_ Average smoker pays $87 a year

to Imperial’

By LEITH McMURRAY

s $6,200,000 profits

On every package of Canadian cigarettes selling at 35 cents, the consumer today
pays 24 cents in taxes to Ottawa.
The actual retail price of 20 cigarettes is 11 cents plus tax. This includes the recent
two cent boost’ which went to the manufacturers,
The average one-pack-a-day smoker, therefore, pays in indirect taxation 24c x 365

days or $87.50 a year.
of $175.00 each year.

Coal miners —
: ask new pact

By B. R. SWANKEY

EDMONTON — Wage increases
and abolition of the contract sys-
tem are among the chief demands
the coal miners of District . 18,
United Mine Workers of America,
are making upon western domes-
tic and bituminous coal operators.

. Operators were expected to give
their reply to the union .- this
week. The demands were drawn
up at a special convention held
last October to discuss revision of
the agreement with the’ opera-
tors,

» The original agreement, signed

in 1946, was not to terminate
,until March 31, .1948. However,
‘under the Alberta Labor Act, any
agreement may be terminated at
-the end of one year by either
employers or employees. The min-
'ers in convention decided to end
_ the agreement on December 3 and

served notice upon the operators’

accordingly. This. action was
taken on the insistent’ demand
of the rank and file as expressed
through resolutions from many
locals.

Coal operators immediately con-
tested the legality of the termin-
ation notice. They took the case
to court and won. Then the union
appealed it to the Alberta Su-
preme Court and won the appeal.
Now the operators have an-
nounced that they will appeal to
the Supreme Court of Canada.
Apparently this appeal will be
heard in February.

It is clear that the tactie of
the operators has been one of
delaying negotiations by every
possible means.. They also wish
to place the union in the. posi-
tion of striking illegally if a
strike materializes. :

The main demands of the min-
ers are reported to include:

—Abolition of all contract
work,

—A straight $14 a day wage
for most underground men.

—A $3-a-day increase for all
imside and outside day workers.

—Ten cents a ton for the Wel-
fare Fund (it is 8c at present).

Or if two in the family smoke they pay taxation to the amount

Altogether from this simple pleasure and relaxative neces-
sity, the government extorts the enormous sum of $160,000,000

a year,

This taxation on consumption instead of upon means or
income is scandalous and ‘unfair.

It shifts onto the shoulders

of the Canadian workers and farmers nine tenths of this huge
sum. Both the rich, with $50.000 a year and more, and the

average worker with $35 a week,
pay this 25c tax on their pack-
age. Proportionally the burden
is 28 times as heavy on the
worker as on the millionaire.

This tax of 24 cents per packet
is hidden and employed to slip
over as much as possible’ of the
burden onto the people. It is used
to build up government revenue
in’a concealed way. It relieves the
millionaire and the multimillion
corporation of higher taxation on
their outrageous monopoly profits.
It shaves the peoples’ living a
little closer to provide more wool
for the owners’ backs.

* * *

The total acreage devoted to
tobacco growing in Canada 1s
only 88,000 acres, only one-sixth
as much as grows potatoes, only
1/260 of that devoted to growing
wheat. Yet from the produce
of only 137 sections of land, the
powers that be are dble to save
$160,000,000 a year in taxes for
the banks, railways, etc. and the
multimillionaires and extract it
from the weekly pay cheques of
the employees of these very cor-
porations and individuals.

* x *

Prior to December, 1947, the
retail price of cigarettes was 9
cents plus tax. What is the story
of the manufacturers who retail
their products at this price? It
can be summed up in the story
of the Imperial Tobacco Company,
a monopoly of the first water,
a partially U.S-owned corpora-
tion, handling three quarters of]
all sales in Canada, a $97,000,000
company, that has broken, bought
or squeezed out dozens of smaller
competitors.

In 1945 marketing the produce
of only 1387 sectiomws of tobacco
land, its net profits, after every
juggling of its gross _ profits
through reserves, depreciation, etc.
that its accountants could think
up, and after the government in-
come tax experts had applied all
its “standard practice’ rulings,
were $5,780,000. os
. In 1946, its net profits increased
to $6,200,000.

