December i6, 1938

THE PEOPLE:

S ADVOCATE

Page Three

Golden Timbers Of Th

ISCOVERY of gold in the
~— ereeks of the Cariboo and
‘along the reaches of the Fraser
may have marked the emerg-
ence of British Columbia into
world prominence, attracting
as it did the thousands of gold
seekers and adventurers fresh

from California’s Sutter Creek.

“But the real gold rush was to
besin a few years later when the
first windjammer beat its way out
past Cape Fliattery, headed for the
Htorn and the shipyards of Britain’s
Reyal Navy, its deciss piled high
with ships spars from BC forests,
first harvest from that tremendous
stand of timber Which then £ov-
ered the entire coastline.

For the whole 80-year history of
Ganada‘s coast province is also the
history of King Tiniber. The free
Sold of the Cariboo brought the
first real rush of settlers, but it
Was the far ereater wealth of the
Pacific slope, so densely covered by
the towerins Douglas fir that pro-
duced fine lumber, the gigantic red
cedar that put a roof over the
homes of the world, and the thick
butted spruce that provided tne
newsprint for half the western
world, that put BC on the map
and built ports for the ships of
the world.

Suistory records that the first
Cariboo rush realized only a few
maillions in the precious metal. On
the other hand, the “golden tim-
bers” of the Coast were to bring
British Columbia over one and one
halt billion dollars in ‘wealth,
though its producers, the working
jegger and miliman, manarzed to
retain only a small fraction of that
Yast exploitation.

The srowth of BC’s lumber in-
dustry really began with the first
introduction of machinery in los-
Sins operations. Prior to that, Kine
Timber was one of the lesser mon-
archs, not yet able to infiuence
Soevernments, not yet able to con-
trol entirely the lives of the work-
ers.

2
A Was being shipped, of
course, as early as the Sixties

were organizins into powerful
trade unions and winnings higher
wages and Shorter working hours,
the lumiberworkers took no similar
action.

True, some efforts were made.
in 1803 the American Loggers’
Cnion put on a drive but sot no-
where. Again in 1912 an organizer

from the Western Federation of
Miners was sent out by WVWan-—

Them From Extinction
- BY AL PARKIN

couver Trades and Labor Council,

but the move met with little suc—-

cess, as did an attempt in 1917 to
form locals of the Internationai
Union of Timberworkers. APL.
2
iN) es WHILE the operators had
Succeeded in hurdline their
biggest obstacle.
Down in United States some log-
ser with the vision of a Paul
Bunyon and most likely no idea of

what he was starting, conceived
the scheme of talking logging off
the ground by using the hich lead
System, which carried the logs
through the air to the landing at

express train speed.

in 1914 the idea hit BC. The first
spar tree for the high lead was
Supposed to have been rigged at
the Stilhwater Gamp, but on this

point, opinions sharply differ. As

Organized Loggers Rally Public Opinion To Save

a Matter of fact, if all the loggers
who laid claim to having rigged
the first tree were laid end to end,
they'd probably reach from here to
Aldavik.

From this point the timber
barons were able to put the finish-
ing touches to their control of the
province's econcmic and political
life. Equipped with the machinery
Of mass production, gigantic coni-
panies with millions in capitaliza-

bee =dib=s

bribeg bd baabribse sae badhue bo b-4s-abcdpiebrabed Tepe dies be dibed See apsaibsg

US<U SSH STH SIS scis<as< bos poeisaos lies lochs eee eh
fi d

F=4 fibxd bh bs dibs Sib = abe g ig pei praibxa Fel pai zelb a begib-e b= idea baa b=aibaip—al baal beaibs dlpselpea peal beebsaibeaibeaibealbsel t

Bcetischscistiexioxiped

Fishermen Fig

HE
ended.
gathered the silver harvest and

of BC’s basic

fishermen.

These
sponsible

three
for
INO one, until

men’s

i l @2F

season’s
Fishermen have

stowed their gear.
chapter in the history of one

been closed—and not without
somethings to record.

