Ladysmith wins
—Dear Comrades:

The Ladysmith Civic

; election
resulted in a Sweeping victory
of a progressive city council
with E. Jamieson, 4 progres-

Sively minded feeq

vely merchant
wanning out as mayor

Jamieson is Supporteg on
his council by three aldermen,
all union men; FE. Morris, presi-
dent of the loggers’ union; J.
Mason, sen of ex-mayor J. Ma-
sen, who is a mill worker:
E. Fohnstone, a miner who
member of the CCF.

and
is a

At a public meeting at Che
mainus arranged to organize a
branch of the old age pension-
ers, an ex-alderman spoke to the
meeting and expressed his dis-
like for the Labor-Progressive
Party. I told him that f was
@ member of that Party and he
then remarked that if { was
2 member he would take his
remarks back, and congratulat
“ed the party of the class of
mien that we were.

Closing with kind regards to
the Tribune and staff and Wwish-
ing you all A Merry Christmas,
2nag@ 2 Bright New Year in 1947.

BOB SIMPSON.
Re AS Ladysmith, B.C.

Bouquet
Editor, Pacific Tribune.
im renewing my subscription

te your paper, I would like to
congratulate you on the im-
provements that have taken
Place in its contents.

i was very glad to see our old
friend Mr. Hangers back in its
pages with all his old-time zip
and humor, and [I also thought
that the article presenting the
milk problem from the point of
view of the Fraser Valley farm-

“eS was very well written and
informative.

There is no doubt that the Pa-

cific Tribune is a remarkably
Sood labor paper, givine all the
labor news and the working-
man’s

Side of all] important prob-
lems and it is too bad that it is
not read by about ten times as
many people. [I believe that if
there were more articles and
columns along the line of Mr.
Hangers, we would find it easier
toe sell the paper and
the circulation.

inerease

It is often necessary to inter-

est and sometimes amuse people

in order to get them to absorb
a certain amount of information.

Wishing the paper

every suc-
cess. :

ALGE.

Petty persecution

Editor’s Note: The following
letter to Prime Minister King
from Fanny Rose on behalf of
her husband, speaks for itself.
But it is only one. Thousands
ef such letters from Canadians
whe value decency and justice
should go forward to the au-
thorities, protesting the politi-
eal frame-up of a working-
Class M.P. who is no more
guilty of espionage than the
reader, and whose only crime
is that he spoke and acted for
the commen people.

The Rt. Hon. Mackenzie King
Prime Minister, Ottawa, Ont.

Dear Sir:

I am compelled to write to
you again about the treatment
received by my husbanqg who is
in Bordeaux Jail awaiting deci-
sion on his appeal from convic-
tion.

Ordinarily a person under these
circumstances would be out on

As We See It

With a fine Goebellesian tech-
nigue, President Carlisle gets to

his objective by devious and
well-defined routes. Behind the
smoke barrage on ‘communism’

Carlisle gets down to the real
nub of his theme—strikes.

TOo many strikes; ‘that such
@ situation should exist is rep-
rehensible. That it shall continue
te exist is incredible,’ bleats
Shylock.

But the Dominion Bank pres-
‘ident is not against unions. “La-
bor organizations are essential,”
Says he, if, . . . under , proper
leadership. That “proper lead-
ership” gag has a familiar ring:
Mr. Dooley the great Irish phil-
Osopher, in explaining its mean-
ing to his friend Mr. Hennessey,
places the question very succinct-
ly. “Phroper leadership,” sez Mr.
Dooley to Mr. Hennessey, “is the
koind ay leadership that does
what th’ boss tells thim, and
there ye are.” Mr. Carlisle grat-
uitously presents Julious Hoch=
Man of the International Ladies

Garment Workers’ Union as the™

par excellence of the quality of
‘proper leadership. From there
Mr. Carlisle advances the opin-
ion (mot new) for a permanent
eourt of arbitration for all labor
disputes, in which 1S implicit
the outlawing of strike action.
Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito
also evoled such courts in their
day, and the world has the ev

dence of the countless feo,
sands of human ae ree =
fround in the mulls of su
courts.

