\ As We See It by TOM McEWEN 5 ‘ SEU SCC ITIZENS in every area of British Columbia “‘serviced” by the BCElectric ore being prepared for a real price scalping if the outcome of the “hearings” now being conducted by the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) follow long established precedent. If ever the old maxim that “‘figures don’t lie, but liars figure” applied to any given situation, this PUC hearing is it. “The super “experts’” of the BCElectric, legal and otherwise, have produced volumes of figures purporting to show that its present 5.8 percent rate of profit is totally ruinous, and urging that this be hoisted to at least 7.5 percent, as a means of boosting its net earnings and attracting new capital investment. “The BCElectric is being starved to death,” says Toronto's “expert” Courtland Elliot, “‘and there is no fat on the bones.’”” This heart-rending appeal should stir the bowels of compassion in every B.C. housewife, who cannot even afford to buy bones for soup in these inflationary times. The BCElectric’s net income for 1950 for the payment of interest and dividends on the 5.8 percent base rate, amounted to the trifling sum of almost $714 million. Seemingly that “‘ain’t fat’! Under its new demand for a 7.5 percent rate of profit, the estimated yeturns are set forth at $14 million or over. To put that amount of “fat on the bones” of the BCElectric, this transit and power octupus is now seeking legal permission to put its hands in the public pocket and, through the medium of extensive , price hoists on any or all of its alleged services, such as the rumored two-for-a-quarter streetcar fare, extract an additional seven or eight million dollars. meaning of its volumes of statistics, and the heart-breaking pleas of its legal and other “‘experts” before the PUC.. The BCElectric scalping-knife is being whetted. Only public alertness can caution the PUC to “‘ca canny” in allowing its use. Troubles pile up for NATO HE Rome sessions of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATQ) have ended, but its troubles continue to pile up. Wall Street’s military mouthpiece, General Ike Eisenhower, gave the dele- gates from the twelve NATO countries a real dime-novel thriller about mythical armies of “‘aggression”’ swarming over the face of Europa, with nothing standing in their way except an as yet “inadequate” NATO! The Eisenhower fantasy had an intentional double-barreled aim: first to facilitate the passage of bigger and better war appropriations in _ Congress and silence the growing opposition of the ““solationists’”” who are beginning to grumble about the astronomical proportions of Mar- shall “aid” to Europe; and secondly, to terrorize European NATO countries into providing more guns and cannon fodder, and show less concern about such elementary essentials of daily life, as food, clothing ae Lani to organize their national budgets for war and forget about welfare. ™ In thumbing through the old files of the daily press during the Hitlerite era, there is marked similarity between the anti-Communist frothing of the Austrian corporal and the more tutored Yankee general. Both base their warmongering fulminations upon the myth of ‘“‘saving”’ Europe (or the world) from ‘‘Communism.” Both. put guns before butter. Both create a mythical “enemy” to serve as a ‘pretext for provoking war. ‘ : Following the time-worn maxim that “he who pays the piper calls the tune,’’ the representative of dollar imperialism demands cannon fodder—in large quantities; to assure that Europe (or the world) will be “saved” for Wall Street. Most of the imperialist representatives and spokesmen from the NATO countries, including Canada’s External Affairs Minister Pear- son, agreed—but ... . and there were a lot of “‘buts.” First and fore- most, the economic stability.of European NATO countries is, as even the Vancouver Sun has to admit, “coming apart at the seams.” British and French “dollar deficits” have again reached crisis* proportions, which not even a Churchill-directed “austerity” nor a “Schumann Plan” can solve. In Britain, the Miners’ Federation has already re- jected the “pledge” given Churchill by the trade union bureaucrats of Transport House, that the British unions would “work amicably”’ with his Tory government in helping Britain commit suicide at the behest of the Pentagon. Before the growing upsurge and determination of the world’s peoples for peace, in which the Soviet Union stands in the forefront, NATO with its military, financial and propaganda agencies, stands out as a grotesque contradiction of reality. Wall Street undoubtedly “pays the piper,” but it is obvious from the recent sessions of NATO and the wails of its “‘callers,”” that