HE people of this province have been bamboozled Out of billions of dollars in oil resources. © How U.S. careoietcn: are grabbing our ‘black gold’ The big Alberta 4 steal —EDMONTON ‘Black gold’ flows today into the pipelines of American cor- Porations, draining off this great new source of Alberta’s Wealth for _ tycoons, Criticism and condemnation of the Manning government grows &Pace as the enormity of the ad- Ministration’s betrayal of the “Public interest becomes clear to the people. One of the greatest finds in the history of oil on this con- tinent has been surrendered out- Tight to U.S. monopolies, whose Presence in every oil field in the World has made it a cesspool f trouble, intrigue, corruption ®nd murder, When the glad cry of “Oil!” first rose in the Leduc and Cal- ra areas, the glamorized head- €s telling of the rich dis- Bs fy topped articles speculat- "8 on what this great new eee Would mean to the prov- Ne ‘and the country. New and 4 sty headlines are now mak- "s their appearance in some halo in the province. The i ™ most often used in these, reference to the Manning deal . Oil, is ‘sell-out’, which begins ® describe the popular feeling. reali Alberta farmers now oh 2© what it means to have an well on their farmland, where i long arm of U.S. exploitation oe, far outreached them for the Nes Prize on their property. at Albertans are likewise inhe we the bitter truth of dis- : Ant tance through the un- ei cipled connivance of foreign interests with servile native Politicians, z etelther the province nor its hie hor Canadians as a whole, 1 benefit from the discovery a oil in Alberta: as. a direct — 2°RSequence of policies. by the oe ning government, with the Seption of a small royalty to NaS Sovernment (one barrel in voli eight) and a limited “me of employment. ' : ® TS= Social Credit government has surrendered more crown Ny = in sweeping land grants ca 1 monopolies than is the then dannere else on this con- eatin, This in itself is a re- bent, © commentary on the Al- theca Politicians responsible for eal. But the brazen nature AY, AUGUST 22, 1947 the added enrichment of a few American oil of this betrayal of the public interest is even more reprehens- ible in the light of stated gov- ernment policy. In its much-touted Bill of Rights, now before the privy council, the Manning government declares natural resources of the province as the basis of its credit system. Thus the Social Credit govern- ment exposes its glowing prom- ise in words by the dark be- trayal of its deeds. For thirty pieces of silver it has sold part of the mother lode of its se- curity program by the present disposal of a basic and major field of its natural resources! The field will probably be from 20 to 30 miles wide and geologists feel that it should be good for at least 50 years. When the present program of produc- tion is completed, with the ob- jective of 30 wells by fall, it will bring the oil companies a total of $21,000 a day-—-more than $7,500,000 in the course of a year’s production. ; These estimates are based on 150 barrels per well per day at the prevailing price of $2.70 per barrel. The oil companies take 8734 percent of all production after deducting royalties to. the provincial government. e CTION against the exploitation of farmers by the American oil companies is being taken by the Alberta Farmers Union. The AFU is offering free legal advice to all farmers in the oil field areas and is advising them to hang onto their land rights—at least until adequate remunera- is guaranteed. . Se a ee hold ani \to their lands, and many ree have been sold outright to oil companies. Others, who only own surface rights, and who have no legal ‘right to a percentage of the oil mined on their farms, are being offered a rent of some $50 per acre a year by the oil interests. . In a statement to AFU mem- bers and farmers who may be affected soon by new oil finds, others R. J. Boutillier, AFU secretary- treasurer, asserts: “The farmers in the Leduc and Calmar areas are not signing any agreements with the oil companies, and are refusing en- try in every case, forcing them to go to the board of arbitration to determine compensation that the farmer is entitled to. They are putting the onus on the pro- vincial government, which is responsible for allowing the oil companies to come into Alberta and run rampant through the farmers’ crops. “The oil company has not the ight to enter upon any property for laying pipelines, erection of tanks, stations and structure of such Mines, until they have the consent of the owner of such surface rights. We are warning all farmers to give no oil com- pany the right of entry. The oil company may become entitled to entry by reason of an order of the board, determining the com- pensation to be paid to the land owner.” Defending the rights of the farmers against usurpation by foreign economic interests, the AFU commented: “It is unfair to the pioneers who have settled in this country for 35, 40 and 50 years, developed it, and made it possible for the market for the very oil taken from their land, to have to now stand by and see thousands of barrels of valuable oil come from under the land they cleared and drain- ed, without any remuneration for their toils, other than a mere $50 a year lease per acre. The AFU has been approached and ‘their support solicited, to see - Limited, that these men are given just compensation instead of all find- ings going to foreign oil com- panies.” : Se E Alberta Farmers Union estimates the present damage being done to farmers’ property at approximately $4,000 for each well drilled. Added to this ef- fect of oil drilling and develop- ment on farmlands is the state- ment of geologists that, allow- ing for another 20 years de- velopment work, agriculture in these areas will have to be terminated. Thus