It pays to advertise ¢ en ‘poor’ monopolists are down on their uppers. Every time any group of workers, through the medium of their unions, come forward with wage demands to keep half-way up with skyrocketing prices, the monopolists Plead blue ruin. They are all operating on “a harrow margin of profit’—almost next door to bankruptcy! But—whenever labor puts forward its reas- onable demands for higher wages, watch the high-pressure (and high-priced) advertising campaigns get under way. Quarter pages daily in scores of newspapers, running -into hun- dreds of thousands of dollars—all for the pur- pose of making labor appear unreasonable and the monopolists lily-white angels of innocence! Remember the scores of big ads of the boss loggers—they’l soon be at it again. The in- had to be met—it would be impossible to re- main in business. And of course the “reds’— they had to be smeared a lot, so on with a million-dollar campaign. With the hardrock miners moving for a wage increase of 35 cents an hour to help keep up with living costs, the operators will soon be back in the advertising game—with no complaints about cost! Our own Dal Grauer, too, put on a real advertising binge to get his fare hoist and villi- fy Street Railwaymen’s Union members, who out of sheer will power keep his junk pile run- ning. If Dal has to pay the same advertising rates as the average union does in one of Van- couver’s dailies, then he spent a good deal more money in advertising how bad the union was, and how philanthropic the BCElectric is, than he does in wage increases. And the oil barons—with the aid of the Johnson-Anscomb Coalition have hijacked three million dollars out of the pockets of British dustry would be “‘ruined” if labor’s demands E trick is as old as dur ‘way of life’ and like an old Barnum recipe for fooling a lot of the people a lot of the time, highly satis- factory. When successive capi- talist governments, regardless of old_line party labels, are faced with a barrage of popular irdig- nation for maladministration of some phase of government, they invariably set up an “investiga- _ tion” committee, a ‘royal commis- sion’ or similar body. _ The move is calculated to ap- pease public clamour on whatever the “hot” issue may be. The auth- ority of such~ ‘committees’ and commissions is generally very limited. In the main they are re- stricted to what is termed “fact- _ finding,” which later—often con- siderably later, the government in power is presumed to study in its Damoclean search for a rem- edy. ‘Royal’ commissions are sometimes empowered to make rescommendations—particularly if such a commission is studying _ the ‘ramifications of commun- ism’ in Canada. The voluminous _ ‘work of this type of a commis- sion is valuable to reactionary. politicians and leading propa- gandists of the Canadian Manu- _facturers’ Association, since it provides them with a wealth of _ red-baiting ammunition — abso- lutely free — but for which the taxpayer has to pay a’ goodly sum for the time and efforts of the ‘royal’ commissioners! There is another verv imopor- tant angle in the appointment of _ ‘investigating’ bodies, such as the present 16-member committee _ set up by Prime Minister King . and his ‘austerity’ cabinet to in- vestigate the high cost of living in Canada. Its personne] is repre- sentative of all parties in the House. This arrangement helps the government shift responsi- bility onto the shoulders of others, if by any unforeseen contingency _ the committee should find itself _ six or eight months hence, hold- ing a post-mortem on a major economic crisis, rather than _ speedily and energetically align- _ ing itself with the desires of the Canadian people for the enact- ment of measures which would mitigate the effects of crisis. Moreover, in the opinion of old- line party politicians, who believe implicitly that ‘time heals all sores,” the committee idea is also regarded as a splendid time- killer, enabling the politicians to perfect their almost perfect art of | buck-passing. e y \WE venture to say that there are few homes in Canada to- day where the spiralling cost of living has not hit, and hit hard. The living stan- dards of the ba- sic sections of the Canadian people has been, and is being sys- _tematically de- - pressed by soar- ing prices and devaluated pult thasing power. Increased, milk, bread and meat prices has al- Tom McEwen readv_ deprived countless thousands of Canadian children of the health and nu- trition standards which is their rightful heritage. With butter, bacon, eggs and other foods hov- ering around a 70 cent unit price; with fruits almost pro- hibitive to the average working class family, and _ vegetables, which science says is essential to the healthy growth and de- velopment of young bodies, pret- ty well shut out by Abbott’s ‘austerity plan,’ the ‘news’ of the Government’s plan to ‘investi- gate the high cost of living, smacks of superb Machiavellian cynicism. Unemployment is reaching crisis proportions in many Can- adian centers. Tens of thousands of young people are being de- nied the right or opportunity to work and earn a decent living, and already are dependent on charitable handouts in order to eke out a daily precarious ex- istence. Veterans of World War Two have already been relieved of Published Weekly at 650 Howe Street By THE TRIBUNE PUBLISHING COMPANY LTD. ‘ Telephones: Editorial, MA. 5857; Business, MA. 5288 - Editor a. Bybactiption Rates: Year, $2.50; 6 Months, $1.35. Printed by Union Printers Ltd. 650 