the people will ‘‘call the tune’ and it will be for peace in place of cannon fodder. ' gos mon i} HH en TAT tne ] TaN ya mi ci) f CLS Wy Se ee eee i Oe Sy ansncnstttbinacs thin Published Weekly at Room 6 - 426 Main Street, Vancouver, By THE TRIBUNE PUBLISHING COMPANY LTD. Telephone MA. 5288 . Tom McEwen ‘ Subscription Rates: 1 Year, $2.50; 6 Months, $1.35. Yrinted by Union Printers Ltd., 650 Howe Street, Vancouver, Authorized as second class mail, Post Office Dept., Ottawa PACIFIC TRIBUNE — NOVEMBER 23, 1951 — PAGE 12 B.C. That is the kernel, the nub, the very core of the ° Mes of us get a bit peeved when someone snaps “* back at us with the “I told you so” reminder, but upon occasion it does fit the case with unerring certainty. This happens to be one of those occasions. Some weeks ago the St. Laurent government, defending its “transfer” of the Nazi killer Kurt Meyer from a Canadian penitentiary to. an alleged German prison in the British-occupied zone, em- phatically declared that the “transfer” was quite in order, that Meyer wasn’t being “released” from a life sentence for murdering Canadian prisoners. of war. To the fears that Meyer was being returned to Germany to resume his killing abilities under different auspices, Defense Minister Brooks Claxton gave-the House of Commons an emphatic “No.” Later, in a press statement, External Affairs Minister L. B. Pearson assured the country that “Canada won’t pardon Meyer.” In Germany this Nazi killer of defenseless Canadians was still alleged to be under Canadian “jurisdiction.” “ Being more than a shade suspicious of the whole business, this paper stated that Meyer was being released and .returned to Germany in order that his especial Nazi talents, military and otherwise, could be integrated into the “Let-bygones-be-by- gones” army of Ike Hisenhower, sometimes referred to as the North Atlantic Treaty ‘Organization (NATO), in preparation for a Wall Street anti- Soviet war. This week the Canadian press reports Kurt Meyer as “visiting his home town” and “romping with his children,” and otherwise having a whale of a time under “a system which allows war prison- ers to go home on leave from ‘time to time.” It also seems to be system which dovetails very nicely with his release from a Canadian prison, where Canadian prisoners are not accorded such “homey” privileges. , Meyer also had a press interview during his “home leave,” which, among other things, shows how readily the erstwhile general staff officers of Hitler’s mur- derbund are converted to the ideas of “democracy” as taught by dollar imperialism. “I went to Canada a fanatical German. I came back convinced from all I could read and gather from talks that national- ism is dead, whether it be German, British, or any other. A united Europe is the only answer.” The Nazi killer of Canadian prisoners of war is learning fast. His concept.of a “United Europe” is the same as Harry Truman’s and Louis St. Laur- ent’s!’ There is a very fine distinction between a “fanatical German” and a fanatical Nazi, but not enough to exclude Kurt Meyer as a fitting recruit for NATO’s military objective of “uniting” Europe to the satisfaction of Wall Street. - The Canadian press reporter interviewing Meyer added a homely touch to an idyllic “democratic” scene, that neighbors across-the-way kept a casual watch “in case ‘Communists tried to take him behind the Iron Curtain—only 300 yards away,” From the measures already taken to win this “military genius for the cause of freedom” Cana- dians need not be surprised if they wake up one morning to learn (sometime after the event, of course) that a special secret order-in-council has been passed, restoring full freedom to a cold-blooded Nazi killer. At that, it will only be formalizing what his release from Dorchester penitentiary indicated. — ‘ The colonial revolution for freedom and inde- pendence continues to disturb the ordered tranquili- ty of the UN General Assembly apparat. Last week the French representative on the Trusteeship Com- mittee of the UN General Assembly staged a “walk out” because the Arab states which suffer under the heel of French imperialism insisted on airing their basic grievances against their imperialist task- masters. The French diplomats, faced with the problem of ‘keeping their colonial slaves in line with cold-war policies, insisted that the “matter — was outside the competence of the Trusteeship Com- mittee of the UN,” and therefore out of order! That is one of the intriguing characteristics of the power politicos of the UN. They are always ready to “liberate” the world, providing the area — to be so “liberated” is not in their own imperialistic | backyard. When that happens, well, it