the farmers’ union ad- vocates a five percent royalty on all oil produced, payable di- rectly by the Imperial Oil Com- pany to the individual farmer. It is the view of this organiza- tion that not only should the farmer receive benefits from the land which is his by heritage, but he should also be financially enabled to leave the district and go elsewhere in the event of the lands total loss to agriculture. In the convention program of the AFU, resolution 37 requests that in the case of failure by oil companies to reduce price of White Products, the provincial government should expropriate the oil wells and operate them at cost, or investigate the feasi- bility of producing gas and oil cooperatively. In its recent statement on oil rights’ to Alberta farmers, the AFU reiterates a long defined policy “that the natural resources of the province and the nation are the heritage of the people, and should remain in the own- ership of the people, and be cperated in the interests of the people.” * Taking up the fight for the rights of the Alberta farmers, against the big American oil interests and the abetting policy of the provincial government, in a fashion no member of the legislature can afford to ignore, a delegation has been sent to the minister of lands and mines to see that farmers are pro- tected and assured a square deal, while members and farm- ers directly in the path of the oil development have been ask- ed to use the legal offices of the organization. The farmers’ campaign for their compensation rights will be an uphill battle indeed. American oil interests, chief among which is Imperial Oil have purchased the U.S. army’s large oil refinery at Whitehorse, Y.T., and plan td move it in sections to the city of Edmonton. Only the widest public action, far beyond the present section of organized farmers now active, will be able to dislodge the predatory interests bent on exploiting Al- berta’s rich new oil resources. _ A guide to good I. G. FARBEN—By Richard Sasuly— Boni and Gaer—$3. N_ anti-Semitic Congressman named George A. Dondero (Rep., Michigan), on July 9 this year attacked the U.S. Secretary of War because responsible posi- . tion in the war effort had been held by Richard Sasuly and nine who, Dondero alleged, were “Communist sympathizers.” All of the 10 had made dis- tinguished contributions to the defeat of Nazi Germany and the initial denazification efforts that followed the war. Richard Sasuly was chief of intelligence and liaison for the finance division of the U.S. Mili- tary Government. He played a leading part in the revelations of I.G. Farben- industrie, the fabulous chemical, super-trust that financed Hitler in his efforts to conquer the world. It became a world-wide Nazi agency. for. mliitary and economic espionage. Sasuly has now written a book called IG Farben which every American should read. : No wonder Dondero and _ his pals would like to smear the author. . For here is the record of the international finance and busi- ness magnates, who, to put it bluntly, started World War IL. And it shows the cartel con- nections of these German Wall Streeters with such eminent pil- lars of American ‘free (mon- copoly) enterprise’ as the Allied Chemical and Dye, Aluminum Company of America, Dow Chemical, American Cyanamid, duPont de Nemours, Standard Oil of New Jersey, Bausch & | Lomb, General Electric, and others. Ford : e \ nee points out that the “main asset of IG in the Unit- ed States, General Aniline and Film, still remains a possible threat to future peace.” And he warns that a split in the war allies is the best chance > R. J. THOMAS Thomas seeks auto probe OUGHOUT the U.S. and Canada this week owners and would-be owners of new cars pricked up their ears and stood ready to applaud as they heard Vice-president R. J. Thomas of the United Auto , Workers of America (CIO) call upon U.S. Attor- ney-General Tom Clark to launch an investigation into the price and profit policies of the automobile industry. — Thomas’ statement labelled recent price increases as “pure and simple profiteer- ing.” : In a recent article for New Republic entitled ‘Sisters un- der the Hood’, Laurence Crooks, Consumers’, Union consultant on automobiles, wrote: “Under the glitter- ing new hoods of the ‘pop- ularly priced’ machines, the customers discovered engines basically the same as those much over $50 in 1941, and probably have gone up some 25 percent since then. The gleaming bodies of the ’47 machines were made of the same. collection of raw ma- terials used in the pre-war days. In 1941 the materials for a ‘low-priced’ car cost about $115, and now the figure has risen about 15 per- cent. : “Everybody must admit that the 1941 cars were pretty good cars, pretty good buys for the money asked. .... But the ’41 cars, disguised with new radiator grills and different lines, were not nearly such good bargains in 1946 or 1947,” reading for IG and the other big Ger. man combines to stay alive. f “If IG Farben does live to build its strength again, it will be because it has beer held out — as a weapon for another war, a war the Nazis and their friends have never stopped wanting, the ~ a holy crusade against the East,” The significance of these state- ments is underlined by recent developments. si ‘Note, for example, the report from Berlin (New York Times, June 3) by correspondent Jack Raymond that the action of the Military Government with re- spect to IG Farben is part of a pattern “for developing Germany _ as a capitalist outpost against Communist influence from the In the eastern part of Ger- many, incidentally, the Nazis really have been destroyed and not made the advisers and ex- ecutives of corporations as in the British and American zones, — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE lil which cost manufacturers not | _ :