GE 5
PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE

* Obviously
“have something which our Shy-

After lauding the work of the
Taschereau-Kellock commission
on espionage, ‘proving’ the exis-
tence of communism in Canada,
President Carlisle directs his
attack on Russia. There, accord-
ing to him, the Russians have
nothing; no political freedom,
no freedom of press, radio or
theatre, a very small per capita
ratio of automobiles, yery lim-
ited rail or travel facilities, and
and practically no- household
goods. In fact, according to
Carlisle, the Russians have less
than nothing. And we, why we
have everything; that being the
case it is beyond the bank pres-
ident’s comprehension “that we
should discard those privileges
and accept communism.” Just
as an afterthought one begins
to wonder how the Russians

“managed to engage four-fifth of

the Nazi military machine, liber-
ate a number of European na-
tion from Nazi barbarity, get

“only a trickle of lend-lease in

comparison with the job done,
and do it all with nothing?
the Russians must

lock hasn’t got.

We can forgive some of the
Dominion Bank shareholders,
who, listening to the Hitlerite
oration of their president, may
have gripped their dividend wal-
lets with more than normal pres-
sure. After all, with communism
haunting every bourgeois boudoir
and bank, who can say how

long the dividend racket may

last?

(ou [lead e.

bail pending the decision of the
Appeal Court. However, in this
case my husband was denied
bail because of the unwarranted
and unprecedented Opposition to
the application offered by the
representative of the Minister of
Justice.

From the moment he entered
Bordeaux Jail on June 15, 1946,
he began to be discriminated
against. He was put in solitary
confinement; he was not allowed
te eat his meals with others;
he was not permitted to write
letters in the manner common
to others; and he was confined
and separated beyond the limits
measured out to any person.
After many protests against this
treatment, he was at one time
promised a half-hour of exer
cise outdoors; but this was ob-
served more in the breach than
observance—if it happened to be
cloudy, or on any day, this half-
hour of exercise was cancelled
two days before and two days
after the alleged bad weather.

in the face of continued pro-
tests of this kind of treatment,
my husband’s attorneys were fi-
nally able to arrange with the
authorities that he would be put
to work. My husband readily
agreed to this, although by the
rules he could not be compelled
to do so, and although it meant
that he had to wear regulation
prison garb and be subject to
other penalties. About two weeks
ago, on signing a statement that
he was doing so voluntarily, my
husband was asSigned to work
under the prison electrician.

Poday, I went to Bordeaux
Jail to visit my husband, and I
Was denied admission to see him.
But I learned that he had been
deprived of the ‘opportunity of
working and had been placed
back in the cell in solitary con-
fmement under the same condi-
tions as previously.

No explanation for this high-
handed action was given, and I
am certain that no satisfactory
explanation can be given.

I am writing this letter in the
way of an appeal to ask you to
intervene and call a halt to this
treatment meted out to my hus-
band which I believe, and —T am
certain all fair-minded people in
Canada will believe, cannot be
characterized other than contin-
ued political persecution.

(Signed) Fanny Rose.

Too much McGeer

Dear Defenders
Of the Rights of Man:

Find enclosed my renewal for
i year to the Pacific Tribune.

It is with the deepest regret
and utmost concern that I note
that “Barnum” MecGeer achieved
his objective, being installed as
mayor of Vancouver. What a

bitter blow to all alert working

class people this must be.

Your paper certainly did its
best to acquaint all who read
with the despicable record he
made
cupancy of the same position.

during his previous oc-

In closing I sincerely wish all
Tribune staff members and pro-
gressive a Merry Christmas and
a New Year as happy as can
be expected in view of the
recent civic election returns.

CHARLES A. PATTERSON.
RRA, Oyama, B.C.

Short Jabs 1 oF Bill

yas is the time when, as well @s being the festive season, it is
the season of bankers confessiens. The Bank Act compels those
responsible for the conduct of the Chartered banks te declare how

= much they have profited from the ex-
The mighty speck f ploitation of the Canadian workers
take advantage of the oppor

and. farmers. While doing this they

: tunity to work into these confessions
their own specific political degmas, disguised in economic and polits-
Gal robes which bear no more real resemblance to the facts of
pee Production than 4 Srasshopper does to 2a bald-headed
eagle.

