Canadian Notes

A correspondent from Winnipeg, Canada, commenting on the situation there, says that everybody is talking wheat ! wheat ! The Canadian Wheat Pool was to save the farmers, but the bankers are forcing them to sell their wheat at a very low price, with the result that the pool is being broken and wheat is being “bootlegged” at market prices. The merchants cannot collect the farmers’ bills, so have to cart away wheat to satisfy the debts.

Unemployment is rife in Canada, and the Reform Parties, I.L.P. and Communist, are vying with each other in their reform programmes. The old Socialist Party of Canada is dead, and its leading members, such as Harrington, Lefeaux and Pritchard, now support the I.L.P. candidates. Efforts are being made in Alberta to revive the S.P. of C., but it is not very promising at present. In Manitoba the One Big Union holds meetings, but as the Union contains all varieties of opinion, the need for Socialist educational work is great. Amongst the thousands of members the One Big Union contains, there are no subscribers of THE SOCIALIST STANDARD, our correspondent informs us. In an area where this journal had a good circulation, the few readers today indicates how little interest there is in real Socialist work. There is no paper in the U.S.A. and Canada to compare with the educational value of THE SOCIALIST STANDARD, and we urge our friends there to make it widely known.

C.