Profiteering in
housing scored

Not increased labor costs but
rampant profiteering by some
contractors and real estate oper-
ators is responsible for the con-
tinuing rise in building costs
which is removing any possibil-
ity of building or buying their
own houses from would-be home
owners in the low and middle
groups, in the opinion of H. W.
Watts, secretary of the AFL
Building Trades Council here.

Watts charged that some con-
tractors who had formerly been
satisfied to clear $500 to $600 a
unit. now éxpected anywhere from
$1,000 to $2,000 a unit.

Assuming that building trades
workers reached agreement on a
wage increase of 15 cents an
hour, he said, this “would not add
more than a couple of hundred
dollars to the price of a house.

Workers, he pointed out, need-
ed the wage increase to meet the
10 percent rise in living costs
since their last wage increase.

“We have lots of contractors
who are putting up houses for
$4500. It is not always the con-
tractors who put prices up. Some
real estate operators who finance
. housing are demanding big prof-
. its,” he stated. i

’ “We know of several instances
where building permits were
taken at the City Hall to build
houses for an estimated $3250
which sold for $5250. :

Witness tells commission

BCElectric gas

case “false”

Asserting that if the BCElectric application for higher
gas rates were allowed the increase to consumers in his cate-
gory would be 44 percent rather than the 10.6 percent claimed
by the company in newspaper advertisements, Robert J.
Davidson, accountant, 2911 West 35th Avenue, moved for
dismissal of the application on the ground that the submis-
sion had been falsified when he appeared before Public

Utilities Commission hearings

Alternatively, he suggested that
the application be deferred until
the commission had completed its
current survey of rates or that
the hearings be adjourned for 90
days to give citizens more time
to present their objections.

Davidson told the commission
that his house never had a temp-

: Gas

Against the BCElectric estimate
of a 15.8 percent drop in 1948, 30
percent in 1949 and 38 percent in
1950, he placed the actual decline
during the worst years of the last
depression when industrial gas
consumption dropped 2, 3 and. 11
percent and then increased again.

Frederick Alty, business agent
for the Gas Workers Union (AFL)
claimed that the BCElectric would
not be able to grant the union’s
demands for a wage increase un-
less its application for a _ price
increase were allowed.

His statement was disputed by
John Stanton, who asserted that
the company “is in a better posi-
tion now than in any past period

to pay the men increases.”

Suikday, August 31st

' Boys’ Swimming
: ..50 yds., 16 yrs. and under

‘Girls’ Swimming ©
“+, 50 yds.; 16 yrs. and under

\ Men's' Five Paddle Canoe Race

a a EN RR ae % mile
Ladies’ Five Paddle Canoe
| TN TMS Se Oe % mile
Men's Two Paddle Hurdle Race
Cass wean ce ..+... 300 yds.

‘Ladies’ 2 Paddle Race ..300 yds.
Men's upset Canoe Race, yds. 300
Log Rolling
“Men's ‘Diving Race
' Fishing Boat Race

haeerees 110 h.p.‘and under

PROGRAMME OF EVENTS
ga PAUL BUNYAN (Labor Day) SPORTS

' Sponsored. by the Alberni District Joint Labor Council
'. Sunday, August 3lst and Monday, September 1st, 1947

Monday, September Ist
Hand Bucking — Long Splice
* Bye Splitting — Chopping
Fitting-Edger Saw
Change 78-Chain Link
Lumber Piling
Tally Lumber
Bundling Lumber

Packing Shingles

Ladies’ Nail Driving

Men’s Nail Driving
Boys’ and Girls’ Sports

Ladies’ and Men’s Sports

' "(Two Miles)
Binyole Race... (Open) { Five Mile Foot Race (Open)
Tug-O’-Woar
‘LOG BURLING _ - TREE CLIMBING |
WESTERN CANADIAN WORLD'S
CHAMPIONSHIP CHAMPIONSHIP
B.C. LUMBER WORKER DAYTON 64
CHALLENGE CUP LOGGERS’ CHALLENGE CUP

POWER SAW BUCKING CONTEST
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
PACIFIC TRIBUNE CHALLENGE CUP

GIGANTIC PARADE — HUGE DANCE |

PAUL AND HIS BLUE OX

PORT ALBERNI, B.C,

here.

erature higher than 55 degrees in
winter months because of the
poor service given by his gas fur-
nace and he attributed a severe
case of pneumonia contracted by
his infant daughter to: the cold
house.

A similar case was made out by
Norman A. McLean, Unemploy-
ment Insurance Commission in-
spector, who appeared before the
commission as an inrerested con-
sumer.

McLean contended that his bills
would be 40.55 percent higher if
the increase were allowed and
not 10.6 percent, as the company
claimed.

He reported that during the
past two winters he had suf-
fered considerable discomfort
from lack of gas pressure in
his model gas home built by
the BCElectric.

Bruce Robertson, general so-
licitor for the BCElectric, did not
attempt to question the testimony
of either of these two witnesses.

