This cartoon appeared last week in the final issue of The Labor Statesman, after 45 years of regular publication. The murder weapon wat a 400% increase in postal rates. Other union publications are also hard hit. EDITORIAL DONATE TO PT Your best investment or close to 35 years working men and women in B.C. F have demonstrated year after year their approval of the Pacific Tribune, not only by subscribing to it, but by gen- erous contributions to every financial campaign it has been found necessary to launch in order to stay in business. During that length of time the working people of this province have raised well over three-quarters of a million dollars to keep the PT in circulation. Thanks to such magnificent aid the PT is now the oldest progressive labor paper in British Columbia - something of a record these days with numerous labor and other weekly papers being forced to cut back or close altogether, because of steeply rising mailing and other costs. In order however, to retain that proud position when other labor publications are being forced to the wall because of the tax and prices results of Trudeau’s ‘‘Just Society’’, the Pacific Tribune again requires a minimum of $17,000 in this year’s financial campaign, beginning April 1 through to May 31. To reach this target, two factors are essential: the continuation of the generous financial aid which has been readily given by press clubs, individual subscribers and PT “Supporters over the past years. Secondly, in view of the grave multiple problems which face the people everywhere no less than we here in B.C.. a paper such as the PT is needed today more than ever before: needed to make the full weight of an informed working people count in the struggle for those things that are vitally important to the workingclass; information which only papers like the PT can feature, and which cannot be found in the monopoly- dominated public ‘‘news’’ media, ladelled out to the mass as “‘informed”’ opinion. A very important part of this financial target of $17,000 is that of finding and winning new PT readers: to build up circulation with the realization that every new subscriber to the PT becomes another new recruit in the gigantic struggle for peace, for human well-being, and an end to the domination of monopoly profits over human life and happiness. In this year’s financial appeal for $17,000 we certainly do not underestimate the difficulties. There will be many as there always is, compounded in 1969 with mass unemployment, workers’ incomes stripped by spiralling prices and taxes, etc. But difficulties are nothing new to the people of B.C. They have reached the targets set for the maintenance of a fighting paper many times before, and they will again. As one old veteran press builder for the PT put it with some strong introductory words: ‘‘If Bennett can find $3- million of the taxpayers’ money to save the necks of a bunch of financial crooks and swindlers, we’ll find $17,000 and more from the same source, for a much more honest and noble cause’’. In the long history of a labor press in British Columbia, many small labor and so-called labor papers have come and gone, but with your help in reaching this target, the PT will be in the fight until victory is won — the victory of the working - people against the enemies of peace and progress. ‘Pacitic Tribune ‘West Coast edition, Canadian Tribune Editor—TOM McEWEN Associate Editor-—MAURICE RUSH Published weekly at Ford Bidg., Mezzanine No. 3, 193 E. Hastings St., Vancouver 4,-8.C. Phone 685-5288. Subscription Rate: Canada, $5.00 one year; $2.75 for six months. North ond South America and Commonwealth countries, $6.00 one yeor. All other countries, $7.00 one year. Second class mail registration number 1560. neat tacatetePanasasonsesven0c0 oie cane SS a is i a a aa : uo oasaN at! EPS ACIFIC TRIBUNE—=MARC ~ SUBSIDIZE U.S. MAGS New postal rates means of suppressing free press By ALD. HARRY. RANKIN On April 1 second class mailing rights will be taken away from publications by Canadian non- profit organizations such as trade unions, co-ops, credit unions, church and professional groups. As a result their postal rates will go up by as much as 500 percent. What is the real reason for this big boost in postal rates by the Trudeau government? Why is the government picking on these citizen groups? Will this jump in rates increase postal revenues and help overcome the current post office deficit? To answer these questions we just have to look at the results brought about by this increase in rates. A number of papers have already been compelled to cease publication. Among them are the Labor Statesman, organ of the B.C. Federation of Labor, with a circulation of 60,000. Other similar papers serving the com- munity are cutting back in frequency of publication. The net result of all this will be a drop in postal revenue, rather than an increase, not to mention layoffs and less business activity. It should also be noted that postal rates on Canadian editions of U.S. publications are going up hardly at all. Time, Newsweek, Readers Digest and hundréds of other U.S. publications propagating the views of the U.S. governmenc and U.S. corporations will continue to flood Canada in _ increasing numbers at postal rates far below cost. Canadians will continue to subsidize these U.S. publications to the tune of millions of dollars a year. In fact, letter rates which were already producing a good profit were increased still further last year from 5¢ to 6¢ to raise additional revenue precisely to subsidize U.S. publications. Furthermore, big business publications in Canada continue to get low postal rates and preferred treatment. If your letters are sometimes slow in coming it could be because posties have been instructed to give priority to publications like the Financial Post. ‘The reasons for such a big increase in postal rates for Canadian trade union, co-op and ‘credit’ union publications now becomes clearer. “It is aimed at muting, if not silencing, the voice of labor, the co-ops and credit unions which are a thorn in the side of the Establishment, of the banks and big corporations. As trade union leaders have pointed out, these punitive postal rates are a form of censorship, of suppressing a free press, of giving the highly monopolized daily press almost complete control over the news media. Secondly, the new postal rates are aimed at increasing the volume of U.S. literature circulating in Canada. Growing U.S. control over the economy of Our country is being agcompanied by, growing U.S. control over what we read. national identity when our own It’s getting increasingly hard * government carries on in this to be a Canadian and to keep our way. Ambatielos to speak on events in Greece Tony Ambatielos, leader of the Greek Seamen’s Union and one of the best known figures in Greece’s struggle against the military Junta, will speak in Vancouver’s Labor Temple, 307 West Broadway on Wed., April 2 at 8 p.m. on ‘‘The Truth About Greece.”’ Ambatielos has been a trade union leader since 1932 and was sentenced to death in 1948 by a right wing regime, but because of world wide pressure his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. He was released by the new government in 1966 but was denied the right to reorganize the union, but continued his fight for better wages and conditions for Greek seamen. In 1967, when the Fascist military junta took over, he was forced to go underground for 10 months. He escaped to England where he was granted political asylum after along campaign led by his wife, Betty. Now one of the leaders of the world-wide Greek anti- military Junta organization with branches in England, France, Italy, West Germany, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, U.S.A. and Canada, Ambatielos was recently authorized by the Patriotic Front to work in countries outside Greece to build support for the resistance forces. The Vancouver rally is being sponsored by the Vancouver and District Labor Council. | VILLAGE THREATENED BY STRIP MINING. Photo from Appalachia in Eastern Kentucky shows debris from a strip mining operation creeping ever-nearer to a small town as the mountain is pushed into the valley by the operation. This is one of a group of photos sent us by the Southern Conference Educational Fund in Louisville, Kentucky who have been reading the PT articles on the fight in B.C. to control surface mining. A detter which accompanied the photos said ‘We enjoy the Pacific Tribune very much — I think its the best left paper we get.’’ Credit for the photo goes to the ‘Southern Patriot’. The report from the Legislative committee.on surface mining is dye in the House this week. -"