So far this year we have had four of these legaliy-called-for
documents to date. Three of them are very cautious in their state-
ments, judged politically; their economics too, are of the phoniest
variety. They indicate that the bank managers and presidents de
net even have a working knowledge of how the capitalist system
functions. Inflation, deflation, prices and production, are words
they juggle with over about three or four columns of newsprint
in the manner of the vulgar apologists for capitalism and its whale
system, whose ‘explanations’ Marx ripped to pieces. :

But there is one of these president’s statements, differing from
the others in the utter stupidity it digplays, that of the president
of the Dominion Bank, C. H. Carlisle It is not the first time
this apelike genius has been in the publie eye. Somewhere about
the end of the war he sprung into fame—pardon, ill-fame—for at-
tacking the Canadian workers who were then attempting to prevent
their standard of life being slashed to the level of @riental coolies.

@n the present occasion, after admitting in the statement called
for by law, that his bank had one of the most successful years
in its history; had made a profit of over $860,000, plus a contribu-
tion of over $200,000 to buildings and bank premises and a further
donation as a pension funq for the bank employees—a cool million
dollars—he opens out on the workers of this country.

They, to his way of thinking, must maintain production and
they must not strike, for Strikes interfere with the well-being of
the whole country. The tenor of his remarks lead us to believe that
the workers are to blame for all the strikes. If he is so anxious
to avoid strikes why does he not appeal to his fellows in the
Capitalist camp to refrain from efforts to cut the Standard of living
by rigging the markets“to increase prices so that a dollar now buys
what fifty cents bought before.

Why does he ask, or insinuaté, that the worker should accept
the burden of his greed for profits. That is the ease now and
will always be so while people like Carlisle are in the saddle,
for as Marx Says, “the thing they represent has no heart in its
breast.”

AVING ‘disposed’ of the economics part of his annual contribu-
tion to the ‘welfare’ of Canada, he takes 4 splurge into politics.

As he sees it, for all the evils of which the world is the: victim
today — the Communists are to blame.

This is benking 2 This section of his diatribe, that is a
better name than statement, is a welter

of venom and spleen; a vicious pronouncement comparable to the
fulminations of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco.

ees

- . - the recent exposure of an espionage plot’”” draws from him
a kindly reference to the Tascherau-Kelloge report. This is worked
in aS a part of his annual bank statement with an endorsement of
its star-chamber, third-degree methods which have been roundly
condemned even by some Canadian judges and the bar association.

“The Commission makes it clear,” he Says, “that Communism
is the seed-bed of the entire conspiracy.” He makes no reference
to the fact that many of the victims of this Royal Commission and ~
its anti-democratic precedure, when given an opportunity to state
their side of the case have been found not Guilty of the charges of
the commission and its stool-pigeons and stooges, native and foreign.

He takes the side 6f “many who attribute the spread of Com-
munism in our country to educational institutions”. He is a friend
of the higher institutions of learning, however, to a certain extent,
because like all “good” citizens, he is anxious to preserve” the
widest measure of academic freedom.” But like all human rights, he
submits, “there must be a limitation.”

The youth in our colleges and universities, apparently may have
full, unbridled, unrestricted, untrammelled education, with one quali-
fication—that it conforms to the needs, the objectives, of the profit
motive of C. H. Carlisle, president of the Dominion Bank and his
buddies who are associated as momopolists in the robbery of the
Canadian people through their ownership of the banks and industrial
Plants of this Dominion.

“Every country should have the right to choose and maintain 2
government of its own selection”, he continues. Of course, there are
limitations to that too, and they are spread throughout his whole
speech. He is a democrat without doubt, but it is the democracy of
the Irishman who quit the Land League to widen his political horizon.
His definition of his form of government was: “Democracy means
that everybady can think as they like and them that don’t will be
made to.” ;

It is the kind of democracy in which “the right to work” must
not be “limited by the membership of any particular organization.’
When did Canadian workers have “the right to work”? Do they have
the right to werk now? Ask those who are tightening up their
belts in preparation for the presaged collapse indicated by indus-
trial, commercial and financial circles.

His democracy is the kind of democracy that likes unions that
have no need for strikes but not the unions that make a militant
protest against their members being ground into profits for the
bankers and their friends in its democratic mills.

But C. H. Carlisle is justified in supporting such a democracy—
one which will reduce the standard of life of the people—that will
Smash the trade unions—that will swindle the youth out of their
physical and intellectual birthright; because that kind of democracy
is goog to him and his parasitic class.

While they have such a democracy,

like the Qld Man of the Sea in the story,
workers and like vampires suck their blood.

he and his will still live
on the backs of the

It is time for all those who are not capitalists or monopolists te
get rid of that brand of democracy!

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1946