TOM McEWEN, Editor — HAL GRIFFIN, Associa te Editor — RITA WHYTE, Business Manager. Published weekly by the Tribune Publishing Company Ltd. at Room 6, 426 Main Street, Vancouver 4, B.C. — MArine 5288 Canada and British Commonwealih countries (except Australia), 1 year $3.00, 6 months $1.60. Australia, U.S., and all other countries, 1 year $4.00, 6 months $2.50. Authorized as second class mail, Post Office Department, Ottawa Tom McEwen [Ast week the epidemic which has been Shaking the British press for tree considerable time, hit Vancouver, Margaret's Marital future. yal, fe somewhat skeptical of the alue of this sort of “news” as a circu- ation builder, but then we just can’t *ecount for the tastes of some news- beets: Paricularly after Penny Wise’s Shela window studies of “how the SSlans live.” 1 Ot to be outdone the Vancouver Sun wched one of its man-on-the-street aie’ On who charming Princess Marg- y *t should marry, if and when that Sung lady decides to enter the “holy S of matrimony.” ig p Wd she marry a “commoner” which a very broad definition of some lad Stee the ranks of the proletariat, or we it be some. pimply knight with litte. “blue” blood in his veins, very eta honestly-gotten cash in his jeans, ium> “oD less grey matter in his cran- a From a reader’s standpoint we 0 ld prefer to read the “confessions” te Piggy-bank cop trying to imitate an ee man, rather than this matrimonial ceney, Which outrages all canons of de- a © problem is a vexing one to say the hand, ,¢ When it is taken out of the tou, hs our lovely Princess and kicked Paper In a million columns of news- Citize balderdash. The ordinary decent the 4 here or elsewhere, whether on Sh es Undoubtedly come up with the eas Y and simple idea that who Prin- Strict} argaret should or may marry, is of}. 2 Matter between her and the lad shourg choice. Any outside interference ig hot go beyond the paternal ad- Patents. Suidance of the respective Nero} of the parties concerned. Com- Prine Press ballyhoo on the topic of 800g ra Margaret’s romance may be a if n Medium for boosting circulation — the | 2refers to reduce the problem to en ‘vel of operating a blue-ribbon Del club. mi at does it matter to a hardrock Mans Margaret marries, or if she Shores’, @t all? Or to a Vancouver long- timber or a B.C. logger up in the big haq Tlands? Tf these red-blooded men jee “OYthing to say at all on the sub- hope, it would probably be that they With the lass gets a good skookum lad Plenty of red blood in his veins. men Might also add a few caustic com- Rectan “blue bloods” which no ‘re- type le printer would set down in a oy WG if it came to the, question of that a they’d probably be unanimous Beaya acess Margaret, rather than the Sun pPtook press or the Vancouver o, Ould have the final say. Woulg et would be much the same as we Shou] Slve to a beloved daughter; if she ang ik: Meet a good lad she can love Status © With, whatever this rating and Sob.g:2, °° to it, and to hell with all the allege? Press hawks, bishops and so- the 4; blue bloods” who would arrange Tow 11°58 Of others to suit their own nar- As Sotries — and profits. a ae Margaret as I am concerned Princess ikaw? a may 42nd 800d luck to the venture. It Noera added however, that for the “de- be a lation” of royalty we hope it will cotely chap, not afraid of good Modern rk Who will be of some use to Society, as well as being a good Neither Judy O’Grady nor a =a Princess could ask for, or wish be, or not to be” of Princess’ treet” or mowing his front lawn," Prine’ Steelworker or carpenter who Margar Unsolicited advice to Princess 4 Can marry who and when she , _~___Printed by Union Printers Ltd., 550 Powell Street, Vancouver 4, B.C. SSeS ; = : 4 hay ae TOMS FOR WAR, as : ; “TREES OF KNOWLEDGE” The emoluments of office [z is one of the principles of de- mocratic (and honest) govern- ment that no cabinet minister ‘shall hold any directorate in any business enterprise. This is presumed to be a safeguard against exploiting a ministerial position for personal gain; to remove the temptation of picking up a little easy money, sometimes called graft, from any governmental contract in which the said minister might have had a hand in negotiating. In theory of course it is a very laudable arrangement, but in these modern times when cleaning up a fast buck is the hallmark of “suc- sess,” such principles count for very little. Take the case of the Honorable Ralph Campney, Minister of De- fense in the St. Laurent government. Campney is, or was a director of Como Investments Limited, which recently sold a South Burnaby build- ing at a nice profitable figure (under lease to the Department of Public Works as a post office), to the fed- eral government. The “fat being in the fire” so to speak, Campney “explains” that not until April of this year did he learn that he was still a director of this real estate firm. Such forgetful- ness borders on the sublime. Even the interim dividend declarations since 1952 — when Campney says he gave “instructians” to be drop- ped from Como’s directorate, should have reminded him that he was still “in” on ‘the real estate boodle. And now our own Premier W. A. C., Bennett comes to the fore with a government “sub-contract” in his pocket for a new school at Williams Lake. The sub-contractor in this case is the Bennett’s Stores of Ver- non, Limited, a strictly family affair, with