghoed by
the prejudice - burdened
throughout the land.

Certainly, these groups have
specific needs and the right to
satisfy them. But aren’t they

complementary? Of course
they are, as even a cursory
examination will disclose;

otherwise the- reality of Na-
tional existence would be fic-
tion . .. and the United Na-
tions but mere words.

The nature and extent of
postwar 1 onstruction, and the
regional and material priorities
for this work; markets, full
employment and finance, are
“knotty” questions which can
only be solved, adequately, in
concert, on the basis and further
elaboration of the United Na-
tions structure.

The whole Nazi edifiee at this
time is based entirely upon the
strategy of prolonging the war
around the possibility of a rift
developing within the camp of
the United Nations. That is
why it is so necessary now to
support those progressive for-

ces which are crystallizing
around FDR in the United
States; and which in Canada

are struggling to build a similar
unity, delimited on the “right”
by Mackenzie King and those
forward-looking liberal ele-
ments which are found in quite
large numbers among his sup-
porters and lieutenants.

That the CCE should oppose
the building of such a broad and
effective unity is inexcusable,

and reflects an unpolitic ten-
“ dency to “play” with the future

in a manner which bids fair to
work untold harm and misery.
Short of the national sphere,
the GCF has shown by its re-
cent history that it is not in
principle or in fact opposed to
coalition. Why then this blind
and negative attitude at this
critical juncture ?7—A. D.

oC. SHORT JABS

~

by OF Bill

A Critic Answered

EE IS a common saying that the devil can quote seripture for his own
‘ends. Experience has shown us that of all the old saws which pass as
the folk lore of the English-speaking people, this one at least is true.

How much easier is it then, for the devil and his imps, when the
field is widened and the scribblings of every Tom, Dick and Harry are
superimposed on the scriptures, to be used by every would-be jack in-
office to slander those whose polities do not agree with their own par-
ticular brand, especially when their knowledge is of the Slimmiest kind
it is true of most questions upon which men and women disagree, but
particularly so in polities. 3

A friend in Kelowna sent me a cutting from a local newspaper that
circulates in that little Okanagan town. It is a letter to the editor signed
by a lady named Felicia Snowsell, candidate for the Yale constituency
in the last Provincial elections. :

For scurrility and abuse it is about equal to the ravings of Gol.

~ Robert MeCormick of the Chicago Tribune. It purports to be a critic-

ism of Communist tactics. It consists of the usual phrase-mongerine
of the fellow travellers who have fallen by the wayside, of whom I be=
lieve Felicia Snowsell is one—anties of the Communist Party, clownish
exhibitions and so on. It is also a paecan of joy that the unity of the
Canadian people against fascism has not become a fact at this time.

What interested me most, however, was a remark and a quotation
neither of which were cf any validity whatever, both beings equally —-
false as to the facts.

She writes: “Very many foreign correspondents blame the commu-
nists for all the ‘sorrows of Hurope.” Quite naturally! Many foreign
correspondents are like Pelicia Snowsell, anti-Communist. They cannot
blame their political friends and bosses who butter their bread for them.
And so they blame the communists. And the less they know about the
communists the easier it is for them to heap the blame on the commu-
nists. z Z

They are much like the newspaperman who was called in to see
the boss one day and asked, “What do you know about Lenin?” “Noth=
ing,” he replied. “All right,” shouted the boss, “so ahead and write
a full page feature story about him for the Sunday edition.” But the
blame of these people does not make the communists responsible for
the “sorrows or Europe.”

In support of this unfounded, practically lying, assertion, she quotes
Elliot Paul, an American writer who has lived a lot in Hurope. Paul is a
literary seribbler, ne more an authority on political questions than many.

other literary dilettantes who are afraid to face the realities of life,

He however, does not, as Felicia Snowsell would have us believe, blame
the communists for “all the sorrows of Murope.” ;

Offensive Personcalities >

THE bowdlerized quotation she uses from Paul’s books reads: “If there

is contained in the works of Karl Marx an admonition to his follow—
ers... to add to the almost msuperable difficulties attendant on social
reform, the handicap of offensive personalities, it has escaped my cur-
sory examination.” :

Paul’s examination of Marx’s writings undoubtedly must have been
cursory or he would never have written that passage. I could provide
him with page after page of ‘admonition’ to his followers which have
earned them the reputation of “offensive personalities.””

Marx himself was, during all the years he lived, “an offensive
personality.” Although Marx was the greatest genius of his time, of all
time, he was of all his contemporaries, the most hated. He was not.
only sneered at and lampooned but cursed. But by whom? By those
who stood to lose if the working class accepted his teachings. And to-
day, those who follow under the banner of Marx, the communists, are,
by that same token, ‘offensive personalities.”

The rulers of society; the exploiters and profitmongers and their
hireling brigades whose special function was to prove that Marx was
wrong, that he was just an old man talking through his whiskers, all
of them considered that Marx was an “offensive personality.”

' And there were others who hated Marx even worse and to whom he
was even more “offensive.” The misleaders of the working class, the
Social Democrats who are still carrying on and in whose ranks today
belongs the €CF candidate in Yale, Felicia Snowsell.

These alleged socialists considered Marx’s works so “offensive”
that they “revised” them, taking all the sting out of them. They revised
them so well that Engels did not know them and denounced the revisers.
But they were made wholly respectable so that those who accepted this
revised Marxism could not possibly be considered “offensive personali-
ties.” They shed everything of Marx from Marxism and even sneered
at Marx’s whiskers. i :

The Authors of Europe’s Sorrow

But they are the real authors of Europe’s sorrow. When the people of

Russia put the communists at the head of their state they did some-
thing they have never had to regret. But when the German people put
the Social Democrats at their head they made the greatest mistake in
their history. For they were sold back to slavery. The Social Democrats
split the workers and kept them split and so made them an easy mark
for Hitler’s particular brand of fascism. They, not the communists, are
to be blamed for the sorrows of Europe.

This is the finding, not of dilettante pen-pushers who get their data
from the edges of movements and the back stairs gossip of political-
elub janitors, but of men who have been in the thick of political turmoil
for a century. s

To Daladier, the communists were “offensive personalities.” Why.
then did not Felicia Snowsell auote Elliot Paul in this connection? In
the same book Paul writes: “(Daladier) . .. had been determined to
destroy the Communist Party in France, not because he cared whether
Russian churches were open or closed or were Greek Catholic or Roman
Catholic. The Communists constituted the only opposition in the Gham-_
ber and the press, to his dictatorship and his war against labor so he
sent the secret police to take over the two Communist papers, Ce Soir
and L’Humanite, a few hours in advance of issuing a deeree to make such
action, should we say ‘legal’ ” Z