is aa

St, the

‘Riot Act’ McGeer
Dear Sir:

So Gerry McGeer went to an
old-age pensioners’ meeting the
other day and was teaching the
old folks how to yell so as to
take their demands heard. Poor
aears; some of them couldn’t yell
wery hard—some not at ale:
wonder if Mr. McGeer with that
keen brain of his, couldn’t under
stand why. Could he yell very
hard if, after paying from $15 to
$18 for a reom he had $8 or $10
left to buy food with; no indeed.
“Mou may fill your belly with pan-
cakes every day, as I know some
of them do, but you won’t get
much stamina from that diet.
You, Mr. McGeer and Mr Mc-
Donnell could do quite a lot for
the old-age pensioners, yet when
you were both put on the spot at
the Town Meeting the other
night, you both evaded the issue
when asked if you would use di-
rect action yourselves. Shrewd
politicians the two of you.

By the way a crowd of hungry
boys started yelling a few years
ago, not for a mere pittance, but
fer work and wages, the same
Mr. MecGeer read them the Riot
Act and when they were reduced
te the status of beggars threw
them in jail and gave them the
stigma of a prison record. So pen-
Sioners beware, but keep on figh+
ing. Flood Ottawa with past
cards, make them ashamed of
themselves that they should so
humiliate and starve their old
people. - —ALICHE LEES.

“Cenfession of faith’

Editor, Pacific Tribune:

Im Elmore Phiipott’s “Confes—
Sion of Faith” he tells us “to
borrow from the Soviet and ap-
ply in our own way what has
been found good in the way of
socialist planning production,
distzibution and education.”

Well, to do that seems to me
te mean socialism, and you
cannot have socialism until the
great majority of the people are
€ducated up te the point where
they earnestly desire it.

At present, the majority still

Thetis
Wutte What

Seem to prefer capitalism and
it would be interesting to hear

how Mr. Philpott proposes to
convert his majority into a mi-
nority.

Does he think, for instance,
that the propaganda of the CCF
if extended to the point where
they are returned to power, he
will be presented with with his
Socialism as the result? Or does
he believe as some Christians
tell us that the heart of man
Must undergo such a change
that the wealthy classes will
voluntarily give up their posi-
tion of privilege and accept the
Masses as their economic equals
and take their place in the work-
aday world and produce accord-
ing to their ability and accept
payment according to their
work?

Wationalism, as he says, may
be an evil in many ways, but
the peoples of the world are
not yet ready to form one great
international whole.

I believe that cannot be ach-
1eved until the great capitalist
nations have become _ socialist.
While the greater proportion of
the world is still dominated by
Capitalism, peace can never be
assured for the simple reason
that any form of federation can
only be based on paper with
nothing to prevent any part of
it from breaking away in the
event of any crisis occurring
which would seem to further the
interests of that particular part.

What Mr. Philpott deplores as
the “harsh repressions and dic
tatorial aspects of the revolu-
tionary regime” in Russia were
inevitably necessary under the
conditions then prevailing with
the whole world trying to crush
the presumptuous revolution of
the workers and peasants of a
backward country.-

He rightly lays great stress
upon all the freedoms of con-
science worship, speech, etc.,
and while we have those things
now only in part, he can rest
assured that all those freedoms,
including economic which he
does not mention, will be guar-
anteed when the major portion

_ United States

such a war

“oatTinent

of the capitalist world becomes
socialist. He sees the great dan-

ger of the potential 3rd war
which may sweep away the
whole of the democratic ad-

vances that have been made up
to now.

True, that is the gravest dan-
ger that we have to face up
to in the very immediate fu-
ture, and fT think it can only
be successfully dealt with by
the formation of a separate or-
Banization, an anti-war league,
whose special objective would
be the prevention of the present
threatening ‘war between the
and the USSR.
Such a league would embrace
all political and religious sec-
tions and trade unions who
believ€ in the absolute necessity
of outlawing war as a stupid
and barbarous method of solv-
ing international problems.

I believe that such a league
is-the only means by which the
frightiully devastating effects of
Cwith the United
States in possession of an enor-
mous quantity ef atomic bombs)
can be brought home to the
people of Canada, who seem to
be sunk in a sea of apathetic
torpidity and therefore an easy
prey for the interested war-
mongers. A. CHEVERTON.

White Rock B.C.