Appearing on behalf of house-
wives, Mrs. Effie Jones opposed
the increase on the ground that
the company had shown an over-
all profit in excess of $5 million
last year. :

“We are bombarded daily
through the press and radio
with BCElectric propaganda
about improved services,” she
declared. “Now the company’
wants to saddle us with the
burden of paying for its tre-
mendous expenditures.”

Mrs. Jones claimed that the
commission had not given citizens
sufficient notice of its hearings
and further, that the commission
was sitting at a time when many

“persons who might want to par-

ticipate were on vacation.

False information
spread on wheat

LONDON—Selfish economic and
political interests in America are
responsible for the world short-
age of bread, the Russian period-
ical New Times charges.

It declares that “various firms
and official organizations” are
concerned in spreading misinfor-
mation on the subject of world
grain supplies.

“It is natural that the more
limited the export of wheat the
sharper is the political weapon
of ‘food aid,’ which is the official!
name for selling surplus grain at
fabulously .high prices.”

Ss ae
Value
~ Quality
Always at the Home
of UNION MADE

CLOTHING — and
Friendly Service

Established For
Over 40 Years

rHE Hus

FRIDAY, AUGUST 15, 1947

“We've been in Florida, Bermuda, California, and—oh yes;
British Columbia my love. Where shall we continue our vacation?

Yugoslavs in city denounce
charges as ‘pure invention’

Claims made by Peter Stankovic, editor of the Croatian
Voice, Winnipeg, that “at least fifty” of the several hundred
Canadian Yugoslavs who have returned to their homelan
during recent months have been jailed by the Yugoslav g°V"
ernment on sabotage and other charges, were described by

Nick, Kopatic here this week as
“pure propaganda inventions in-
tended to confuse the Canadian
people and create a false picture
of what is happening in Yugo-
slavia.”

Stankovic, who is _ identified
with pro-fascist groups opposed
to the Tito government, related
a wild story to Winnipeg news-
papermen, subsequently spread
across the country by the Cana-
dian Press, of Yugoslavs return-
ing from Canada being forced to
turn over their dollar funds. to
the government in return for
government bonds instead of re-
ceiving the equivalent in dinars.
At least fifty in tne Canadian
groups, he asserted, had been
jailed for sabotage refusing to
work or otherwise failing to carry
out harsh government orders.

“It’s all nonsense,’ Nick Ko-
patic, secretary of the Vancou-
ver Branch of the Council of
South Slavs, told a Pacific Trib-
une reporter this week.

“IT have a letter here from one
of the men who left with the
first group from Vancouver on
May . 30,” he said, and producing
the letter, he read:

“We are here safe and free,
we have our money and we are
not forced to work, although
there are many jobs, enough for
everyone; and if you are not
capable of a hard job you look
for something you can do.”

The letter, signed by Martin
Ruzic, a former member of the
United Fishermen and _ Allied
Workers’ Union here, continued:

“I have heard that the Ustachi
(the quisling organization con-

trolled by Anton Pavelich, Croa-
tian premier during the Nazi oc-
cupation) and the followers of
Macek (leader of the anti-govern-
ment group in the National Peas-
ant Party) had.a lot to say after
our departure that the boat had
been sunk, that many of the peo-
ple were imprisoned, that we were
unable to get our money and that
we were forced to work.’

Kopatic commented: “When
you know what Stankovic and
those who work with him rep-
resent you know what kind of
‘propaganda to expect from them.
But most Caradians know little
about them, and that’s just what
they bank on when they spread
these stories. Any newspaper
interested in publishing the truth
would verify the stories first.”

‘

A third group of 94 Yugoslavs
from this province left Vancou-
ver on August 4 for Montreal,
where they will board the ss
Radnik for the Yugostav free port
of Rijeka, formerly Fiume. There
they will join the growing num
ber of Yugoslavs who have le
Canada in recent months to ay
part in the tremendous work °
rebuilding their native land.

A group of 15 teen-age boys and

girls in the group leaving Va —

couver was headed by Nick KO ©

patic, Jr., who intends to re
tinue at the University of aes

the studies he began at the
versity of Bfitish Columbia 1ast
year. Katie Pavelick, his sit
friend. will return to Yugoslavie
with another group which
scheduléd to leave this city i?
October.

Majority in the group leaving
last week were miners, logge?
fishermen and their families.

eee

IWA

ment, which gave woodworkers ae

12% cents an hour wage incre
and other concessions, came. 0™
after the union had conducted 9 —
strike vote among its members @
the Kamloops, Kelowna and othet
areas.

Following this agreement, Rug
dock went to Cranbrook
there signed a_ separate agree”
ment with IWA Local 1-405 si”
ing the 12%-cent increase to 108°
gers and millworkers in the area
but excluding the one box or
tory and the one sash and 40°
plant. ; :

IWA district officers
that this is a deliberate 5
tion of the interim agreeme
which applied to all Interi
woodworkers. Ruddock’s peer ay
as seen by them, is to es ;

a division between loggers oy
millworkers and workers in ures

factories and to utilize the th
to organizational unity pose
AFL organizing attempts to fort,
a wage increase below 12% ce?”
on box factory workers. :

of the Cranbrook box
from the local agreement fi
this design, since box

constitute 90 percent of all
working operations in the
lowna ’ area. ;

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PA E