In the five months of the past
season three major types of fear
have been operated by over 10,000
fishermen on the British Columbia
coast. The oldest type in existence,
the gilinet, is used by at least 7,000
Trollers
seiners use the four other types.
ecaterories :
production
major part of a $17,000,000 industry.

taken a complete survey of fisher-
living and working condi-

t For Security

work has

A further

industries has

and purse—

are re
of the

now, has under-

tions and the amount invested in
gear and boats. Nor has there
ever been an estimate made of de-

e Pacific Coast

tion were organized, sreat new
camps employing hundreds of men
were opened, new Sawmills built
everywhere.

But this radical change in pro-
duction methods produced also a
change in the relations between the
employer and the workings logger.
The new machinery was displacing
them. The new logging technique
Was introducing speed up and as a
consequence, increasing the dan-
gers of logging a hundred-fold. The
big companies controlled by Amer-
ican capital were also buying up
all the best logging claims, Ssqueez—
ing out the smaill man, while pres—
sure was put on the government
making it increasingly difficult for
hand loggers,

t=)
Ae this, coupled with inhumaniy
bad working conditions and
slave wages, developed the senti-
ment for organization which came
tc a head in 1919 when Vancouver

Trades and Labor Council assisted
in forming the first loggers’ union,
the beginning of what was to be the
largest union in Canada, the Lum
ber Workers’ Industrial Union of
Canada. Within a year the organ-—
ization had 15,000 members and
during the following two years
more strikes took place in logging
camps than in the ten preceding
years in the entire province.

The result was to raise wages,
establish the eisht-hour day, force
the operators to condemn the old
style bunkhouses and build new
ones, instal wash and dryhouses,
shower baths and electric lights.

Smashing the LWwau beceme, of
course, the operators’ main task.
In 1920 the BC Loggers’ Association
met and decided on a drastic course
ef action. An association hiring
agency was organized, leading-
union men classified, new worlers
were brought into the industry in
thousands and the blacklist system
Was put into effect.

The blacklist, coupled with cer
tain organizational weaknesses
did the work. By 1922 union com-
mittees had been dissolved in most
camps and the union smashed, a
condition which was to exist until
1929.

: : Spee 5S e
T aking a stripe vote. preciation charges assumed by the The fishing fleet sails 17. GZ THE early days of the industry

and Seventies, much of it as spars
for British and BHuropean ship-
yards. There were one or two saw-
mois on the mainland preducing
principally for domestic use and over
at Aiberni on Vancouver island the
farst of the lumber barons, Sproat,
iad installed the first small export
mill.

But those first timber pirates
who had set quietly about buying
up claims in expectation of bigger
profits were more than justified.
Gompletion of the CPR in 1886
epened up the seemingly limitless
#iastern market and the appearance
Wwathin a few years of the first
primitive logging donkeys derisive-
iy termed “steam pots” by the ox
team driver, produced a tremen-
dous boem in the lumber industry.

ioeggins claims began to eat into
standing timber all over the lower
mainiand and the Island, sawmills
sprans up everywhere, some tfi-
manced by an original investment
of a few dimes and a roll of baling
wire, others by the big American
firms like VWeeyerhauser, which =aw
the chance to exploit this magnifi-
Cent new country and lost no time
in getting started.

By the beginning of the century
the lumber barons had come into
fheiz kingdom. Proyincial goyvern-—
ments were already befinning to
step lively to the operators’ tune,
and the political power of King
Timber increased further with es-
fablishment in i901 of the BC
Lumbermen'’s Association.

From that time on, the different
lepisiatures at Victoria became the
mouthpieces of the logging and
sawioill operators. Laws favorable
0 the industry were passed. Whole
Tacts of timber were handed over.
During the war, for example, the
“wiberal government of John Oliver,
whose Gabinet included WPattullo
md Manson, generously handed
ver a large part of the SJneon
Sharlotte Islands to a few prot
teers in war contracts who coined
nillions from the fine stands of
Sitka spruce. And old-timers still
ell how millions of feet of low-
Tade No. 3 logs left the Queen
Shariottes in booms marked Wo. i
Trade for shipment to an “unsus-
yectine”’ government.

