FEARS OF TROUBLE

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 264, 3 August 1932, Page 9

FEARS OF TROUBLE

Unemployed Gather at Ottawa • ) SERIES OF DEMANDS By Telegraph—Press Aesn.—Copyriyht. Ottawa, August 1. In preparation for the so-called Workers’ Economic Conference, which will be opened in Ottawa to-morrow with a demonstration in Market Square, 800 men, mostly unemployed, with a small proportion of war veterans and some wives and families, have assembled from all parts of Canada and encamped round a disused garage near the railway line on the outskirts of the capital. m , They are members of the Workers and ex-Servicemen’s League and National Unemployed Councils, both regarded as Communistic, and therefore illegal. The campers are being meagrely fed by the workers’ International relief organisation. They will seek tomorrow an interview with the Prime Minister, Mr. R. B. Bennett, who has agreed to receive seven delegates, provided they are not Communists. Their demands include a dole of 10 dollars a week, the release of imprisoned Labour agitators, the removal of Canada’s embargo on Russian goods, a seven-hour day and a five-day week, the stoppage of shipments of food and war materials to Japan, and the repeal of tariffs and taxes keeping up the prices of necessities. Delegates of the National Conference of Unemployed Councils passed resolutions urging non-contributory unemployment insurance, shorter working days, a cessation of police terror, and exemption of all poor farmers from taxes, debt and rent payments. Scores of women were in the crowd, and the ex-soldiers’ division included former officers of the Canadian Corps, one of whom had won the Distinguished Flying Cross. At least one lawyer and two former preachers were there. There is every likelihood of a clash with the authorities to-morrow. The police are prepared for emergencies. The workers’ leaders threaten to summon large reinforcements in the event of their demands not being conceded.