eS Deine SOL eed Fee ee, Sea) S ee i ke ee ee ee Ek ed 3 Review * EDITORIAL PAGE Comment This photo shows portion of Charles Comfort’s mural depicting the pageant of B.C. exploration at the Toronto-Dominian Bank at Pender and Granville. PGE not for sale . FOR reasons best known to _ themselves there is a vocal circle of “critics” who never pass Up an opportunity to ridicule the Publicly - owned Pacific Great Eastern. Every -rockslide ot Washout between Squamish and North Vancouver is hailed with Unconcealed glee. It is probably a safe bet to say that this link of the PGE was unduly rushed to completion — that safe construction had to give Way to the need of Social Credit Popularity and votes. It shouldn’t be forgotten, however, that the PGE was lost In the wilderness for nigh on forty years (except at election time) and remained that way un- til Social Credit came along and tied the ends (not too securely) together. Neither should it be forgotten that the history of ‘tailroad con- Sttuction in Canada under suc- cessive Tory-Liberal-Tory rule, 18 also a history of political op- Portunism, slap-happy construc- tion, and gigantic monopoly &tabs. This being the case, and the CPR (Canada’s Principle Rob- ber) will scarcely deny it, the ‘nsidious public propaganda and tidicule against the PGE may ave a more sinister purpose than ignorant: satire or political Pacific Tribune Published weekly at . Room 6 — 426 Main Street Vancouver 4, B.C. Phone: MArine 5288 Editor — TOM McEWEN Associate Editor — HAL GRIFFIN Subscription Rates: 3 One Year: $4.00 Six months: $2.25 Canadian and Commonwealth countries (except Australia): $4.00 One year. Australia, United States ®hd all other countries; $5,090 one year. sniping. Perhaps the motive behind the jeers is intended to place the PGE in the bargain- basement price list? There is a good deal of rumor anent “selling” the PGE; of big U.S. rail magnates “looking over” the railroad with an eye to picking it up dirt cheap. Per- haps there is more of a relation- ship than meets the eye between the professional PGE snipers. and prospective Yankee buyers. ~ Two things the people must | help Premier Bennett keep in mind: that the weak spots can . be remedied by good engineer- ing (the CPR has been doing it since 1886) and that the public- ly-owned PGE is not for sale. ‘The Doukhobors HATEVER the views of our readers: on the much-argued Doukhobor “‘problem,” and they are many and varied, one factor merits the: univetsal condemna- tion of all: the Bennett govern- ment’s violent separation of children from the parents, by the forcible incarceration of Douk- hobor children into a veritable concentration camp at New Den- ver, politely referred to as a “*school”’ in official Socred circles. When you read Bert Whyte’s articles in this and coming issues of the Pacific Tribune, compiled from first-hand on-the-spot in- terviews with “school” employ- ees and outraged parents, only cne conclusion remains: that violence, even when practiced by a hypocritical holier-than-thou Social Credit government, is no solution to a social problem. For the protection of their own decency and dignity, the people of B.C. must erase this inhuman Social Credit decree, by demanding that the shameful New Denver children’s concen- tration camp be closed down im- mediately, and the Doukhobor children restored to the warmth of their parents’ love. Even a dumb animal will fight for its young, and the people of B.C., despite Social Credit think- ing to the contrary, are not dumb animals. Tom McEwen l COULD NEVER quite figure out how an editor, living out his days in the sylvan beauty and quiet of a thriving community like Langley, could become so afflicted with the dread disease of . political - delirium tremens, better known as the DT’s. Last week a reader sent me two editorials clipped from the Langley Advance, both exhibit- ing marked symptoms of chronic political DT’s. In one of these feverish effu- sions it would appear that bring- ing Hungarian “freedom fight- ers” to this country by Pickers- gill and company, was actually a dastardly Hungarian plot to fill up this country with Communist “agitators.” Now, of course, since all the Pickersgill promises of a Cana- dian utopia for Hungarian. “fre- dom fighters” have evaporated inéthe realities of life, these Hungarians want to go back home, and are saying so with ever-increasing emphasis. To the editor of the Langley Advance this is a sure sign of a commun- ist “plot,” and something that could easily have been avoided had Pickersgill and company used an approved Langley -Advance “screen” to sift out the “agita- tors.” The other editorial is a similar overture on an equally flat key. During the war years (and since) governments and contractors op- erated on’ a “cost plus” modus operandi — all the traffic would bear. The war, you know; we must win the war — and the fat profits. that go hand-in-hand with war — for the few. Thus when Victoria prepares” estimates for a new school at Aldergrove and contractors shove in tenders $50,000 above Victoria’s reckoning, the editor’s delirium tremens rise to boiling point. This time it isn’t the war nor profit- gouging contractors but ‘“fast- talking agitators,’ “Communist stooges,” “Dave Beck” and “car- penters demanding $3 per hour” which puts the jinx on Alder- grove’s new school. ’ His DT fever running high, the editor of the Langley Advance wants an immediate end to “strikes and threats of strikes” and gropes wildly around his two-by-four editorial sanctum looking for “legislators with suf- ficient courage’ to put an end to such “inflationary” monkey busi- ness. Things are never what they seem. How was anyone to know that beautiful Langley, like a bright gem set in the verdant mosaic of the Fraser Valley, could be the target of “Hungar- jan Communist. plots,” ‘‘fast-talk- ing agitators,” “$3 per hour car- penters,”’ and “Dave Beck,” all bent on killing “the (Langley) geese that lays the eggs’ that builds our schools? How indeed, if not through the the editorial delirium tremens of the Langley Advance! Testa 503 We note in a recent issue of the CCF News that Sister Eileen Tallman, long associated with the Steelworkers Union and ~ well known to Vancouver trade union- ists, has received a Canadian Government Overseas Award, and plans to spend some time in Europe studying the trade union movement in Italy and other countries. “Among other matters,” the news item says, Eileen ‘will at- tempt to analyse the effective- ness of the ICFTU (Internation- al Confederation of Free Trade Unions) in combatting commun- ism.” Bon’ voyage,. Eiléen. We are expressing the opinion of num- erous trade unionists in B.C. when we say we aré sure you will en- joy that phase of your studies— for which you are so well fitted! July 19, 1957. —- PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 9