Wheat market crisis looms as prairie ‘farmers harvest 600-million bushel crop OTTAWA i With harvesting starting on the prairie wheat crop, estimated to be around 604 million bushels, and 362,700,000 bushels still unsold from last year’s crop, Canada faces a grave marketing crisis. Prac- leally every prairie elevator is plugged; the farmers have 85 million bushels stored on their farms 4nd the big terminal elevators at the Lakehead hold about 50 million bushels. Canada’s sales through the International Wheat Agreement are 58 percent less than last year. The 1953 faratrie ie S <3 oO f wheat crop is the largest C 3 anada has ever known. Ontario unions back Striking truck drivers By LEN STARKEY Week f ‘OVem: HAMILTON Striking truck drivers in and around Hamilton got a big lift last Tom the growing support they are getting from the trade union Oficier c Senerally. They have been on strike for over a month. 8Pproval a Tr stays ago. Sup ee the first to give active ers ( Were Wallace-Barnes strik- al 520) who moved ft own picket line one try elp the truckers stop ; as ae Jeaving plants in the ing eae Vicinity. Unity was be- orkerg im action as electrical ie truckers eagerly swap- and ‘cane about their conditions Bi panne and gave undertak- elp each other out. Ollse Ut the same time Westing- Workers, 6,000 strong be- San follov refuse to load scab trucks Local "9g discussions between UE 5 Officials and Jim President Local 879. Of- of the Steelworkers Union Stop loading scab e Stelco plant after With the striking driv- Ver from th “rning to Toat, ficials. a mocks at 3 e oni talks The Hamilton ome the meeting at the at Which Labor Temple August 14 lo Uni Tepresentatives of many tog, Ons of all affiliations came In tins © hear the truckers’ story. Striky the request of the erga eamsters’ Union the em- their ~ S@Ssion agreed to call on TS not to load or un- "sport company trucks. CCL apreeting, which included “Present and independent union ‘ in a “elles agreed to meet her Solid ek later to consider fur- Shed actions, Hi oie Support came from n° Picket say and successes on sy Dick mes came in on the Pirits po.°' headquarters phone Came he and dog-tired men be- that ihiey Convinced than ever + Two th; vould Win their strike. S were on the Pickets’ hing, a . S wed Waited to rush out a aa He stop scabbing hts __ 4. ©aving or entering oling, Gyheir womenfolk and the ves hadn’t heard trade union support followed on the wave of rank and file ( that swept the plants here when the truckers put their Policy of keeping all freight off the highways into effect about ‘ It has extended to include the official support of the S and Labor Congress convention in session in Ottawa recently. from their men for two or three days. The hectic picketing activity is taking the men hither and yon over the countryside with barely time to stop to eat and sleep. They call in at home for an hour every two days or so to say hello, get a bite and a wash-up, assure their families that all is well, and then report back to their picket head- quarters for further duty. The strike-breaking police who escort convoys through the picket lines have earned the everlasting contempt of the striking truckers. “There’s nothing that’s more likely to break your heart than to see your own truck going through in one of those convoys,” was the way one picketer on the Burling- ton Beach strip put it. is “Last Friday morning about six cops forced a driver, who had stopped on the Beach strip when flagged down, back into his truck and sent him on his way, They wouldn’t even let him get a cup of coffee, get a mechanic for his truck which was in bad shape, or go to a rest room before he moved off. You can put that in your paper,” was the bitter comment of a striker-on another occasion. In Kitchener strikers threw themselves on the road before scab-driven trucks. Ontario prov- incial police intervened, arrested eight strikers and convoyed strikebreaking trucks out of the city. The strike is solid in the Hamil- ton district. Scores of trucks have been turned back to their destina- tions and many drivers convinced to join hands with the strikers. The only trucks getting through any- where in the area from Hamilton to Windsor and down through the Niagara Peninsula are in the con- voys under police escort. To August 7 Canada had sold 266,- 000 tons compared ‘to 640,000 tons at this time last. year. This is the result of the loss of the United Kingdom market for wheat by Canada. It is a conse- quence of the marketing and pric- ing of Canada’s wheat via the U.S.