Pays to organize

Editor, Pacific Tribune:

Here is the result of the Cres-
cent Beach school strike, a re-
port of which was featured in
last week's Tribune. The strike
ended successfully today, after
loss of four school days. (Since
yesterday was a holiday on ac-
count of a Fall Fair, the dura-
tion of the strike was really
September 12 to 13%, inclusive.)
The bus came to the bottom
of the hill this morning, where
it was greeted by the hurrays
of the children. This conclusion
Was decided at a meeting held
in Crescent Beach on the i7th,
between the parents and the
school board. Obviously, it pays
to organize! VIVA FLOOD.

Crescent Beach, B.C.

NALA

Oil, bases and war

By FRANK PITCAIRN
big men of strategy and

T finance in London and Wash-

ington face three main prob-
Jems in the Middle East.

They are the problem of pro-
problem of strategic
Supply and the problem of stra-
tegic bases. The problems of
profit and supply both directly
concern oil.

The United States government
a couple of years ago com-
pleted plans for a government-
Owned and operated pipeline
across the Middle East from
the new fields at Qatar in
Saudi Arabia, to the Mediter-
ranean in Haifa, Palestine.

The oil companies — notably
Standard Oil— objected. They
declared the government was
Boeing into business in competi-
tion with private enterprise.

The pipeline plan went ahead
in the hands of the Trans-
Arabian Pipeline Company, which
is jointly owned by Standard
Oi of California and the Texas
Oi Company.

And they get a right of way
across Palestine—by virtue of
an Anglo-American pact guar-
anteeing equal facilities for
British and for American oil
interests in the Middle East.

To both groups of imperialists
Palestine is a vital part of the
Ol jigsaw they have fitted to-
&ether.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 5

2

Gver and above all the other
considerations affecting the mat-
ter, Palestine is essential be-
cause if prevides the “short
haul” for oil from further east
which otherwise would have te
be shipped from the Persian
Gulf.

These considerations are, in
their turn, inextricably bound
up with the third problems Tf
listed at the outset—the prob-
lem of bases.

In the field, recent develop-
ments have been rapid. The
fundamental axioms of British
strategy in the Middie East
have been altered within the
past year.

And a major feature of the
change has been the decision

to turn Trans-jordan into a
base which is to form one of
the main links in the chain

that is to stretch from advance
British equipped bases in Tur-
key and Greece, through Trans-
jordan, down to East Africa,
and way back to great supply
centers in South Africa,

Neither British nor American
imperialism is imterested in the
welfare of the mass of the Jews
or of the Arabs.

Worse than that the imperial-
ist agitators and organizers are
positively opposed to a progres-
sive solution of the Palestine
problem.

They will stir anti-Semitism
for their own purposes — and
anyone who has watched Brit-
ish government propaganda in
the last few days knows how
they do it.

it is a matter of record—and
it is one of the principal causes
of the present agony of Pales-
tineé—how in the last war they
cynically and repeatedly made
utterly contradictory promises
to Jewish leaders and to Arab
leaders.

Does anyone doubt they are
teady to do the same thing
today? Does anyone doubt the

.latest attack upon the Jews is

in part a preparation for an
attempt to prepare some deal
with “amenable” leaders?

Or that the returning of the
Mufti to the Middle East is a
preparation for an attempt at
a similar deal with- the most
reactionary Arab leaders?

It is hard, in all this welter
ef imperialist violence and in-
trigue, to keep one’s eyes firmly
on the real needs of the Jewish
and Arab peeples — and above
al, on the fact that given
genuinely progressive policies in
Lendon these needs can be met,

Yet it is on just that hard,
practical fact that the men and
women of the labor movement
must keep their eye.

LTA Short Jabs 0

tcaereevane

‘established themselves in power in Munster and

‘Days and There is no doubt about the anti-social stand at
5 7 the Peace Conference of the American representa—
Nights tive, Byrnes, who, by the way, in spite of all his

frothy-mouthed protestations about democracy, was not elected by
the people of the United States to the job he holds or to any
other job, but is solely an appointee of President Truman whose
vacillating attitude in dealing with the speeches of Henry Wallace,
lately, indicates that he has to have others make up his mind for
him. j

Had the United States towns suffered as the towns of the
Soviet Union suffered, Brynes attitude to the proposals advanced by
the Soviet delegates, who were elected democratically, might be 2
different one.

Had Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Louis or Kansas City, been
battered out of all semblance to human habitations like Stalin-
grad was, Byrnes might today be more energetic in dealing with
Nazis and Fascists and less interested in Saving their hides and
engaging in all kinds of political trickery toe place them back
im) power in a unified Germany—with a purpose of course.

