WE WANT A.DUSING NOW! | LOW RENTAL iLT “#@ interested to see, @f the speech made i Roosevelt in Chi- Fober 28 that he @) 2 outlook for jobs | a States after the “SS nployment prob- Puntry will be very ~eie as our own, for and the USA will ? “this “wwar- with economies and economie and Sionships with the Prld. In fact, what = decide to do, and ) 1 accomplish will decisive effect on President had to # important to us ‘the report of his @ I saw he called % mm to provide 60 ifter the war. On £ population an ive program here 2 about five and lion jobs, which is y the level of em- me experts have Wary if we are to @: who wants work er the war. testins were the =| concrete methods this that he ad- Mispoke the follow- Pyout foreign trade: ‘mvinced that, with - i. approval, the #2 of the United ': trebled after the ing’ millions of Brine to the “un- ea” of the Ameri- Eman, worker and ing together he Bech with the his- © “That winning ep together after Bit will win many H victories of peace, 8 country, a victory © of security, for ds of living here t the “world.” the words ‘of d a. great statesman and are an encouragement to us here in Canada. I hope that by the time this reaches you he will have been re-elected to carry on his good work—PRO-EDR. APPRECIATION Dear Sir: The members and executive of the New Westminster Club LPP extend sincere and hearty congratulations to the paper, The Pacific Advocate. We are agreed that the new name and the new set-up of the paper will be helpful in promoting the stand and policies of the Labor Movement. Tt is our hope that he paper will be a mighty instrument in the struggle for progress in British Columbia. And so for your success in your forthcoming endeavors for the paper. [ am, yours sincerely for the New Westminster Club, Wice-chairman (Mrs) Florence L. Brown. 59 Alexander Street, New Westminster, B.C. SUGGESTION Dear Sir: The new paper, Volume’ 1,~ Number 1. Will it be like the world’s New Order with the old para- sitie chieftain in control? Or a real Common People’s paper? Free from bigotry and open to public opinion—that is, _ :testeey to the Editor? I would suggest that “Infor- mation Bulletin’—issued twice weekly by the Embassy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Re- publics, Washington, D.G., should find an open door in your .paper. Material in this Bulletin may be quoted or re- produced, Vol. IV, No. Lil, Oc- tober 17, 1944, statement of Polish-Soviet. . Extraordinary Commission for the investiga- tion of crimes committed by the Germans in the extermination camp of Maidanek in the town of Lublin. Yours for the truth, EF. Donohue. iN = "Did you say you. knew: the way?” ‘Gundy; Nesbit; Thomson; among others. Saturday, November 11, 1944 == POge 5 Treitere Weusecnaeverssstreeesesutrsaeesuieucaseuceraveasrerseesses sey aC t 0 ExyPUtAETEEE| ‘Short Jabs by Ol Bill TAUSUECENSOUSCEASENUCETECOCCESSESR FSO REENESESTONADEANS UT SeTCSATELESSRAUERUATISEYSULLIGSFLEALTSPLNAEEAIIASLIATESSASL i More B.C. Collectric Dope SINCE. the BC Gollectric has undoubtedly become the most “ial topic in provincial and municipal polities, the price of the business as a going concern is a matter for general discussion and comment. No undertaking of any kind in these parts has so successfully hidden from the pwblic gaze the real facts as to its worth, its growth in volume from earnings which should have gone to cut fares and lower the price of juice or should have been paid to the municipalities according to their agreements with the company, and at the same time absorb a vast amount of water in its share capital, water, however, of a different kind from that which they did not have in their dams during the last five -or Six months. This is as plain as a pikestaff to anyone who cares to. investigate the financial juggling that followed the transfer of the company os Eing- lish to Canadian ownership. ~ f Until 1928 the B.C. Collectrie was owned, lock, crock and barrel by English capital. Shares in the business ‘amounted to £4,320, 000, roughly about $20,000,000. On top of this outstanding bond issues of about another $20,000, 000 raised the value of the property used by the company to exploit its workers, to around $40,000,000. Then, as now; when questions of wages, car fares, light and power charges, were, raised, the spokesmen for the company put on a poor mouth and pleaded poverty. All they wanted was a modest seven percent for their poor shareholders. Doesn’t that sound