THE ADVOGATE

Wovember =

THE ADVOCATE

(Formerly The People’s Advocate)

Published Weekly by the Advocate Publishing Association, Room 20 163 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, B.C. Phone TRinity 2019,

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Vancouver, B.C., Friday, November 3, 1939

British Columbia Wants No “Hepburnism”

STENSIBLY in order to aid the prosecution of a “war to destroy Hitlerism,” Premier Hepburn of Ontario has an- *nounced that his government will suspend all municipal elec- tions for two years or “for the duration of the war if that be longer”; and in a supplementary statement Ontario’s minister of municipal affairs, Eric Cross, explained the value of this decision by stating “it would effect important municipal sav- ings” by eliminating the costs of elections from municipal budgets.

Premier Hepburn’s decision is a monstrous and shameless attempt to deprive the people of Canada’s most populous prov- ince of their most vital democratic rights. If it is allowed to stand unchallenged it represents a threat to the liberties of all Canadians, it is one more proof of the fact that the closest ene- mies of our freedom and democratic rights are in our own country and here, at home, is where we must defeat them.

Consider for a moment the logic of the Ontario premier’s decision. If it is justifiable to cancel all municipal elections in war time in order to save election costs, then it is but a short step to arrive at the conclusion that no elections in peace time would still “effect municipal savings.”

The plain truth is that the abolition of elections will not save the taxpayers money, but will provide the widest encour- agement to graft, corruption and profiteering in contracts by municipal bodies whose tenure will depend not on the opinions of their constituents, but on the whims of Premier Hepburn.

Further, if savings can be effected by abolishing the muni- cipal franchise, then how long will it take Premier Hepburn to announce that still greater savings can be made by elimimat- ing provincial elections? Im view of the fate of Premier Du- plessis of padlock law notoriety in Quebec it would be but logical to assume that Duplessis’ erstwhile axis partner in Ontario will become more and more anxious to prevent funds from being spent on provincial elections as his own tenure of office approaches its.normal end.

Just as Quebec’s padlock law, as long as it remains, repre- sents a threat to the democratic rights of Canadians in all provinces, so also Hepburn’s “no elections” edict, if it is not withdrawn by a wave of popular protest, is not merely a pro- vincial matier but a national danger. :

We welcome the statement of the Hon. A. Wells Gray, pro- vincial minister of municipal affairs, that BC does not propose to abandon or postpone municipal elections. —

We want no Hepburnism in BC.

But we are not merely citizens of BC—we are citizens of Canada. Therefore we absolutely oppose Hepburnism not only in BC but in any part of Canada. :

Freedom of Conscience-- A Democratic Principle

|e seventy-five ministers of the United Church who signed and issued from Toronto a “witness against war’ state- ment in which they declared that “we find ourselves, not with- out pain and regret unable to approve of this war,” have be- come the center of a public discussion which, although it finds almost no expression in the commercial press, is very wide- spread in the homes of our people.

Although the sub-executive of the Church condemned their action after Ontario’s Attorney-General Conant had publicly threatened their arrest and prosecution under the Defense of Canada Act, the general opinion on the streets and in the homes of the people, from churchgoers and non-churchgoers alike was one of great admiration and respect for these minis- ters who stood by their principles. Undoubtedly it was the pressure of this public opinion that caused Conant to announce within a few days that ‘prosecution might unduly magnify the incident.”

The ministers’ declaration of principle was based on pacifist and sincerely religious grounds. They expressed their dis- approval of “this or any other war,” and took their stand upon the declaration of the general council of the United Church, adopted in 1938, which said that ‘““war is contrary to the mind. of Christ.” But the jingoist pseudo-patriots who rushed in to erucify them denounced them not for their pacifist opposition to war in general but for their courageous and frank condem- nation of the present war in particular. In effect, those who condemned them declared it is permissible to deplore war in general on pacifist srounds during peace time, but to stick by your principles and oppose this war now it is here, is treason.

Public opinion generally evidently refuses to accept the straitjackets that the Conants seek to impose upon the right of people to express their opinions freely to their fellow citizens. =

True patriotism implies love of one’s country and disinter- ested and unselfish seryice on behalf of the people. A person who considers the continuation of the present war as harmful to the interests of the Canadian people is acting as a true patriot in publicly informing his countrymen of his views, in order that they might act upon them or reject them of their own free will. a ;

Those who call the present war a crusade for religious lib- erty might well indeed be asked why those who oppose it on religious grounds are being hounded and persecuted for their VIEWS.

