e C 5 a € i C c Published Weekly at ROOM 104, SHELLY BUILDING 119 West Pender Street Vancouver, B.C.” by the TRIBUNE PUBLISHING CO. MArine 5288 TOM McEWEN Editor IVAN BIRCHARD Manager EDITORIAL BOARD Nigel Morgan Maurice Rush Minerva Cooper Al Parkin Subscription Rates: 1 Year, $2.00; 6 Months, $1.00 Printed By UNIGN PRINTERS, 2363 East Hastings Street = =_ —_— Vancouver, BC. Authorized as second-class mail by the post-office dept.. Ottawa f i In hock ATIFICATION of the 3,500,000 loan to Britain was okayed last week by the U.S. Congress after months of anti-British recriminations and bickerings. Sniping from both sides of the Atlantic marked the long period of debate on the loan, as a sort of reminder that the imperialist rival- ries between Uncle Sam and John Bull are by no means ended. There are loans and loans; as one of the means of implementing international peace and goodwill among the mations, the communists have consistently advocated in Canada and elsewhere the granting of credits by the more forunate nations as a means of aiding those whose economy has been all but destroyed by war. When Leon Blum recently visited the bankers of Wash- ington to seek a loan for France, he argued that such a loan Was imperative to “block communist popularity?” France got a moderate loan, but it didn’t mar the communist vic- tory in the recent election, as hoped for by the “socialist” Blum and his American political pawnbrokers. Such people are out of step with history 23 When Herbert Morrison, Lord President of the Council, visited the U.S. a few months ago, it was for the express purpose of talking a bit “more tough” to the U.S. bankers than did the easy-going Sir Ben Smith, and impress them with the “danger” as did Blum, that the loan was impera- tive to continuity of the empire in its present form. Other- wise John Bull could no longer guarantee te constitute a “cordon sanitaire’ against a tidal wave of a socialism with- out capitalists! During the last hours of debate in the U.S. congress on the loan there was still vigorous opposition from the isola- tionists, the klu klux klanners, and the die-hard anti-British- ers. Speaker Sam Raeburn (Dem.) gave the filibusters the cue; ratify the credit to Britain, “lest England and western Europe be pushed into an ideology I despise.” That settled it. That was language the majority of them understood and could unite upon. The loan “passed.” Put the British em- pire in pawn for $3,500,000,000, and stave off the “specter of communism” that is no longer a specter in Europe, but is “haunting” the atomic diplomats and their bankers in London, Washington and Ottawa. A few days ago in a Cambridge University debate, an American warned his audience that the British were in dan- ger of becoming the “spam-fed janissaries of Uncle Sam.” Millions of ordinary British workers have already drawn a similar conclusion. In polite press circles (if the term may be used) the loan is and will be heralded as another proof of that “great cooperation of the two great English-speaking countries,” etc., etc. One prominent newspaper drew the editorial con- clusion that had the loan not passed congress, “Mr. Byrnes might just as well have packed his papers and gone home.” That would have been no great disaster, since since Byrnes does not represent the American people in their desire for peace. In the formation of an Anglo-American bloc and the continuity of the Attlee-Trmuman-King atomic diplomacy, the loan has an equal importance with the atom bomb. Both are weapons directed towards a similar objective, to block the march of progress and further the war-like plans of U.S. world domination. To this end a labor government has put the empire in “hock.” : Ignore the injunction EFEATED in its initial efforts at chopping the ITU to bits piecemeal, the Province section of the Southam press monopoly has resorted to new strike breaking tactics— the importation of professional scabs from its Winnipeg plant. and the securing of an injunction against picketing. The Province injunction stands as a threat to all B.C. labor. It is no longer the private concern of the ITU, re- gardless of how some AFL leaders may argue to that ef- fect. If the CMA can ‘put it over’ in the Province dispute, they will apply it to cripple every strike for wage increases and improved working conditions and union security. The injunction is ultra vires of every trade union right. It can only be fought on the picket line—with mass pickets. The late president of the AFL, Samuel Gomphers, who Was anything but a radical, had a basically correct position on the vicious practice of injunctions: “the only way to fight injunctions is to ignore them.” The moral is obvious ...a strong picket line, and victory not only for the ITU, but for labor as a whole. PACIFIC FRIBUNE — PAGE 4 A point missed by mine operators B.C. metal mine operators claim miners’ Faas a = wages highest in