WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER

cannot survive if the black man
is allowed equality of oppor-
tunity.” This is a revival of the
master race theory. They claim
that the white men and only the
white men have the right to
rule, and that they must keep it
a white man’s country.

Ugly features of Apartheid
to which the UN took exception
_some years ago are mainly:

Complete Segregation

The laws enforce complete
residential segregation: Indi-
vidual African natives or groups
may be moved without their
consent to other areas in order
to meet the demands of an ex-
panding white population. Such
moves May separate families,
but any protest is in vain. The
native worker lives under en-
forced employment, as he must
accept the employment offered
in the immediate neighborhood
on the terms offered by the em-
ployer.

The entire population is
divided and classified into racial
groups, This also affects the one
million ‘“coloreds” of mixed
British, Malay and Hottentot
blood, dating back three hundred
years.

Other laws provide for segre-
gation in public places and trans-
portation. Often the native
worker requires four to five
hours a day to travel to and
from his job. |

No Protest Allowed

Even any protest against the
racial laws is severely penalized.
Few of the native population are

allowed access to higher educa-
tion. It is reported that in the
“locations” near Johannesburg
six African doctors are attempt-
ing to minister to the health
needs of one-half million people.

The grievances which cause
the greatest degree of unrest
are the pass system and police
brutality.

The complex pass system
makes it possible for a police-
man to pick up a native at any
hour of the day or night, and
place him in jail for two months
without charges having been laid.

If a sentence of more than six
months is imposed, the convict
is usually shipped to one of the
many convict farms. The farmer
pays the Government 9d. per
day for every convict used. The
prisoner gets nothing.

Communism Suppressed

Under the suppression of Com-
mainism laws, anyone may be
named as a Communist without
the right of appeal. When the
suspect is “named” by the offi-
cial Liquidator, the victim is
eliminated from any post of
responsibility.

The cost to the Union cf South
Africa is revealed in the statis-
tics for the last year of record.
There were in that year, 968,593
arrests for violations of the pass
system with 861,269 convictions.

When the race riots are seen
against the background of un-
believable cruelty, it is realized
that there is little hope for
peace in South Africa until
racial separateness is abandoned.

Answers To Members’
Power Questions

(Editor’s Note: Since the
with the power controversy in
the IWA directed questions to

publication of articles dealing
British Columbia, members of
the Western Canadian Lumber

Worker on various aspects of the power situation. In this
issue we present an answer to the question “What are the
advantages of the public ownership of power for the average

worker?” Next issue we will
financially feasible to establish
in this province?”’)

We believe that there are a
number of advantages for the
average worker. Our answer to
the question is based on the facts
gathered from the experience of
workers in areas of the
‘Dominion and the United States
now served by power utilities
publicly owned.

It is well to remember that
at the present time nearly all
the important industrial areas
in Canada with the exception
of British Columbia have
established public ownership
in power. In the province of
Ontario, the Ontario Hydro-
Electric Commission has been
supplying power to. the
Ontario municipalities since it
was created by a Conservative
Government in 1906.

Power at Cost

_ The first and perhaps most
Important advantage to workers
is that under public ownership
electric power is furnished at
cost, and is therefore cheaper
than power supplied through:
privately owned power utilities.
A publiely owned electric power
System js not operated for profit,
but a privately owned system
must yield a profit to its in-
vestors, A publicly owned system
is exempt from the payment of
Federal Corporation Tax on its
Surplus earnings, When profits
are paid to the shareholders, or
a Federal tax paid on earnings,
these charges must of necessity
be added to the consumer's cost.
Based on the D.BS. statistics,
the following comparisons re-|
liably indicate that in Vancouver

deal with the question “Is it
full public ownership in power

ez i

EASY INDIAN MEMBERS of Local
23rd Annual Meeting, March 20th.

1-80, IWA, Duncan, attending the

pays $148.50 of that amount; in
Toronto he pays $164.25, in Win-
nipeg he pays $188.43; in Van-
couver he pays $265.65; and in
Victoria he pays $327.08. Again
the only reason for the dif-
ference between the $148.50 paid
in Ottawa and the $265.65 paid
in Vancouver is that Ottawa has
a publicly-owned utility, and
Vancouver must rely on a
private profit-making corpora-
tion.

It will thus be seen that
another advantage to the
average worker found in public
electric power at cost is that it
stimulates employment resulting
from more rapidly expanding
industry.

Newly Elected
We Presume

Minister of Housing and
Government Henry

Local
Brooke was asked in the
Commons if he .couldn’t “do
something to solve the prob-
lem of drought and flood.”

Brooke got to the heart of
the matter with his reply.

“1! am NOT God,” he said.

Labour Force
Exceeds

New Jobs

Canada’s labour force
rising faster than jobs are be-
coming available, the depart-
ment of labour has warned.

In its February release on the
employment situation, the de-
partment pointed out that the
labour force, at 6,218,000,
showed a year-to-year increase
of 134,000. “This was the

is

largest year-to-year gain in al-

most two years, and exceeded
the increase in jobs,” the labour
department said.

A rising rate of labour force
growth has been apparent in
recent months, following a rela-
tively low expansion through
most of 1959.

Both labour economists and
university educators have cast
worried glances at the oncoming
rush of grown-up “wartime
babies.” The mushrooming
labour force is a problem closely-
knit to the problem of a sud-
denly-expanded student popula-
tion. Jobs and classroom space
will be in heavy demand during
the 1960’s the experts say.

ee

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and Victoria we pay just about | |]

double what they pay in Eastern
cities.
Domestic Rates

Let us first consider the do-
mestic user who uses 500 Kilo-
watt Hours a month. In Ottawa
for that amount of power he
pays $3.92; in Toronto he pays
$6.63; in Winnipeg, he pays
$4.84; in Vancouver for the same
amount he pays $11.53, and in
Victoria, $11.74. The only reason
why the consumer in Ottawa
pays Only $3.92 for the amount
of power that in Vancouver
costs $11.53 is that in British
Columbia we must depend on a
privately owned profit-making
utility.

To make certain that the cus-
tomer in Ontario gets power at
cost, the actual cost of the ser-
vice during the year is calcu-
lated at the end of the year, and
the customers’ accounts are ad-
justed accordingly.

It is quite obvious that elec-
tric power at cost is beneficial
to industry. Industry in this
province is consuming more and
more power to a degree that
threatens a power “brown-out”
sometime between 1966 and
1968. As power rates are
lowered, industry in British
Columbia will be better able to
compete in the export markets.

Here again we can make a
useful comparison based on the
statistits of the Dominion
Bureau of Statistics. Take an
industrial consumer who on the
averape uses 10,000 kilowatt
hours a month. In Ottawa he

* ee

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