OMMENTATORS are filling the daily press with specula- C tion and prophecy which they receive on ‘the highest authority’ one day and deny on equally high authority the next. According to our own calculations, if the daily press is to be believed, the Soviet Union will be building some 5000 warships in the next few weeks in order to accommodate all the ports she is reported to have demanded. Thus far, Switzer- land and Bolivia are about the only countries on which the Soviet Union is not reported to have made demands for ports.

* + Labor Minister George S. Pearson has announced his in- tention of prosecuting ‘impartially’ both employers and em- ployees who break the Labor Conciliation and Arbitration Act. But don’t leave it to George.

EDITORIAL REVIEW

HIS WEEK the Chamber-

lain government issued a White Paper setting forth in some detail the terroristic methods used by the Ger- man ruling class, through the Nazi dictatorship, to main- tain itself in power and, un- suceessfully, to crush all op- position.

In the files of this paper, dating back to 1933, may be found all of the facts adduced by the Chamberlain govern- ment in its attempt to justify continuation of the war. At a time when certain spokes- men for British imperialism chose to ignore these facts and even admitted to some ad- miration for Nazi methods, such papers as the Advocate were bringing them to public attention. .

Thousands of the finest and best sons of the German working class have been con- signed to a living hell in Nazi concentration camps. Many have been murdered in them. Those who still live, the bit- terest opponents of the Nazi regime, are there yet, Catho- lics and Jews, Social-Demo- crats and Communists. And the most effective reply to those who falsely contend, in order to make an attack on the Communist party the first step in. a drive to destroy all democratie rights, that Nazism and Communism are one and the same is the fact that it is the Communist party of Germany which now, as before, is uniting and lead- ing the German people in their struggle against the Nazi regime.

In its recently issued mani- festo, the Communist party of Germany declared:

“At the moment of the outbreak of this war, which can only be ended by the strength of the Masses of the people of our coun- try and the solidarity of the in- ternational labor movement, and which must bring the destruction and eradication of the imperial- ist warmakers ... for the Social- Democrats and Gommunists in Germany there arises out of this Situation the necessity, on the basis of the experiences of the struggle for the prevention of war and the successful cooperation of tne opponents of Hitler, to * rengthen unity, to expand it and, in the difficult conditions of

2 war, to make all preparations for the carrying through of the people’s revolution.

“They place their hopes neither on the bayonets of Chamberlain and Daladier, nor on a ‘liberal wing’ of the German bourgeoisie, but solely on the united force of our people, on the solidarity and the struggle of the international working class and on the aid of

the great and powerful Soviet Union.”

The terror directed against the German working class by the Nazi regime, the constant narrowing of mass support for the Nazi regime among the people, the disillusion- ment of ever-growing sections of the people and, finally, the contradictions in which Ger- man fascism finds itself en- meshed, have created the pre- conditions for overthrow of the Nazi regime.

By HAL GRIFFIN

HEN, one is constrained to ask, why this war for ‘de- struction of Hitlerism’? Or is this vague general definition of war aims only the mask hiding imperialist aims?

The commercial press has welcomed issuance of the White Paper. This, it ex- claims in chorus, is what we are fighting. It prefers to pass over with little or no comment the fact that scarce- ly more than a year ago and in the name of ‘peace,’ the people of Czechoslovakia were handed over to the hor= rors it now condemns by the same British government which now declares itself to be fighting to end these hor= rors.

Yet, as revealed by the White Paper, which cites cases dating back to 1933, the Chamberlain government was conversant with all the facts at the time it made its pact at Mounich with the Hitler re- gime. Why were these facts not published in Sept., 1938, when a policy of collective se- curity could have saved peace? Why are they only published in Oct., 1939, when it is necessary to provide a reason for denying peace de- mands such as that advanced by even such men as David Lloyd George?

c)

B* OTHER spokesmen for

British imperialism this is presented as a war for the ‘freedom of the German peo- ple” How much this conten- tion is at variance with state— ments carefully advanced by pro-imperialist French papers and expressed in press inter- views in Canada and the United States by Lord Marley and Alfred Duff Cooper, the following quotations show:

Lord Marley, deputy speak- er of the House of Lords, opined that there would be a revolt against the Nazi regime among conservative Reichs-

“webr elements.

The same hope is voiced by many reactionary publica- tions in Paris.

Duff Cooper, in an inter- view with the New York Times, also speaks of a right ‘revolution.’

