VoL 1. No. 36.

Five Cents

Vancouver, British Columbia, Friday, October 18, 1946
' ‘ Formerly PACIFIC ADVOCATE i

Decision on a series of similar
ing mines throughout B.C.

the basic wage rate plus a bonus
with time and a half overtime after the first 44 hours. The

which makes the 44-hour week mandatory, and placed on

dorsed recommendations for a return to work provided
operators. Acceptance was later announced by operators.

check-off clause will be volun-

tary as in the agreement won earlier this year by the International Woodworkers of Amer-
ica. Winning of the 44-hour week is regarded as a significant advance in view of operators’
efforts to have the mining industry exempted from the provincial Hours of Work Act
‘a 48-hour week basis.

Acceptance came when a referendum voteof IUMMSW locals 663 and 649 solidly en-

the terms were accepted by

“This is the first great victory in the hardrock mining industry in B.C.,” John Mof-
(Continued on Page 8 — See MINERS)

ARTHUR DEAKIN
secretary Of the British Trans-
Port and General Workers Union,
is the new president of the World
Federation of Trade Unions,

} Shipyard meet
set for Victoria

VICTORIA B.C—Third annual
convention of the Shipyard Gen-
eral Workers’ Federation of Brit-
ish Columbia is scheduled to take
place in the capital this Saturday
and Sunday. October 19, 20.

This year: some 30 delegates will
represent the 3.000 workers in the
industry, who earlier this year won
substantial wage and other gains.

The Federation’s executive has
extendegd™ an invitation to the
Hon. E. C. Carson, minister of
trade and industry, to address the
delegates on the question of the
provincial goyernment’s attitude
toward maintenance of a perman-
ent shipbuilding industry in B.C.

Effie Jones will
make island tour

Demand for a provincial sub-
Sidy to eliminate the two-cent
increase in the cost of milk con-
tinued te grow throughout’ the
province this week as the focal
point of the fight against sky-
rocketing living costs. Latest de-
velopments in a protest movement
that is assuming province-wide
scope included:

@ A request that the provin-
cial government restore the for-
mer milk price and cover the dif-
ference with a subsidy to the far-
mers, advanced by twelve Nanai-
mo organizations at a conference
sponsored by the local TWA Ia-
dies’ Auxiliary.

@ An emphatic demand for ab-
olition of the 2-cent increase, ad-
dressed to Ottawa, Victoria, and
the Vancouver City Hall by a
joint meeting of the South “Hill
and Riverview Community. Associ-
ations,

@ Reports from Vancouver
IWA auxiliaries that protest peti-
tions are being turned in daily
with large numbers of names.

@ A scheduled panel discussion
under the auspices of the Lake
Cowichan IWA auxiliary on - Sun-
day, Gctober 20. Speakers will in-
clude Captain A. Anderson, direc-
tor of the Island Farms’ Co-oper-
ative, and Emil Bjarnason of the
Trade Union Research Bureau.

@ A mass protest meeting spon-
sored by the Vancouver East
End LPP Council, addressed by
Elgin Ruddell, chairman of the
Emergency Committee on Milk,
and Caroline McFarlane.

(Continued on Page 8)
See MILK

=A CATT

Women’s groups rap milk boost

_Arctic maneuvers hit

MOSCOW-—Pravda, organ of the Communist Party,
charged last week that American and Canadian military
maneuvers and movements in the Arctic are “not so
much defensive in character as offensive.”

The newspaper published a lengthy analysis of the

Arctic operations, following by 24 hours a similar dis-
cussion in Red Fleet, the Soviet naval newspaper.

Pravda said there appeared to be no doubt that the
American operations were of an expansionist character,
stating: :

“It is interesting that lately the British War Office
also has become interested in Arctic questions. The
visit of Field Marshal Viscount Bernard Montgomery
to Canada points to this.”

Pravda attributed the operations to “the myth of
danger from the north which has been dictated by de-
sires which have nothing in common with the interests
of the world.” :

“It is fully in line with that noise about ‘a new
war’ which is being developed with such zeal by
the military-political secret service men and their
supporters,” Pravda said.

“The most important of those measures,” the
article added, “were the Arctic expedition of the Ameri-
can carrier Midway in the spring of this year and the
Canadian-American expedition ‘Muskox, which took
place at the same time.