familiar? - And they, got the seven percent. They got more. As the city and country grew, they extended and expanded their plants, their carlines, their wire grill and pole lines. These extensions and developments were carried out with hardly any addition to their capital stock. An adyertisement in the street cars in 1928 proclaimed that the B.C. Collectric had, in the preceeding five years, spent 1634 million dollars on new plant. In that five years the company had issued only one block of new securities, five million dollars worth of preference shares in a company set up specially for that purpose. That is an ad- “muission that 11% million dollars worth of earnings had been “ploughed in’; 114% million over the much-spoken of seven percent that went to the shareholders in dividends. It is easy to understand why at that time 100 ordinary. ae which only brought seven percent were selling on the London Stock Exchange for £225. Don’t imagine the purchasers were self-sacrificine investors who were willing to cut their interest from seven percent to three point two percent because+they loved the poor downtrodden Vancouver, Victoria and New Westminster people. They knew they were getting it in other ways, in the real wealth which was being practically. filched from those same people, wealth which should have been used to cheapen transportation, light and power, but was being stored up in dams, powerhouses and pole lines. - In’ 1928 the English gang was bought out by a quvsets of Canadian financial pirates who knew all the tricks of the Englishers and had a few native, backwoods, barn dance twists of their own. Names of shin- ing stars in the financial firmament stood out. Sir Herbert Holt; Wood; A battery of phenaglers it would be hard to improve on. : These geniuses in “promotion” bought out the old company share- holders for a little less than $60,000,000, three times the par value of the stock they were buying. That gang never gave anything away to any- one at anytime, so the natural conclusion is that the original 20 millions - had grown, increased, expanded, to double its size through earnings of the company, over and above the seven percent dividend, being put back into new plants. This is one of the reasons why nickel street car fares do not pay! With the company in their hands the new owners did their stuff. They “reorganized” the company. They issued a million Class A shares \ at $60 each, with no yoting power, and a million Class B shares which alone had voting power. Three-quarters of these. latter they kept for theniselves. The balance they made a present of, to every. purchaser of four Class A shares. FS They got their 60 million dollars back om the pedhasars of the - Class A shares; they got the company’s operations for nothing and ~ held three-quarters of the voting SEpgi— aes is they, owned the com- pany. They also organized a sales pamapatea bo “sell”? the B.C. Collectric : to the local users. of street cars and lighting, “to make the B.C. Electric a local company.” The more local people who owned non-voting: shares, the more votes to put, and keep, B.C: Collectric stooges in the city coun- cils to look after the interests of the company when i issues arose in which they were involved. : They benefitted also when the bottom fell out of the “prosperity period” in 1929. Store girls who had been induced to buy. Class A shares at $60 because the dividend would buy them a pair of silk stockings every six months, got out of work and had to sell their’ stock. Other buyers were in the same fix. The $60 shares dropped in value to about $14. The Holt, Wood Gundy gang were right there to acquire their shares at that desirable figure. Alten J. Smith, the engineer hired by the city in 1935 to investigate the B.C. Electric and its relations. with the city reported that the profits of the company were excessive, not one and three-quarter percent as the company contended but six and three-quarter percent on the company’s valuation and 8.79 percent on his estimates. And further that, the re- eords of the company cannot be accepted simply because the company. is not regulated and they are prepared for dividend purposes in the in- terests of the shareholders and not in the interests of the taxpayers. Twenty millions boosted to 60 millions is still 20 millions in original share value. The Public Utilities Commission has raised it to 31 mil- lions but that must be the limit in considerne the ‘purchase price.