“T think it will be a revolution from the right, a conservative revolution. Very likely there will be a monarchial revival,’ he is reported as saying, :

Elaborating on the mon- archial theme, Duff Cooper is further quoted on the subject of Austria in the following words:

“Tt was possible that after a revolution Catholic Bavaria and Catholic Austria might become one state, and Protestant North Germany another, he added. It was entirely possible, he believed, that a monarchial regime might place Otto von Hapsburge on the throne. He described the descen- dant of the Hapsburg emperors as a ‘very nice young man’.”

This is also the idea indi- rectly put forward by La Revue de Paris, writing on conditions in Austria:

cs the name of Otto often crops up in the conversations.

- respondent of ' Times (Oct. 25) and passed by the

Doe you know anything about him?’ people ask ‘One cannot believe the slanders spread about him in the papers, but perhaps all of it is not false? If one could only write to him and find out if his policy is a liberal one... - We absolutely must have a liberal ruler? = 5 .+ i Finally there is the following item written by the Paris cor- the New York

French censor:

“Reports from: neutral sources ef a recrudescence of the mon- archist movement in Germany . .. Have aroused much interest in France. it is believed by many persons’ here that a restoration of monarchies in Central and Eastern Europe is the only effec- tive. alternative to the present absolutist single party systems of Chancellor Hitler and Joseph Stalin. (My emphasis).

“While the French republican holds close to his ideal of de— mocracy for his own country, the experience of these past twenty years has convinced him that it is possibly an impracticable ideal east of the Rhine.”

Such remarks as_ these, taken in conjunction with the undenied report in the New York Daily News, that a shadow German government may be formed in London, ex- pose the hollowness of claims that this is a war for ‘the lib- erty of the German people’ and lead only-to the conelu- sion that imperialist aims are being followed, that the fight of the German people for freedom, for the democratic right to choose their own gov- ernment, may not end with the overthrow of the Hitler regime. ,

e UT of the confusion sur- rounding this war, its aims and its purposes—a con- fusion, it must frankly be ad-

mitted, to which this paper

added in its first statements and articles, by enabling the conclusion to be drawn that this contained elements of a just, anti-fascist war—certain facts emerge clearly:

1. That under cover of the ‘war emergency’ reaction in the demo- cratic countries is redoubling its drive against the liberties and rights of the people. This is ex- emplified by the attack on the Communist party of France and the militant French labor move- ment, which observers have com- pared to the attack on the Com- munist party of Germany and the German labor movement after the Nazis seized power. It is exempli- fied by the curtailment of demo- cratic rights in Britain. In Canada the War Measures Act is being used to whittle away demo- cratic rights and will be used by reaction to destroy all democracy —if the people allow it.

2. That the burden of the war is being placed on the people. In France the gains labor made under its People’s Front gevern- ment are being lost coincident with the attack on the Commun- ists. In Britain, soaring prices bear heaviest on those who can least afford them. Im Canada, des- pite the government’s pledges to curb profiteering, big busimess is already deriving huge profits from the war—and.~. denying in- creased wages to the workers.

These are red lights pierc- ing the fog of propaganda. To ignore them is to make pos- sible a complete blackout of democracy in Canada.

THE PEOPLE’S FORUM

Distorted News Reports Scored

To the Editor:—For some time past the press has been “whoop- ing it up’ with all kinds of con- flicting news, insidious and dis- torted.

Even the British government has stated that it has no desire to contest the territory now un- der the domain of the Soviet Un- jon, yet the press represents Stalin as a bear who had eaten and cleaned up the bones of the Polish people.

Even after we received the news from Moscow assuring us that the Red army would not as- sist Hitler, the press made no effort to correct or repudiate the warped ideas of its correspond- ents, and now implies that the Soviet Union has evil designs on Turkey, Finland and other coun- tries.

Today, in Poland, millions of workers and peasants do not have to worry. Their means of existence is safe and they have escaped from famine, disease and the other ravages of war by the action of the Soviet Union.

The fact that the real news be- hind these reports has been with-

held by the press is one very im- portant reason why all sincere, peace-loving people should unite in support of a publication that expresses their views and gives the truth.

That is why I subscribe to the Advocate and make sure of get- ting true reports on international and national affairs.

A G McCaALiLuUM. Vancouver, BC.

Takes Issue With MacInnis

To the Editor:—Speaking to 30 or 35 people at Stanley Park CCE club on Sunday last, Angus Mac- Innis, MP for Vancotver Hast, elaborated for an hour on the decisions taken by the CCE na- tional council regarding Canada and the war.