Open and League Play Invited

THE PENDER BOWLING ALLEYS
FIVE AND 10 PINS

Open Noon Till Midnight — Monday to Saturday

389 West Pender Street

FUR RANCHERS, TRAPPERS and TRADER

207 West

SHIP ALL YOUR'RAW FURS TO ’

Bes: B2% Jack 1.
Hastings St., Vancouver, B.C.
I PAY TOP MARKET PRICES

Louis

PROMPT RETURNS

-CONSTANTINE

‘FINE CUSTOM TAILORING
For Ladies and Gentlemen
501 Granville St.

PAc. 1452

HIGH QUALITY LOGGERS AND WORK BOOTS
SE AN De

JOHNSON’

63 WestCordovastreet - - - - ~~ - - phone MArine 712

MADE

S BOOTS

You can imagine what 1947 ard
1948 profits are going to be, if
9 cents a packet yielded the
above profits, when the present
11 cent price has been in effect.
Not content with those enormous
profits of ’45 and ’46, Imperial
Tobacco shoved its price up 2
cents a packet, some 23 percent
of an imcrease. This will yield
them at least another $1,500,000
net a year and to top it all,
excess profits taxes on corpora-’
tions ended December 31.

No relief is promised from this
inequitable tax of 24 cents a pack-
age, but lower taxes are given
the $97,000,000 company, with net
profits exceeding $6,000,000 a year
already. A considerable portion of
the $160,000,000 a year tobacco
taxes will in other words be di-
verted by Ottawa to a handful
of tobacco manufacturers already
rolling in the stuff . dollars,
Wwe mean.

New Labor Board
to. tour province

VICTORIA, B.C.—The new pro-
vincial Labor Relations Board
will have as its first task the
gathering of suggestions frdém
both labor and management for
redrafting of the Coalition’s no-
torious Bill 39, it was reported
here this week, although opinion
around the capital is that revision
of the labor act must of neces-
sity reflect labor’s rather than
management’s views if the gov-
ernment expects the amended act
to be any more acceptable to the
trade unions than the act as
passed by the legislature last year.

Management, in general, has al-
ready made it plain to the govern-
ment that it approves of the anti-
labor features incorporated in the
act under pressure from the Can-
adian Manufacturers Association
and wants to see them retained.
Powerful groups are already
bringing new pressure on the
government to limit whatever
concessions the Coalition feels it
must make in an effort to regain
some of its lost popular support.

On the other hand, labor,
which has already forced the
government to retreat from its
“get tough” stand through one
of the most powerful compaigns
ever organized in this province,
is well aware that only main-
tenance of the popular opposi-
tion it has generated can force
the government to eliminate the
anti-labor clauses it objects to
most. _

Appointment of the Labor Re-
lations. Board will not be an-
nounced until the return of At-
torney-General and Labor Min-
ister Gordon S. Wismer from the
East this weekend. When the ap-
pointment is announced the board

jis expected to make a tobr of

the main industrial centers of the
province to receive submissions

from labor and management on
Bill 39. :

‘HIGHEST PRICES PAID for
DIAMONDS, OLD GOLD
Other Valuable Jewellery

STAR LOAN CO. Ltd.

EST. 1905
719 Robson St. — MAr. 2622

_ FRAY, JANUARY 9, 1948 —
Regs,

| mented

Soviet documentary returns

This picture is a reminder of fascist bestiality as recorded
in The Nuremberg Trials, Soviet documentary film which will
return to the State Theater here for a three-day run starting

Sunday midnight, January 11.

New pamphlet gives facts on

wages, living

costs, profits

The Case of the Dwindling Dollar, a hard-hitting new
pamphlet dealing with living costs and profits, will be off the

press this month.