is “outside the competence” of their UN. Reminds us of the gangster wars in Chicago, when the Al Capones would horn into the jurisdiction of the Dillingers. Then the tommyguns would go rat-tat-tat and a big gangland funeral would ensue, while the justice — department concerned itself primarily with income revenues from gangsters rather than gang jurisdic- tion and murder. Hae ; At the recent sessions of the Trusteeship Com- mitte of the UN, a whole flock of problems relating to colonial freedam are coming home to roost. Egypt has raised the issues of the Sudan and the Suez. Yemen has claimed the British “protectorate” of Aden. Even Greece suggests self-determination for Cyprus. Guatemala has laid claims to British Hon- duras, and a+ whole number of Arab states have demanded that French imperialism get out of Morocco. With Burma, Malaya, India and Viet Nam looking towards People’s China, and seeing freedom “rise like thunder out of China ’cross the bay,” the : imperialist diplomats are having a bad time of it. A New York Times writer reports the sour comment of one of the old-school-tie lads from Britain, who | sees the colonial revolution rolling up and cannot do a damn thing about it, except dolefully declare, “The jackals are after us.” This crack about “jackals” reminds us of 2 query raised by the late George Bernard Shaw after reading one of Chamberlain’s post-Munich. speeches about ‘peace in our time,”.in which Chamberlain painted ‘Stalin blacker than _Old Nick. “I see,” quipped GBS in the London News Chronicle, “where Chamberlain has cast Stalin in the role of the devil. What I would like to know is who is supposed to be _ Christ?” | j T Speaking of the late great English playwright, a news report from London tells us that Lady Astor is busily urging the formation of a “Society To. Save Shaw From His Friends.” i It appears that the talkative and not-overly- glamorous hostess of Cliveden, where British tory- ism was wont, to cement its class affinities with Hitlerism, doesn’t like the terms of Shaw’s will, Despite a long and nagging friendship with GBS, the noble lady was never able to bend England’s — great dramatic playwright to her imperial and petty whims. Now she is seized with the idea that she can “reform” a dead Shaw. However, it doesn’t look as though the “Society To Save Shaw From ‘His Friends” will be blessed — with a long future. Chancellor of the Exchequer Richard Butler, who attended the initial meeting of the “STSSFHF,” informed its noble sponsors that Shaw’s will is an “iron-clad” document. It almost looks as if GBS, knowing the lady’s proclivities for sniffing around for trouble, took special precautions ahead of time. Be _ One can almost hear Lady Astor chanting in unison with another sour British diplomat in Paris, “The jackals are after us,” and old Fabian GBS posing in his own inimitable manner the intriguing query, already known to million’s of the world’s people, “Who are the jackals?” Down on the farm - at Ottawa anata ce with goats in British Columbia’s early days was the topic before the House. The Hon. Mr. Herridge has the floor: “We did all this. My father went about a hundred miles away, purchased a herd of goats brought them home, and tied them up for two or three days, and then released them. Within two hours they had all disappeared, and they never came back.” The Hon. Mr. Gibson: “That is where you get ' all your votes now—their decendants.” The Hon. Mr. Knowles: “Don’t let them get your goat.” mc’ : The Hon. Mr. Herridge: judging from the _bleating Alberni, sometimes I think “TJ would say this, that I. hear from Comox- they went there.” The Hon. Mr. Brooks: “And eventually landed in the House.” ; —Hansard, November 12, 1951 er Now all together boys—Baaaaaa! The hon, member for Selkirk directs a questiom to the hon. assistant to the hon. Minister of Agti- culture on the matter of eggs. Q: “Owing to the increased production of egs% has any consideration beén given to raising the floor price of eggs to parity under the ministers suggested base period, 1943 to 1945?” wees A: “All these questions are given consideration and any announcement will be made at the proper time: Q: “I asked the parliamentary assistant | a straight question and I want a straight answer. A: “The hon. member can rest. assured that this overnment at all times takes the request of th® farmer and the producer into consideration.” : —Hansard, November 20, 199 Tuk-tuk-tuktuktuk. With eggs thus suspended between floor and ceiling the government’s “COD” sideration” given at the “proper time” should asst in producing an egg omelette in which both th egg producer and consumer get fried. ( PACIFIC TRIBUNE — NOVEMBER 30, 1951 — PAG te aoa