Analyzing the CCE approach to the problem, MacInnis said the council was faced with one of three alternatives: non-partici- pation, full participation, or lim- ited participation. Wimited par- ticipation won the day.

“Man power for the moment is mot needed, the Canadian goy- ernment has not intimated plans to conscript an army, therefore

be it resolved that this national council of the CCF is opposed to conscription.”’ Thus, in effect, said the council.

Economic and moral support on the part of Canada is endors- ed, due consideration being taken of Canada’s “geographic posi- tion” and her “vast resources” of raw materials.

Thus ‘limited participation is in actual fact, support unlimited.

The question of whether the present war is a just war, a war of liberation such as the Chinese are waping against aggressor Japan, was never posed. if it was, MacInnis didn’t mention it. The council was entirely influ- enced by the fact that Canada was at war, and the council must Make the best of it. The fact that the aiders and abettors of aggression found themselves face to face with the aggressor him- self was never considered, or if it was, MacInnis didn’t mention it.

It would be better to admit that the situation was misjudged back in those September days, rather than to justify an unten- able position in October, when we review the eurtailed liberties of the peoples.

—Ss. GS.

Vancouver, BC.

VIEWS |

and |

OPINIONS |

Q* THE bright roll

brave men must now |) inscribed the name of J. LE. é Telford, mayor WVancouy | British Columbia. Althoz |) individuals are being jailed | Canada for speaking , against the insane war wh * the great majority of the p — ple do not want, Mayor 7 ford in a public uttera; | exposed the tragedy for whal |

is — the struggle of imperiali: | powers for selfish economic ey |) Millions of Americans, as y @s Canadians, will applaud ~ courageous assertion that =I

SETI IT

at

@ product of our economic syst | and that the solution to our pr lems must be found in pene working together — not lock + in bloody combat at the beh, | of ... Hitler, Daladier and Gh: | berlain. 4 Today the United States ofA erica is on the brink of anos catastrophe. While there is ; | time, the people must be remin_ ed again and again of the eas mic causes Of the last world w | The time to enlist in the siruge for peace is right now, for 7 morrow we all may be draft into war. a

—WASHINGTON NEW ~ DEALER. =

= * EP | BSS GME SS who to us @ human yultures, must be pi

hibited from operation in oure

tion. Let the sacrifices of ; our people be equal, let there ae no unnecessary misery and 5s row. No stone must be left y~ turned in locating the profits enemy. He is here among us

The voice of the people, 7) voice of the press must go u hampered and be heard. Only the silence of oppression do { Seeds of confusion grow; and they are allowed to srow, we wm reap a harvest of chaos 7 right of assembly, the right |} human association is the law} freedom,

Our standard of education, ot Standard of life, must go fo ward; progress should be the kr word. The training schemes ini, go on. If we would be stran our homes must be kept in S02. circumstance, our houses impre ed, our slums cleared.

—JOE McKENZIE, preside ef the Alberta Wouth Go: ress, in New Advance

= = =

| Eps war cloud must have

Solden lining for the inves ment bankers. In the erim daa which they foresee ahead — tt black-out periods, the home made unhappy by the sons ¢ farmers and workers fighting o foreign soil — no matter ho grim the horizon, or how delaye the dawn, all through the nig? they will have the quiet comfc of knowing the ticker tape is sh there.

Quite a few Americans wor See eye to eye with them; for on thing, millions of us have n liquid assets but blood, which i spilled on the fields of battle wi | send no ticker tape soaring 6 i prosperity for bereaved mother: Wives or children at home.

- - . We can’t see peace as: threat We can take but littl comfort in the knowledge tha the financial overlords of Amer ica will have their war-frayet nerves soothed knowine tha they have found a way of in vesting their liquid assets with out sharing prosperity with the American people.

—HOWARD COSTIGAN, & ecutive secretary of Wash 7 ington Commonvwealth Fed eration.

Tear Off The Masks

Tear the masks fe

from these who all too lons — have worn them

to the bitter masquerade.

And you shall see, as we havi © long since seen them, B

and know of whom they art - afraid.

E

Seb I TONE Yate

leg nin mn le ng en gn il Fatt NRO TEE Mee Pipe ry art aie

Strip the suise

from these who plotted )

and called it peace — ‘Peace in our time O Lord’—

| and in the name of freedom | forged the chains t and to oppression gave tht) sword.

Let truth ring. A Shall these who oppress fet; those oppressed = in war that is not to free and precious liberation be the

of these who strangle liberty 4 —Hal Gri