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The worldwide depression prostrated the British Columbia economy in the early 1930s. Production levels dropped and industry stagnated. Unemployment became a pressing problem, and as jobless from throughout Canada rode the trains to the warmer climes of British Columbia's Lower Mainland there was fear that British Columbia was becoming "just a blamed resort for all the hoboes in Canada." Vancouver was inundated with unemployed workers and became the focus of agitation as the job-less organized demonstrations, tag days, and parades in order to gain the ear of governments and improve their circumstances. ... In interior centres, where the climate was much less kind, the jobless also launched an attack on the established order. In the Prince George district unemployed workers, led by communists, pressed the local government for higher relief payments, organized demonstrations and parades, initiated strikes in relief camps and at work projects, and even entered the political arena in the 1933 provincial election under the banner of the United Front. --Introduction
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This article reviews the book, "More Deadly Than War: Pacific Coast Logging 1827-1981," by Andrew Mason Prouty.
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The Port Alberni and Prince George districts of British Columbia experienced the beginnings of an extensive forest industry at about the same time, the second decade of the twentieth century, and both regions were destined to become substantial lumber centres. Yet in their early period of development, before the major changes of the 1940s, the two communities had distinct growth patterns: by 1939 the Port Alberni district had emerged as a prosperous lumber-producing centre housing an active, coordinaed working class while the Prince George district remained an economic backwater with a weak forest industry base, an ill-formed class, and quiscent labour movement. Simple economic or geographic explanations do not begin to address the complexity of the histories of the two regions. Only by closely examining the lumber companies, the sawmill workers, the loggers, and the broader community can the local historical contexts be understood. Further, exogenous factors such as western Canadian working-class initiatives, the role of the provincial state, and the shifting international lumber trade must also be taken into account. Business decisions, union drives, strike action, and political structures were all intertwined in shaping the velopment of these fringe areas of the province. By comparing the two forest districts this thesis not only highlights the various elements that interacted in creating the forest economics and forest-based communities, it also sheds light on the development of British Columbia's most important industry and the history of the western Canadian working class.
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In early 1919 a new union was created in British Columbia, an organization that brought together provincial loggers for the first time. Despite much initial success, the Lumber Workers Industrial Union was moribund by 1922, and it soon disappeared completely from provincial logging camps. As well as examining the grievances of the loggers, the changing nature of the logging industry, and the actions of employers, this history of the LWIU also offers insights into the character of the Canadian working class in the post-War years by highlighting the struggles of the Socialist Party of Canada, the One Big Union, and the Industrial Workers of the World to dominate the LWIU. Furthermore, this article draws Out and assesses the divergent programmes of the LWIU leaders, who were aligned with the Socialist Party of Canada, and the men in the camps, exposing a fundamental gap in the post-War socialist agenda.
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