Howe Street, Vancouver, B.C. | Authorized as second-class mail by the post-office department, Ottawa FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1948 By Tom McEwen the greater portion of their sav- ings and gratuities—and their opportunities for a higher edu- cation, as a result of inflation- ary prices.and soaring living costs. Countiess thousands of veterans throughout Canada are still without a home or oppor- tunity for themselves and fami- lies — without those promises which were to blossom in the brand new Canada they fought and bled for. Our aged citizens ana burned-out veterans of World War One are allowed a monthly pension which wouldn’t pay the rent of a decent pig- pen at today’s prices. The other side of the economic balance sheet shows monopoly corporate profits at an all-time high, with the big boys com- pelled to hire competent staffs skilled in the art of fake book entries and the invention of fancy terms to cover up exor- bitant profits. e sae (56) investigate the causes of the high cost of living,” says Mackenzie King, high priest of reactionary politics. The high ;cost of living is a direct result of King govern- ment policies in capitulating all down the line to the ‘private enterprisers’ of Big Business. The scrapping of price controls and food subsidies gave the green light to the profiteer plunderbund. All down the line— in food, clothing, shelter (bufid- ing), and other essentials of life, the big boys have had a Roman holiday, with all the bars down. The tidal wave of popular pro test has compelled the govern- ment to act—after a fashion— to set up a committee. The ‘evi- dence’ should not be difficult to find. Every housewife, every unemployed worker, every vet- eran, every trade unionist, should swamp this committee with evidence. Old newspapers with advertisements of food sales—with new ones for com- parison; a bill for a $35 suit it 1940 together with the bill for a similar suit in 1947 at $70.00. Give the committee a bas- ketful of evidence showing that a pair of shoes or a sweater for Junior, which cost $3.50 in 1940, now clip the purchaser $7.00 at ‘bargain’ prices! if this committee is literally buried under such a mountain of “evidence” forwarded by the people of Canada to Ottawa, there is just a chance that a new precedent may be estab- lished, viz, that a committee established by a professional gang of buckpassers may serve in some small capacity as the political gravediggers of its sponsors, Columbians, and are still on strike for three millicns more, The oil boys just couldn’t “make ends meet,” but they could blow a good many thousands of dollars in an attempt to prove te the public what good samaritans are in the oil business! And our CMA with its innumerable “front” committees, radio stooges and ghost writers, how lavish it has been in the advertising field, popularizing Bill 39. Almost every paper in B.C. gets a three-column fourteen-inch patron- age from the CMA dispensers, dll for the pro- motign of the most vicious anti-labor legisla- tion ever placed on the statute books of B.C. by a reactionary government. One $64 question might be: “Just how much of the taxpayers’ money goes into CMA advertising campaigns?” Yes, the big boys believe in the old adage that it “pays to advertise,” and despite their continucus chorus about being on the border- line of starvation, still manage to come out bigger and better with each succeeding issue. 2 ~ A iy WW: ME LL, “If only labor would realize that hard work never hurt anyone.” Looking backwards (From the files of the People’s Advocate, February 18, 1938) A NARCHY in milk distribution in Greater Vancouver has rendered. the cost prohibitive to consumers and limited consumption fluid milk. The same anarchy has cut prices to dairy farmers and brought them into daily contact with impoverishment and penury. Up to the present the dairy farmer is in a position where he has little to say about: the matter. He can sell his milk at the prevailing prices agreed upon by the monopolist dairy groups—or he can feed it to the hogs. Monopoly capital will get him either way, The city consumer on tthe other hand, the working man with a family, must get along with one quart while all health experts tell him what he already knows, that he should have four quarts. The price is out of reach of his budget, and his children must suffer. The farmer wants more for his product; something in keeping with his production costs, with a margin of profit for labor expended. The consumer wants more milk at a price he can afford to pay. Monopoly capital gouges both and reaps a fat profit, The U.S, de- partment of agriculture in an exhaustive study of milk distribution shows how it can be done. : In connection with this study designers drew up plans for a a modern plant capable of supplying an entire city with milk under a unified or municipal ownership plan. Under this plan delivery costs could be cut from the average now prevailing of 1.86 cents 2 quart to 82 cents, processing costs could be cut from 3.8 cents a quart to 1.65 cents and producers could be given 35 cents more for their milk.—From an article by Tom McEwen, How to meet the attacks of Big Business on your living standards Support the Pacific Tribune cam- paign for $15,000. Get your shopmate or neighbor to be- — come a subscriber. Build ‘PT’ circulation in every mill, camp, mine and farm. Help reach the drive objectives in every community, given on page 11. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 4.