“It is now widely know that both these ex-
peditions had purely military-strategic aims and,
moreover, not so much of a defensive as of an of-
fensive character.”

cu ITN TTA nT

Non-essential
building scored

BURNABY, B.C—Demand. that

| the federal government appoint a

commissioner to take over the dis-
tribution end of the lumbering in-
dustry in order to break the black
market and ensure fair distribu-
tion of lumber was made by Mau-
rice Rush. LPP provincial organ-
izer. at a public meeting in Ed-
monds Hall this week.

Charging that lumber monopo-
lies in this province were engaged
in a plot to force the WETS to re-
move the price ceilings on lumber,
Rush said that if they succeed in
forcing, the removal of controls
the price of lumber would sky-.
rocket out of reach of people with
average incomes,

Rush was critical of the govern-
ment for its lack of a housing
policy, urging the launching of a
large scale low rental housing
scheme; to build 50.000 homes each
year for the next five years, De-
scribing the predicament of the
builders of 4,000 uncompleted
homes in Vancouver, he proposed

‘that the government should place

2 ban on all non-essential build-

ing until housing requirements are

met.

Statehood Favored

JUNEAU, Alaska—FEarly returns
in a territorial referendum show
Alaska’s population overwhelm-
ingly in favor of becoming the
49th and largest state of the U.S.
If the Alaskans approve, the U.S.
Congress will then have to pass
on the measure.

Ontario lumber industry tied up as
12,000 bushworkers answer strike call

TIMMINS, Ont— “Twelve thousand bushworkers have moved off the timberlands into
Strike headquarters at railheads and main lumbering centres throughout the Cochrane and
The strike, called by AFL Lumber and Sawmill Workers’? Union,

is continuing to spread throughout the vast, sprawling empire of pulp and paper of

Thunder Bay districts.

By MARK FRANK

British Fascists Reorganize

By DOUGLAS HYDE

LONDON—Under the cloak of
local book clubs and discussion
&reups, bearing a variety of
Names, the fascists are bringing
the old British Union of Fascists
back into existence. These clubs
are now becoming active in Lon-
don, the Home Counties, Lanca-
Shire, Yorkshire and elsewhere.

The organization is, of course,
in its infancy as yet, and its
Promoters are proceeding cau-
tiously, sounding public reac-
tions “as they go along. But their
activities are increasingly becom~-
ing those of a political party
father than of mere book clubs.

its leaders are the same BUF
people who in the past sup-
ported Hitler and Mussolini.
Initial fears that a Labor gov-
ernment would make things dii-
ficult have been shown to be un-
founded. They were given the
official all clear to reform their
party as and when they pleased
—and they are making the most
of it.
All
sales
book,

members are pushing the
of the “Leader’s” recent
“My Answer.”

Likely organizations have been
(Continued on Page 8)
Ses FASCISTS

northern and northwestern On-
tario.

The arrogant refusal of opera-
tors and government to meet with
the union for the purpose of nego-
tiating: a settlement forced the situ-
ation to a head, and compelled the
union to take the only road left
open to win higher wages and
union recognition for Ontario’s
bushworkers.” When fully effec-
tive the strike will probably affect
between 15 and 20 thousand men.
At present in the Cochrane area
alone it embraces a territory ap-
proximately 2,400 miles square and
affects some 52 pulpweod camps
and seven large sawmills.

Interference with the strikers’
picket lines by the Ontario pro-

(Continued on Page 8)
See BUSH. WOR: RS

Jewish refugees transferred to a British vessel for ship-
ment to Cyprus detention camps display the flag of the
ship from which they have just been removed. British
treatment of Jewish refugees has aroused wide protest.

MINERS WIN STRIKE VICTORY.

One thousand copper miners, members of the International Union of Mine,
Mill and Smelter Workers, voted to end their 109=-day strike at Britannia and
Copper Mountain Wednesday, accepting proposals made by Chief Justice
Gordon Sloan which will give them an increase in take-home pay of 12144
cents an hour for non-miners and 14144 cents for miners.
proposals by some 1,500 gold miners at struck produc-
Was expected by this weekend.

The increases proposed for the copper miners include six and eight cents added to
shift differential of three and five cents,

a