By NIGEL MORGAN E CANADIANS have just lost the first round in a ae great battle for tremen- us stakes. The victors — a PoWerful group of U.S. mono- Polies; “cold-war” ‘warriers; ad- Scates of so-called U.S.-Cana- ya “integration”, first step Wards eventual absorption of wnada. The stakes — control oo the utilization of the aters that flow from the vast tayumbia drainage basin that €s off the snow and ice thaw ae the heart of the Canadian Xkies. . mr more than 12 years a “at battle has raged; a battle a taken up by the Commun- 2 Party in answer to Premier Conctt’s attempts to turn the int Umbia over to U.S. Kaiser Rerests for one million dollars. t Ce that day in 1952, when Dla ancouver Daily Province zened Premier Bennett’s arge that “Only Communists ®Pose Columbia Plan” in an fcolumn banner across its to nt page, popular opposition an Bie Massive giveaway rose broadened significantly. Ratification of the Columbia ee Treaty by Parliament will of Tecorded by history as one ad the blackest days in Can- 4s first century. It will have Cop found bearing on British Bambia as well as future a requirements of Alberta bej Saskatchewan. The well- 4g of hundreds of thousands Wil Canadians is involved. It ah cramp and distort Western a S economy. Probably no- re Short of a people’s gov- -™ent will undo this betrayal. i vast as ‘the Columbia Giy €s are, the “Era of the Bee” is just beginning. eed was the ink dry on the yombia River betrayal before dian, Promoters and their Cana- the buppets began prying open Be door to surrender of the oy Hamilton Falls hydro pro- ‘ Rive in Labrador, the Nelson Pen "in Manitoba and the a and Yukon develop- ts in northern B.C. Kindling hope in the hearts of thousands of jobless Cana- dians, their hired scribblers por- tray pretty pictures of vast new projects, expanding communi- ties, great new secondary in- dustries. Neatly hidden behind this giant hoax is the fact that the bulk of the jobs will flow with the power to the U.S. Thus, it is not™accidental that only now that the Columbia Treaty is “safely” signed, is the news sneaking out that cheap Columbia power is to make possible establishment of a huge new plant just across the bor- der in Washington state by the U.S. aluminum trust. As the Communist Party warned during the last B.C. pro- vincial election, return of the Bennett government would be the signal for a vast extension of the natural resource give- aways. Under the pretext of progressive economic expansion, B.C. resources are being alien- ated at an unprecedented rate. The Socred administration has become the broker for the big U.S. monopolies. Look at the record — waterpower, oil and natural gas, minerals, wood and pulp! No monetary return can compensate for the distortion of the province’s economy and in most cases the financial re- turns are negligible. An example of what’s being done is the Tree-Farm-License applications presently being heard by the Minister of Lands and Forests. All of Vancouver Island’s rich forest lands have long since been acquired by a handful of big monopolies like MacMillan-Bloedel-Powell River and the CPR. Extent of the “giveaway” is indicated by the fact that for 1334 million acres under Tree-Farm License last year the B.C. treasury received only $350,052. Now, a handful of big com- panies (among them again MacMillan-Bloedel and the U.S. Crown - Zellerbach Corporation) have applied for new licenses which, if granted, will mean that nearly all available forest land left in B.C. will pass in perpetuity into control of one or other giant forest octopus. Thus this key resource, which accounts directly or indirectly WN for close to half the wealth pre- duced in B.C., is being alien- ated, driving hundreds of small and even middle operators to the wall. Seven big companies, five of them .U.S. controlled, now monopolize all the worth- while available timber reserves, British Columbia possesses in unusual abundance an unrival- led combination of power, wood,’ petroleum and mineral - resources. Properly utilized, they could provide the base for great new, modern petro-che- mical, metallurgical and manu- facturing industries — a vast new industrial complex with many thousands of additional jobs. B.C. has an estimated 2,000 billion feet of timber. At cur- rent market rates this repre- sents a $10,000 interest for every man, woman and child in ‘the province. But we are be- ing cheated by a “giveaway” government. The $31 million total forest revenue B.C. got last year is a poor return from an industry which depends on timber resources that belong to the people, and where one com- pany (MacMillan-Bloedel) alone made a profit last year of $70 million — $5,341 for every em- ployee on the payroll. resources British Columbia could be virtually tax-free if the govern- ment would maintain public control over the forests, have industry help in the develop- ment of processing and manu- ‘facturing, and make these re- sources provide the return they should to the people of this province. Veteran lumberman Gordon Gibson told the B.C. Legislature last. February that: “the pro- vince’s timber resources are being handled too carelessly... the province is not getting a fair share of the huge profits being made. We aren’t talking about chickenfeed either.” Basing himself on a 20 bil- lion foot annual cut, from which MacMillan-Bloedel got $300 per thousand feet for fin- ished products, he said the B.C. government should get $300 million for putting up the tim- ber resources on the basis of a 50-50 split of $600 million re- turn. Gibson proposed that “the government and private enter- prise enter into partnership” to establish 20 companies to build conversion plants and develop the manufacturing end. He claimed that investors could be allowed seven percent on their. money. Principal, all accumul- ated interest, taxation and de- preciation could be written off out of the first profits. After that on the basis of a 50-50 split the people of B.C. (who own the timber resources) could get a $300 million return for their part, leaving $300 million for those who put up the capital. The provincial gov- ernment could also pick up $300 million on the basis of a five percent stumpage ate, toward a. total budget of about $400 million. British Columbia needs a new forest ‘policy! No more Tree- Farm Licences should be hand- ed out. Those presently granted should be drastically revised, if not cancelled out entirely. Such a new forest policy is needed to reverse the trend to mono- polization of industry, to end foreign control and domination, to penalize the export of our resources in their raw or semi- processed form and thus stimul- ate the extension of manufac- turing. Such a policy could bring a sharp reduction of the unneces- sarily high tax burdens and pro- vide a higher standard of life and culture for the people of this richly endowed province. ey With Canadian control on development the abundant combination of power, wood, petroleum and mineral resources in B.C. could provide the base for a vast new industrial complex and thousands of additional jobs. July 24, 1964—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 5 pes Perr Ys