This pamphlet was recently described by Jack Scott, in

his widely read column in the
Vancouver Sun, “Our Town,” as
the “brain child of two gents
named Emil Bjarnason and Bert
Marcuse who in their brighter
moments operate the Trade Union
Research Bureau, an outfit that
serves more than 50 unions in
these parts and is known, with
tiny shudders, to quite a few large
corporations.”

Scott goes on to say that “it
sets out to explain what has
happened to the once-honest dollar
we miserable little wage-earners
used to know.”

In’ simple yet carefully docu-
fashion the pamphlet
gives the reader weapon-facts on
the cost of living, wages, and
prices under such headings as
‘Is the Cost of Living Index
Phoney?”, “How Living Standards
are Destroyed,’ “Wanna’ Buy a
House?”’, “The Effect of Wages
on Prices,” “Let Them Hat Cake,”
“How is Canada’s National In-
come Divided,” “Behind the Smoke
Screen,” “Where Wealth Accumu-
lates.”

Here are statistics brought down
to earth through the forthright
presentation of facts, simple charts
and hard-hitting cartoons. The
pamphlet is a must not only for
the student of economic trends,
and the union leader, but also it
is a book in which the rank and
file union member will find the

facts with which to back his
arguments.
While some sections of the

pamphlet deal specifically with
conditions in B.C., the reader out-
side this province will find the
contents equally applicable to
Canada generally.

The pamphlet will be available
through unions and newstands.
The retail price is 385 cents a
copy. Discounts are allowed for
quantity purchases. i

To place an order, or for fur-
ther information, contact the
Trade Union Research Bureau,

1412-18 Dominion Bank Building,

Vancouver, B.C.

Hits corruption
of Chiang regime

A report on “the corruption
reigning among some of the gov-
ernment people and high ranking
army officers’ was given last
Sunday by Rev. Donald K. Faris
when he spoke at St. John’s
United Church Forum.

Speaking from his own experi-
ence aS a missionary in China,
Faris said that .officials of the
Chiang Kai-shek government mis-
used even UNRRA _ supplies,

adopting a non-cooperative and

hostile attitude, “and instead of
the equal distribution of supplies
to each zone, the Nationalist zone
sometimes got 98 percent.”

Commenting on shipment of Ca-

nadian arms to Kuomintang
China, Faris asserted that “arms
going to Chinese Nationalist

troops are very often falling into
the hands of their adveysaries,
whose main object is annihilat-
ing entire Nationalist divisions,
isolated by carefully planned guer-
illa warfare, and especially aimed
at obtaining arms.

SSI

FIED

SS LAO AOA

A charge of 50 cents for each
insertion of five lines or less with
10 cents for each additional line
is made for notices appearing in
this column. No notices will be
accepted later than Monday noon
of the week of publication.

NOTICES

a Oldtime Dancing
To Alf Carlson’s Orchestra
Every Wednesday and Saturday
Hastings Auditorium
828 East Hastings
Phone HAstings 1248
Moderate Rental Rates ‘
For socials, weddings, meetings

ASH BROS. CARTAGE
516 West Seventh Ave.
General Cartage
FA. 0242 FA. 0469
Meetings— es
Swedish-Finnish Workers. Club

meets last Friday of every month
at 7.30 p.m, in Clinton Hall.

Croatian Hall _
Available for Dances, Socials,
Weddings, Banquets, Meetings,

Reasonable rates, 600 Camp-
bell Avenue. HAstings 0087.

0.K, Antonuck—

Method approved by M.D. sci-
ence. Satisfaction guaranteed.°
‘Hair must grow from extra
scalp food, not from bone or
wood. Seek my aid, 671 Smythe
St. Vancouver, B.C. res

Dance, Clinton Hall—
2605 East Pender. Dance every

Saturday night. Modern and
Old-Time. Viking’s

Hall is available for
HAstings 3277. Sn

WHAT'S DOING

rent,

Anrrouncing—
The Film and Forum, every
Sunday, 8 pm., West End Hall,
1332 Davie St. Everybody wel-
come. Silver: Collection.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 6

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