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Win The Strike

H R. MacMILLAN, W. L. Mackin, the Bloedels, all the

big lumber operators who have banded together to deny
to their workers a fair wage and the right to security,
today stand indicted in the eyes of the people. The indict-
ment is that 37,000 loggers and sawmill workers have been
forced to strike to obtain those rights and that standard
of living which were the promise of the new democracy-
to-be when the workers were striving might and maig to
remove that democracy from the threat of fascist conquest.
What is the worth of these promises now that the danger
of a foreign fascist domination is past? And where is the
desire to concede the workers the rights they have earned,
not long ago the subject of so many fine-sounding speeches,
when it cuts into super-profits?

The veteran seeking in vain to find lumber for his
modest home, the housewife endeavoring to make her
husband's pay cheque stretch over the widening gap be-
tween wages and living costs, alike will recognize that
the woodworkers’ struggle is also their struggle, as it is
indeed the struggle of all labor. The workers in the industry,
many Of whom are themselves trying to build’ homes, are
concerned with the plight of home builders. The operators
have demonstrated by their eager attention to the more
profitable export market, that their major concern is
profits, not homes, and not jobs.

So it is in their dealings with the union. MacMillan’s
letter to his employees so zealously defending their right
not to join a union cloaks the hope that perhaps out of
the deallock the operators have created, out of the strike

Al Parkin
$1.00
B.C.

Nigel Morgan

they haye forced upon their workers and out of the wreck-.

age of the union they would like to smash, they may re-
create the pre-war system of the blacklist in the files of
their hiring agencies and the policing of their camps against
the union’s organizers.

The organized labor movement of British Columbia,
and of all Canada, because this is a national issue and a
national problem, must see that this hope of resurrecting
the black past is defeated. The people of this province,
wage earners whose pay cheques will reflect the outcome
ef the struggle, farmers and middle-class people whose
prosperity is directly dependent upon the prosperity of
the workers, should support the strike to a successful con-
clusion, wherever possible by participating in community-
wide activities to aid the strikers.

It is not merely a dispute between employers and em-
ployees concerning and affecting the disputants alone. It
is a question of national and provincial governmental policy :
Whether governments shall continue as they have been
doing to give way to the frenzied drive of monopolist in-
terests for ever higher profits while the workers’ real earn-
ings dwindle before the combination of living costs, short-
ages and black markets, or whether the lust for super
profits shall be curbed, -price ceilings on essentials main-
tained and a greater share of the wealth produced directed
into channels of higher living standards and social se-
curity for those who produce it.

Stuart Research Service’s advertising campaign has at-
tempted to obscure this issue with misleading figures of
the supposed high wages paid to woodworkers, figures
which take on a different meaning when they are measured
against living costs, as every worker knows from his own
experience. But the operators cannot conceal the amount
of their excess profits, which is a matter of public record,
or the fact that they prefer to squander thousands on a
propaganda campaign rather than accede to the just de-
mands of their workers.

This is the basic issue of the strike, the struggle of
the woodworkers to win higher living standards and a
‘greater measure of security and to establish the rights
without which neither decent living standards nor secur-
ity is possible, against the concerted efforts of powerful
employers to reduce these standards to their pre-war level.
It is an issue on which every One must take a stand. And
the only stand for all trade unionists, whose fundamental
demands are those of the woodworkers, and for all pro-
gressive-minded citizens, is that all must fight the strike
together in order to win together in the common interest.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 4

“The distressed Jews of Europe must be
United States, Canada and other countries. We in Canada should do our
to our country.”—J. Gershman.

the admission of a number

of Jewish victims

Fenced In

Given the opportunity to emigrate to Palestine, the

part in working for

Palestine Crisis

Independence Will Bring Peace To The Holy Land

Secretary, National Jewish

PFE Anglo-American Committee of Inquir
instrument of the imperialists.

she has done so by appointing commissions of inquiry.
responsible fer disturbances

This is now being repeated in
the case of the 1946 Anglo-
American Commission, the only
difference being that England
now has a partner in the Unit-

ed States. This commission, in
spite of its sweet and pious
words, also did not have as

its purpose solving the prob-
lems of the two peoples which
jointly inhabit Palestine. Like
the others, this commission was
more concerned with funda-
mental imperialist policies.

Justifies Control
political intentions of the
report consists of what the -Bri-
tish representatives on the com-
mission wished: trying to per-
suade the world that the Arabs
and Jews cannot live peaceably;
therefore the British mandatory
power was completely justified
in its Palestinian actions; there-
fore, it is essential that this
same power should maintain her
control on this vital strategic
country.

From this emerges the declar-
ation that the population of
Palestine should have no voice
in governing the country, and
if the British and American
governments will approve the
report it should be binding—
whether it is acceptable to the
Arabs and Jews or not.

Meir Villner, representative of
the Palestinian Communists,
warned the commission of this
distorted attitude when he told
its members: “The commission
is presenting the problem of
cur country as a question of
antagonism between Jews and

By J. GERSHMAN

The exclusion of

Committee, Labor-Progressive Party

y on Palestine was, from its inception, an
representatives

in Palestine, since they did not have as their purpose the

Arabs instead of regarding it
at @ problem of oppression by
British imperialism of Jews and
Arabs alike.”

The “Communists, he said, re
jected such an attitude. The
commission should have as its
aim “cooperation between the
two peoples of our country in
order to ensure peace and se-
curity the advance of de-
mocracy . - and the independ-
ence of Palestine.”

JOE GERSHMAN

The report itself contains pi-
ous-sounding phrases. However,
Similar sentiments can be found
in preceding commission reports.

For example, the Chamberlain

White Paper of 1939 included
the recommendation that, with-
in 10 years Palestine should be-
come an independent state, and
in the interim the government
Should gradually turn over the
reins of administration to rep-
resentative institutions of both
communities. But everyone
knows what happened to that
Since 1939 Palestine is more
under mandatory power than
ever with no indication of self
government.

Displaced Jews

S bee recommendations to allow
100,000 displaced Jews into
Palestine—if carried through —
will be greeted heartily by aH
Jews and progressive people.
The trouble is, the achievement
of this recommendation is stil
far off. The report is so word-
ed that the commission cannot
be held responsible should its
findings not be carried out

Thus, it is recommended that
the 100,000 immigration certifi-
eates should be issued in 1946
“if possible”? and immigration
shall begin as soon ag “condi-
tions permit.” Who is to de-
termine when it is “possible”
and when “conditions permit”?
Wone other than England.

Premier Attlee wasted mo
time in asserting that this re-
commendation can only be con-
Sidered by his government if ‘the
United States @grees to share
military and financial respon-
Sibility. This is the first pub-

Continued on Page 6&
FRIDAY, MAY 17, 1946