Stalingrad, a turning point in history, is the subject of the
picture showing at the Paradise Theatre next wéek, “Days and
Wights,” a dramatization of Konstantine Simonov’s stirring novel
of the same name. It is not only a dramatization of actors, of
people, but of the historic stones themselves.

It is impossible te make such a Picture as this one in the
United States or Canada because the background would have
to be a phoney one made of laths and sign-painters’ cotton, In
this Soviet picture the backdrops are the real battered and
bombed streets and buildings of Stalingrad itself and the picture
was Made there for the most part before the rebuilding of that
last impregnable bastion of democracy. eet :

So the picture is not only a story of very human people, of
their indomitable courage and Singleness of purpose, but of “the
sticks and stones” in which they lived and fought, in which
they turned the tide of fascist bestiality although there were those
who said that tide could no more be turned than Canute could
turn back the waves that washed the shores of England.

If you have read the book you will want to see the picture; if
you haven’t read the book you must see the picture.

Defamation The Catholic women of Canada have apparently
and Siander been made the dupes of Polish priests who have
more political than religious irons in the fire. The appeal they
sent to the Prime Minister from their national convention here,
asking him to imtervene to aid Polish women who are being
subjected to “sross immoralities and barbarities,” who are allezed=
ly being defiled by Soviet soldiers and citizens, is based on the
Same Kind of lies that the enemies of the workers spread around
in ail revolutionary waves in history. s z - z

When the Bolsh2viks were earrying the weight of the revo-
julien im Russia in 1918, an English paper, “New “Europe,” pub-
lished the canard that part of the program of the “Reds” was
the “nationalization of the women.” This palpable lie spread like
wildfire and was reprinted by every reactionary sheet in the capi-
talist world. It served its Purpose for about four months until
“New Europe” was compelled to deny the story itself on thé auth-—
ority of its own correspondent in Russia, Dr: Williams. Williams
was of the opinion that the lying statement was doing more harm
to the counterrevelution than it was to the Bolsheviks. So one
lie was smothered! :

When ‘the Anabaptists in Germany during the Peasant War,
u set up a religious
semi-communist form of life, they too were accused of “Naving,
Wives in common.” -This story wes written by an alleged historian
of the time, Knipperdollink.

After the defeat of the Peasants by the German feudal rulers
and ‘the peasant leaders were murdered in true Hitlerite style—
one of them, Jaklyn Rohrbach, was roasted in’ a baker’s oven and
Thomas Munzer was torn limb from limb after the battle of
Muthausen—the lying invention about “wives in common” was
proved to be a brazen falsehood.

And even in the English bourgeois revolution, with the staid
mespectability of the Puritan Baglish highly developed, the Puri-
tams «were not above ascribing the same kind of “immorality” to
the Jeft-wing, the advocates of the English workers and peasants.

What leftwing was organized in sects with partially religious
and partially political and economic demands. The writers who
made it their business to curry favor with the wealthy bourgeoisie,
the Parliamentarians and the Presbyterians, wrote and spread
the ‘same ‘kind of lies about these left-wing sects as their fellows
uttered about the Bolsheviks and the Anabaptists.

One of these In a tract named “The Divisions of the Church
of England,” wrote of the peasant groups and about one of them
Said, “The Familists would have all things in common, not only

So it goes through the pages of history! Where it is impossible
toe answer an argument, shout it down or lie about it The class
struggle brings out the worst in the class that is threatened with
spread the lies that
Same class with those
the Anabaptists and the Ileft-

delude Canadian Catholic women are in the
lied about the Bolsheviks,
wingers in the #mnglish revolution.

s A
Trial and A story which must be preserved comes from
Error England. Johnnie Campbell) is responsible for it
and published it im the London Daily Worker. The Tory Party,
the party of Churchill, is beginning to recognize that it’s losing out
with people. It is trying to mend its fences, believing that to be
possible. Of course, we know better.

They are going out to the people in the London
districts, holding propaganda meetings
fool them at close quarters since they
on a grand scale.

At one of these meetings in Tower Hill, the selected orator
assured his audience that his party “worked on the well-proven
plan of trial and error.”

boroughs and
in small halls, trying to
Cannot any longer do it

by interjecting that put on trial for all their
errors, the trial would last longer than the Nurnberg”

_ Personally, I believe such a trial would last longer than Meerut
trial of the Indian trade union leaders which started in 19293
and finished in 1932. Under a British Labor government most of
the time at that!

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1946