S -

WNiLY weak point in King Tim-

bers hegemony during the
arlier years was the failure to
evelop cheaper and more efficient
aethods of bringing the giant logs
6 tidewater. Up to the year i9it
imber was felled and hauled
hrough the woods by small don-
eys using the ground lead sys-
sem. a slow and costly method
hich prevented mass production.
The workers, too, were not so
asily controlled. With new ea
penin= every day, plenty of jobs
n the employment office boards,
nd even opportunities for escap-
ig wage slavery altogether still
ft open, the logger had developed
to aA bighiy individualistic, more
r less independent worker. If he
idn’t like the job, or maybe the
ay the “push” parted his hair,
é moved on to new territory. Many
pened small camps of their own,
thers took to hand logging on the
lets of the Coast.
This was a contributory factor to
1¢ failure to establish any union
reanization in the industry for
lany years. History records that
ile fishermen, miners, railroad

fishermen. Wo sinking fund bas
ever been created to provide for re
Placement of the millions of dol-
jars’ worth of boats and gear used.
Every year fishermen sustain
heavy losses, particularly of gear,

for which no provision is made.
Wo comparison nas yet been made
betwen living costs and fishermen’s
annual earnings, or between the
average wage rates in other BC in-

Gustries and the “wages of fish-
ermen. Between the number of
hours worked daily by fishermen

and those worked by men employed
in other basic industries there can
be no comparison.

e i

UCH a complete, fact-finding

survey is now in progress, the
purpose of which can be readily
understood.

How can fishermen confront the
operators in nerzotiations next year
if they have not armed themselves
with conclusive arguments to
answer the canners’ pleas that they
can’t pay more, or that unless mar-
ket conditions show some improve-
ment they will not be able to pay
even last year’s prices?

Few fishermen are aware that
the partial survey undertaken by
the Salmon Purse Seiners’ Union
and the Pacific Coast Fishermen’s
Wnion during arbitration proceed-
ings last summer, was responsibie
for the winning of an increase of
over $100,000 to the fishermen of
Rivers and Smiths Inlets alone, and
that the total figure—covered by the

terms of the settlemenit—would run
clesé to a million dollars.

@
Hoe’ was the operators’ case

presented? They prepared a
brief, from the audited books of
four companies—an audit costing
at least $10,000—as a consolidated
statement of the “industry’s” in-
ability to pay Higher prices.”

Everything in the way of costs
Was grouped under various head-
ings; unothin= was missed for
presentation—except profit and loss
Statements — which were later
ordered produced by the board. ~

We can safely state that the final
collapse of the board under pres-
sure of the operators’ objections to
the board's decision, “that they
break down their consolidated
statement into individual, itemized
statements of costs and profit and
loss, from each company, and the
appointment of an independent
auditor to examine their books for
five years back,’ was caused
mainly by an unholy fear of ex-
posure of the methods in which
the producers and consumers of
fish products were being exploited
to maintain a healthy profit to the
shareholders of an over-capitalized
industry.

ISHERMEN aiter they have

completed their own survey
will be able to show to the operators
where, for instance, despite a low
market demand, how a fair and
just price, in line with their re-

quirements and as the first charge

on the industry, can be paid.
Why should we, the fishermen, be
taxed to pay the extra profits on
“dead” capital invested twenty to
thirty years ago and longer in sal-
mon canneries, cannery sites, and
other property held by the various
companies and now Standing idle
or abandoned entirely? Why should

we bear the burden of duplication
in services which increase the cost
of production? This is now paid
for in the first instance by the fish-
ermen, and partly carried over to
the low-paid cannery workers.
Posgether they pay the bill of high
and false mianufacturing costs.

An end must be made of this
State of affairs. The spread be-
tween producer ang consumer goes
to pay dividends on “dead” capital
must be written off the books.

@
ISHERMEN will demand-a re-
duction in prices paid for gear,
food supplies, ete., in line with
prices available in industrial
centres of BC.

