THREAT BY STRIKERS

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 230, 26 June 1935, Page 9

THREAT BY STRIKERS

Canadian Relief Workers PRIME ,MINISTER’S APPEAL Ottawa, June 24. Faced with the threat of 2000 relief camp deserters to invade Ottawa on freight trains, despite the Government prohibition, the Prime Minister, Mr. R. B. Bennett, to-day appealed to all Canadians to-realise that the Dominion was challenged by a well-organised Communist plot. Five hundred police at Regina have been ordered to see that the men are kept off the trains. Fifteen hundred unemployed at Winnipeg threaten to start a similar trek. The leader, Mr. Arthur Evans, to-day announced that he was a Communist and proud of it. Two thousand relief camp deserters have been creating riotous disturbances in Vancouver for some weeks past, and a cable received on June 13 stated that the police had been instructed to interrupt their progress across country to Ottawa by removing them from freight trains and interning them in camp. The order to the police gave rise to a vigorous attack on the Government iu the House of Commons at Ottawa by Radical, Commonwealth and Opposition members. The Minister of Justice said that the march from Vancouver had been organised by Communists to disturb the peace. The railways had demanded protection from 1200 men who had compelled the crews of freight trains to give them free transportation. The men remained camped outside the police zone. /'