amy industry. wrong. Only in accident and death rate are the miners highest. -- Se inl & They are Lord Haw Haw Locke in CMA sym-phoneys THE metal mine operators’ sec- tion of the CMA are hitting a new high. For sheer distor- tion of fact, misrepresentation, and confusion of isSues, even the late Herr Goebbels would have had to say, hats off to the CMA. Their daily blast in press and on the radio against the strike of 2500 metal miners are masterpieces of craftily woven falsehood. Immediately following July 3 when the miners went on strike in 12 of B.C. key gold mines, the CMA mine operators swung into action. Herr C. H. Locke, . K.C., following his signal suc- cesses two years ago in distort- ing the issues of the Queen Charlotte Islands loggers’ strike, has been promoted the Lord Haw Haw of the metal mine operators. The propaganda began on a tremulous ‘smal) investor’ note, tearfully purporting to show that 2500 metal miners were ‘striking against’ 45,000 small investors; a 25 to 1 presenta- tion, intending, to convey the ‘democratic’ idea that 25 could not be wrong and one right? The ‘small investor’ theme fell flat. The owners and _ direc- torate of the struck: mines are too prominent in St. James and Wall streets to move British Columbians in tearful sympathy. @: The next obligato attemtped by Herr Locke was no Iless unfortunate. Harping strongly on the ‘miners big wages’, the CMA vocalists had metal min- ing wages topping a carefully prepared list, with the Do- minion Bureau of Statistics as reference for its veracity? Less than three weeks previous, the CMA, per the “Stuart Research representing 147 logging oper- ators” had the loggers at the top of the list of high priced labor, also with the Dominion Bureau of Statistics as a refer- ent? This careless juggling with the truth in both cases is aimed at ‘proving that the miners, loggers, or which ever group of workers may be involved, are so highly paid that they do not need any wage increases! The obligato went sour on the high notes, since the people gener- ally, and the labor movement in particular cannot balance their family budgets on Do- minion Bureau cost-of-living in- dexes. i Then came a fantasy remini- cent of a Gilbert and Sullivan light opera. Caudilla Locke dis- covered there are two classes of shareholders in the B.C. metal mines; “one group that actu- ally invests and put up the money to create the industry’— water and all; the other, you and I, who are presumed to derive benefits directly through the “taxation imposed on the industry.” A lot of figures are sprinkled through this fantasy to ‘prove,’ that while the one class of ‘small shareholders’ got a@ mere pittance of $28,366,00 in dividends be- tween 1935-45 they gave it all§ back to you: and I (the pee-& pul) in the form of taxes? ; The fantasy ends in a rau cous crescendo 5 and now, the miners that gave all > us Shareholders Tom McEwen (two classes ) this wealth, are demanding $2.32 a day increase, a 5-day week, “and many other costly concessions.” Horrors! Locke’s next. effort was sung With feeling; on Hriday (not the 13th) July 5, the Canadian dollar was returned to par in New York. ‘Instantly this de prived many metal mines in B.C. of 10 percent of their cur- rent income.’ “The loss of this 10 percent — By Tom McEwen exchange means an additional cost of $1.39 per employee per shift,” chants Locke, “with the miners demanding $2.32 per day more.” No end of trouble! The 10 percent ‘loss’ on the dollar at par will be taken care of by subsidy. The financial centres of Wall St, St. Tames St, and the old lady of ‘Threadneedle St, have always been noted for be ing geod to their own. Hard- reck miners, like other work- ers, do not hold large reserves of US currency, stocks or other negotiable collateral. They will lose of course; dollar parity at this time is only one of the angles of inflation for disposses Sing the little man. Mr. Locke's job on behalf of the metal mine operators is not to state the truth but to distort it, tear- fully or noisily as the oppor- tunity warrants. e@. There is one vital point in the metal mining industry which Locke and his ilk are strangely Silent upon. We can under stand their silence. It would not be good publicity for the metal mine operators. The miners of Canada hold one high record, not only for Canada, but for the world, and it is not in wages. It is in acc dent and death. In British Columbia, metal mining in 1944 accounted for 6 percent of all fatal accidents, al- though metal mining in= eludes only about 1% per cent of all employees. This is according to the 1944 report of the B.C. Workmen’s Compensa- tion Board. Thus the accident rate in metal mining is approx imately four times the average for any other industries! The ILO 1943-44 year book of labor statistics gives some f- ures that should interest Mr. Locke and his ‘smal] sharehold- (Continued on next page) FRIDAY, JULY 19, 1946