( | PEOPLES VOICE FOR PROGRESS PACIFIC ADVOCATE 5 Cents VANCOUVER, B.C., SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 1945 Direct Reports To P.A. yrom Frisco Meeting by Tribune Editor Readers of P.A. will be given an-exclusive coverage of — f= historic San Francisco world security conferen® by its |/m correspondent at the scene of the great meeting which fens April 25. ss Soe This was announced this week by Charles Saunders, itor of PA., who has just ©ucluded arrangements "bh John Weir, editor of ™ Canadian Tribune and #> of Canada’s outstand- | labor newspapermen, ho will report the world hice meetings exclusively f the P_A. and Tribune. Bis a result, PA. will Bs re the unique distinction | eine one of the only two 9r papers in the whole }Canada to have its own stespondent at the scene | the conference, which sistitutes another of the vices to its readers that Mmakine the paper the bstandinge labor journal H Western Canada. Seginning with the open- | tlay of the conference, - readers will be given a plete week by week vs account of what will ~ | Spire in the San Francisco’ War Veterans Memorial ding, together with a number of feature articles on the 3 “fe nificance of the news. _ At the conclusion of the world security meeting, Weir sl come to Vancouver to address a public meeting on Xperiences and his analysis of the events in the Golden city. : ; Eminently qualified to handle the big story, John Weir | edited leading labor newspapers across Canada for "Past ten years. Born in Chilliwack, he has been a mem- fof the labor movement for most of his adult life, was Bissociate editor of the Toronto Daily Clarion and later Eor-of the Midwest Clarion before being interned in 0 for being a member of the Communist Party. He amed editorship of the Canadian Tribune in 1944. BUCK HOUS Halts stage. : men by the Vancouver, New Westminster and — District Trades and Labor Council this week after Delegate Ro- bert Guthrie presented a de- tailed report on events lead- ing up to abandonment of the emergency housine plan last criticism of the City Council on the fact that assessment and tax charges had increased so greatly on all buildings and dwel- lings converted under the NHA plan that the federal agency was forced to cancel any further work. | As @ result; Trades Council of- ficers will seek an interview with members of the city government and demand an explanation. Pro- tests will also be forwarded F. H-. Nichols, head of NHA, and other housing administration officials. ASSESSMENTS BOOSTED Speaking to the motion of pro- test, which was endorsed unani- mously, Delegate Guthrie, +re- presenting Local 452 of the Gar- penters’ Union, was emphatic in placing responsibility for the Situation at the door of the City Couneil. As soon as the NHA had recon- verted a building or dwelling, city tax officials, acting on instruc- tion of City Council, moved in and boosted assessments and tax rates to prohibitive levels, at times as much as 50 to 300 per cent. “These boosts were entirely out of line,” Guthrie asserted, “since neither the costs of im- provements nor the actual value of the property for hous- ing purposes justified the new rates.”’ He auoted official figures Showing that the assessment on the Orange Hall, recently con- verted into medium rental suites under the NHiA reconversion plan, had jumped from $20,000 to $65,- 000 and taxes from $1250.21 to $2329.24. Similarly the reeonver- Sion of the Elysium, Hotel had Eoosted the assessment from $37,- 200 to $82.000, and taxes from $1459 to $2553. Increases in as- sessments and taxes had been: charged against private dwellings cenverted under the plan. Guthrie said that the NHA’s reconversion program in Vancou- ver had already provided 525 se- parate family dwelling units at Continued on Page 8 See HOUSING. month. Guthrie centered his Vancouver City Building The Vancouver City Council’s Opposition amounting to Open sabotage of Federal agency attempts to relieve the housing shortage resulted cellation of the National Housing Ad ministration’s reconversion Program in this city at a time when the housing shortage had reached This charge, buttressed by facts and figures TLC Delegates Assert Cound | rogram Ifa Can= its most acute , was levelled at city alder- new 10-ton Volcano bombs British workers carefully guide the core of one of the into its mold. These are the gaint new bombs now being used in raids over Germany. ’ro-Nazis Ruhr and some 150,000 Nazi pouring onto the German central plain while British and Ganadian armies were trapping large forces in Holland. Other American forees were rushing to meet Soviet armies in Czechoslovakia -and the Red Army was within six miles of Vienna, after capturing Brati- Slava, capital of Slovakia. The zreat coordination of of- fensives devised at Yalta was achieving unparalleled successes and it was obvious that the aim is nothing short of the smashing of all German organized resist- anca—the complete and total collapse of the German military machine. This is the meaning seen be- hind General EBisenhower’s state- ment that there would be no Active As defeat Draws Near German collapse neared tapidly by press time this week as United Nations armies sliced through weak enemy tance in the West.and the Southeast. After resis- cutting off the troops, Allied vanguards were negotiated unconditional sur- render but that this would be im- posed on Germany. Directed at the soft-peace plotters within the democracies and at those Ger- man militarists and industrial- ists who hope for compromise with the Allies by some such maneuver as the resignation ‘of Hitler, Fisenhower’s statement Was a political hammerblow. Need for such strong: emphasis Was pointed up: by the many Ber- lin-manufactured “terms for sur- render” rumors which insinuated themselves into the world press through “reports” from Sweden. Only possible basis on which those who instigated the reports Continued on Page 8 See DEFEAT NEAR.