-dictated and_ controlled IWA. A shipping official in Montreal declared on August 19 that there was no space left in the east. “‘The situation could become serious with the new crop coming in,” he said. In the past two weeks wheat prices on the Chicago market have been hammered down almost 15 cents a bushel. This led the Can- adian Wheat Board to offer at $1.94 a bushel to countries inside and outside the IWA — a figure 11-cents below the IWA ceiling. Last week U.S. farmers voted in favor of the Eisenhower ad- ministration’s plan to reduce U.S. wheat acreage in the coming year by 16 million acres. This, at a time when millions of people in many lands hunger for food. Agri- cultural Minister Gardiner last week stated he favors the U.S. acreage-restricted plan. The Wheat Board has announc- ed that the “initial delivery quota will be three bushels per specified acre.” This will be a hard blow to western farmers. Sitdown aids truck strike HAMILTON When a truck that was on the unfair list of the teamsters’ union pulled into the Westinghouse plant here August 8 a sitdown affecting. 3,000 workers developed when five men refused to handle the truck. Production was halted. By noon the five workers who had been suspended were reinstat- ed and production resumed. UE Local 544 had, in unison with many other Hamilton unions, pledged solidarity support to the team- sters’ union, promising not to un- load or load strikebreaking trucks. Textile union wins contract BRANTFORD After a year’s protracted negoti- ations the Canadian Textile Coun- cil and Harding Carpets signed an agreement bringing substantial ben- efits to the members of Local 501 of the Canadian Textile Union. They won a six cents an hour package increase with back pay from February 1, 1952, a_ health and welfare plan, eight paid holi- days and the checkoff and union ee ee the Canadian union had beaten the AFL UTW by a vote of 185 to 9. Kent Rowley, Na- tional President of the Canadian Textile Council, declared: “It is im- portant to note this agrement is signed with a purely Canadian union. The employees of Hardings . .. Showed great determination to get rid of USS. affiliation and to negotiate through the Canadian Textile Council.” el, a triple dead heat at Hollywood Park At the Friendship Games just concluded in Bueharest the Soviet Union managed to take 65 gold medals, more than all the other nations together. This indicates the measure of the So- viet Union’s strength in world sports. The USSR athletes took most of their medals in track and field, boxing, wrestling, weightlifting, gymnastics (in which they won everything), rowing, éycling, bas- ketball and volleyball. They didn’t do so well in swimming, canoeing and table tennis. Hungary took 20 first places and their swimmers were out- standing. Czechoslovakia took 15 first places and headed the field both in canoeing and table ten- nis. x * * ‘When Denis Compton swept a ball from Arthur Morris to the- square leg boundary on Wednes- day afternoon last week England regained the Ashes and world cricket supremacy for the first time since Jardine’s body-line tour of Australia in 1932-33. The fifth and final Test at the Oval thus ended in three and a half days instead of the allotted six, and England beat Australia by eight wickets, It -was Eng- land’s first success on home grounds since 1926, * * * As expected, Crowhursts took the Vancouver Senior A women’s softball title in three straight wins over the fumbling Kerries. Next year the team line-ups had better be reshuffled to prevent another Crowhurst walk-away. Otherwise attendance will suffer. * * * The evils which are boring in- to the sport of racing can’t be cured by ignoring them. Too often crooked deals are ‘‘hushed up” on the phoney plea that it will “hurt the sport” if the truth gets out. Action taken by Hastings Park officials against the jock who pulled up Valley Band last week has wised up a lot of folks to the dangers of risking their wages at the frack. More ex- posures are needed to clean up the racing game and assure bet- tors at least a chance of breaking even. Conniving horsemen and crook- ed jockeys have so Many ways of rooking the public that the aver- age sucker, (you and me) hasn’t any hope of converting deuces into sawbucks. Not all of the larcenous practices are as simple as doping a horse or having a jockey pull his nag in the stretch. There are other “legal” stunts, however, which are just as disas- trous to the punters’ pocketbook. For instance, a trainer may be grooming a horse for a distance race, and send him out for a few sprints first. When you bet on a distance horse in a six-furlong ' sprint, your money will go faster than the horse! Some horses can only run well while wearing blinkers. Take the blinkers off and they'll usual- ly run wide at the turns, Watch for changes of this kind. Batteries are still in use at many tracks. The jockey usual- ly palms it, gives the horse a shock on the stretch turn, then gets rid of the battery. Some “experts” will tell you the bat- tery is a thing of the past. Not so. Horses are still doped, too, An old, worn-out plug gets a shot of benzedrine, then finishes second or third, thus escaping the saliva and urine tests at most tracks. His owner bets him to place or show, and the jockey has the job of seeing he doesn’t finish first. One way to make a good horse lose is to equip the nag with extra-heavy shoes. He loses, with a good jockey up. Next time out, with an apprentice jockey and light shoes, the horse gallops home. PACIFIC TRIBUNE — AUGUST 28, 1953 — PAGE 11 > a