Agreements must be entered into
between fishermen and operators,
to cover conditions of worl, prices
and wages to be paid.

There must be planned control
of methods of fishing and amount
of gear to be used in a given area,
intensity of fishing operations, this
last in the mutual interests of con-
servation.

Fishermen want peace in the in-
dustry, but there can be no peace

purse;

so long as the distribution of the
wealth created by them is wholly
one-sided.

The truth of this statement can
be found in the determined stand
of the fishermen this past year, to
maintain at least last year’s price,
Which was still shamefully inade-

quate to meet their vital require—
ments.

e

HEY are not weakening. They

are building up their streneth.
The economic and political defences
of the working class are being
built. The close of the year sees
the first concrete manifestation of
unity between the existing organi-
zations of fishermen, giving us the
merging of the BC Trollers with the
Pacitie Coast Fishermen’s Union
and the amalgamation of two fish-
ermen’s cooperatives —the Prince
Rupert Fishermen’s Cooperative
and the North Island Trollers’ Go-
operative.

The season’s work has ended, and
fishermen are home. Yuletide is
here’ to be celebrated in some -mea-
sure of happiness according to one’s
the fishing season has been
a tough one and IT know that many
fishermen will not enjoy the ma-
terial comforts that go with the
festive season, but to them TI hold
out the hand of encouragement for
the coming year, that together in

our Various organizations and
through them, we will progress
further on the road to economic

security.

building tradesmen |

very few voices were raised
against the wasteful, eriminal
methods of logging which were ul
timately to bring the people of BEC
face to face with complete destruc-
tion of the forests. The apparently
limitless extent of our forest wealth,
the confident statements of the
timber pirates that natural re-
growth would provide a permanent
field for lumbering, sSeryveu to
silence those fey people with vision
who warned of a time when the
golden timbers would be no more.

But of recent years Public out
cry against the destruction of the
forests has raised the Question of
reforestation as one of our most
important issues. Eyen the opera-
tors in recent years have besun to
pay lip service to the question, and
Several recent meetings of the
Pacific Loggins Congress have de-
voted much attention to the plan
fer selective logging.

indeed, it would be very difficult
for the lumber barons to deny
what is now an obvious fact. Re-
cent surveys by the BG forestry de-
partment brought out the disquiet—
ing fact that there was only some
410 billion feet of Marketable tim-—
ber available for exploitation. Since
the average yearly output of the in-
dustry often tops the billion mark,
at times reaching two Dillion feet,
it'S apparent that under present
conditions, the finish of BC's major
industry is actually in sight.

Left to the “discretion” of the
logging operators, the result is 4
foregone conclusion. im the sreed
for profits, even at the expense of
Guman Tives—an average of 60
loggers are killed every year—the
lumbermen will continue Smashineg
and burnine their way through
Standing timber until BC becomes
another Michigan.

@

ee is, however, one positive

force remaining that can curb
the destruction and preserve the
“golden timbers” for the future.
That force has come onto the
Scene only recently with the estab-
lishment of the international Wood_
workers of America and its $0,000
members in BC, Washington and
Oregon. Combining all that is finest
amd best of the unions organized
by loggers, the IWA is the out
srowth of another famous union
the Tamber Workers Industrial
Union, re-established in 1929 and
victor in many a struggle since to
maintain wages and conditions.

Recently the PywA has begun to
cope with the problem of preservins
the forests, with considerable suc_
cess across the line.

In BC the membership, alarmed
at the danger to its livelihood, is
beginnins to discuss the whole
question of reforestation with a
view to Jauchinge a campaign. Suc—
cess of the TWA in this work will
be conditioned by the support it
receives from the public as 4 whole.

In any case, it appears now that
after 80 years public opinion jis
definitely aroused. Through the ef
forts of several Prosressive MI.A’s,
the issue threatened to become the
Major issue of the present session
of the Hfouse. And if the memper—
ship of the TWA can line this senti-
ment to an organized campaign to
foree action from the provincial
sovernment, British Columbians
will still be able to live and profit
from their greatest industry, Kine

Timber will still rule