only Mr. and Mrs, Bennett showing as the directors. Unlike Campney however, Ben- nett isn’t “explaining” away his role as a beneficiary from provincial gov- ernment contracts. On the contrary (up to the moment at least) the “sub-contractor” is sitting tight, wearing his customary disarming smile, hoping the furore will soon blow over, and like all contractors and sub-contractors in the building business, anticipating a better-than- modest return on the deal. Being a cabinet minister or a premier in. our free-enterprise-way- of-life certainly has its advantages in more ways than one. In polite language these advantages are often referred to as the “emoluments of office”; and in less polite circles, pure unadulterated graft. An example to follow AT the Big Four Conference in Geneva last month the Soviet Prime Minister took ‘the initiative in proposing immediate and concrete steps towards relaxing international tension. On behalf of his govern- ment, Bulganin announced an im- mediate reduction in the Soviet army’s strength by the number of troops that were to be withdrawn from Austria. The Soviet leader called upon the three governments to follow suit. Though Bulganin’s call went un- heeded the Soviet government has now ‘taken another important step. Tt was announced from Moscow on August 12 that as a result of a cer- tain relaxation of tension, int the wake of Geneva, the Soviet govern- ment had decided to reduce its arm- ed forces by 640,000 men as of De- cember 15, 1955. All of the demo- bilized men will be absorbed in in- dustry and agriculture. They will devote themselves to the peaceful pursuits of socialist life. The Soviet step has met with ap- Proval of all peace-loving people, who desire an, easing of the crush- ing arms burden. But the daily papers, bent on their thirst for war and hard put to interpret ‘the Soviet step as another “war-like act,” dis- miss it as an insignificant gesture. The question Canadians are ask- ing is: When will our government and the other powers follow suit? The U.S., according to the New York Times has 1,000,000 armed men abroad in 900 foreign bases. Our own servicemen are in Ger- many. When will they come home? Only by deeds can real relaxation of tension be achieved and the road to a lasting peace opened. Ws our annual subscription drive coming up next month — the high point of our year-round campaign for circulation — nothing could be more appropriate than this piece by Mike Quin, “Grandfather Gets the News.” 53 * 5 © Y grandfather was sitting on the front porch one day smoking his pipe when the newsboy came by and socked him in the face with the daily paper. It was all rolled up in a hard knot so the boy could hurl it at the front door as he rode by on his bicycle. Up leapt my grandfather and roared like a lion. Wis drowsy complacency disappeared in a flash. Instead there was a man aroused to the dangers and injustices of life, churning the air with his fists and screaming indignation. The impact of a single newspaper, as if by magic, had transformed a drowsy old man into an explosion of energy and action. That was my first glimpse of real journalism. And it is seldom since that I have seen an. editor achieve such re- sults as that meteor-like newsboy. Apathy: a dulled sense of reality: tired, rut-flowing minds that scarcely distinguish between what they read in the papers and what they see in the movies; an illusion of detachment; a weary sense of fatality that accepts life as an inexplicable scenario written by God Almighty, directed by Wall Street, and in which the ordinary man is a lost and unimportant extra — that is the blanket of fog through which the mod- ern journalist must cleave. And few believe all they read in the daily papers anyway. At one time the people took what they read in the papers with a grain of salt. Today they pickle it in brine. Comic strips sell many papers today, dragging the editorials as a dead weight behind them. Unable to gain entrance to the public mind: through the door, they are trying to climb in through the sewer. Look at the magazine racks. Good Heavens above! Raped, stripped and murdered; photographed, painted and drawn; buxom, half-draped figures being whipped, attacked, kidnapped and strangled. There’s where your sex-crimes are manufactured. Lurid pictures like these dangled in front of thousands of then bug-eyed with sex-starvation. The state of apathy has almost reach- _ ed the stage where you could carry a human head on the end of a stick the haley of the street and not excite atten- on. We need the newsboy who socked my grandfather in the face. That’s the kind of journalism we need. The newly-developing people’s press is inheriting this fog blank of apathy from the rapidly foundering commercial press. Our task is not merely to inform, but to find means of making people real- - ise the news. The whole technique of the com- mercial press is to make the “ordinary man” feel that he is impotent, unimport- ant extra in the scenario of life. We've got to make’ him realise that he is important; all powerful, and that he can write his own scenario — and we've got to tell him how to do it. ‘We’ve got to show him that he doesn’t have to drag an unsatisfactory life through a series of misfortunes. We've got to deliver our subjects like that newsboy delivered his paper. PACIFIC TRIBUNE — AUGUST 26, 1955 — PAGE 5